Breathing Building

This is the first writing about my work for the web-site, I write about the Breathing Building first because it is a project I have been working on in one form or another for a little over two years, it is the art I have lived with the most for that period, and for that time it has meant the most to me personally, and so has been the cause of the most excitement and most disappointment.

I'll begin for those interested in the artistic process at the origin of the idea, for those not interested skip to the next paragraph. I must confess the idea has ruminations in the caldron of my psyche occupied with the collected sum of meditations on, and experience making animations. Animation was an occupation I held for a brief time shortly after undergrad. As a sculptor I had no connection to computer art, in it's early years there were available to artists only primitive photo programs more suited to photographers and graphic designers, not much for sculptor's, I had heard about a software package being used by the auto industry that realistically rendered a computer model driving down a road, but that was a $100,000 software package far out of my reach. Years later I was introduced to 3d studio, it was a 3d model and animation software package that ran on a windows NT machine, that's how I got started with computer animation. I discovered that years of watching Saturday morning cartoons provided me with the visual language animation communicates with, it also provided me with a clear line between reality and fantasy, and the important lesson that anything is possible in a cartoon, the most glaring example is animals for the most part aside from talking and walking upright seem to be more advanced life forms than humans, the laws of physics are more like guidelines, and in-animate objects can be animated with all the characteristics of people.

T-Gallery

A flyer is passed around the class, and left in our studios. One is posted on the bulletin board. One taped to the freight elevator door. "Submissions are being acceptted for exhibitions to be held at the new T-Gallery". Located in the hall of the MFA eighth floor studios at School of Visual Arts. The gallery is a shelf placed on the window ledge between the studios of Artists,Vivian Massry, and Saskia Jordá, it is their brain child, "born during casual conversation, and while having tea over the shelf that was being used temporarily as a support for our teacups One artist, get's to exhibit their work for one week. Saskia and Vivian hung the shelf passed out the flyer's and made an announcement. The shelf sat empty for a week, then two passed, the concept of the T-Gallery didn't quite catch on, there were no submissions. One night I was in the studios making preparations for the installation of "The Temporal Restore". I had taken the paint rolls out of the box where I had stored them after disassembling Studio Paint Rolls. I saw the empty shelf and thought I would see how the paint rolls would look displayed on it, I experimented with several arrangements until I was satisfied that the rolls made the most of the shelf, and the shelf complimented the rolls. I left for the night not knowing whether Vivian and Saskia would be happy with the gesture or angry that I didn't make a proper proposal.

The next day when I saw, I don't remember which oneof them or if it were both, but there was a warm reception at the installation and a cheerful thanks. We had an opening one afternoon and it was a hit, there were plenty of requests to exhibit at the T-Gallery to keep it running through the Fall and Spring semesters of the school year.
The School of Visual Arts Galleries accepted a proposal for a retrospective of the twenty participating T-Gallery Artists + 1 to be held during the Summer at their Westside Gallery. Vivian set up a website for the retrospective as an archive of the T-Gallery alumni and their exhibitions it is a quite electronic record that for twenty weeks, twenty artist were given an invitation to
"experiment with new ideas on a small scale without the academic or formal gallery setting pressure." Those twenty Artist of which I hold the honor of being the first, lent their Art and gave their all, each making their own statement, some small, some pushing the ever expanding boundary of the space around the shelf. all unique.
What has become of the shelf that lent itself to us so that we could expression or Art?
For the retrospective in the westside gallery I paid tribute to the shelf and built it a replica of the window. There it hung for the duration of the retrospective once again graciously providing a forum where I could display rolls of paint. After the exhibition I removed my Art disassembled the window and it was adopted by a classmate in Bed Stuy, there I reassembled the window and attached the T-Gallery shelf, there it resides to this day.

I want to Thank Saskia and Vivian for providing an opportunity for us all to use our Art to participate in something which made us feel like community.
also for providing some of the images for the use on this website

Floor Rolls and Trails

Peel back time. To peek below at what has come before. Through the process of investigation reveal evidence of time by layers. Organized, rolled upon itself a growing spiral proceeds. At the center a point of investigation moving forward through time building upon itself with what has passed. New growth overlaps at points along repeated cycles, deepening experience upon the order of what had preceded. Proceeding outward the essence remains constant.

Floors are walked upon, dripped on, painted over. From single boards, to a uniform surface. Layer upon layer of time. Marks made, covered, points in history revealed. Removed and set aside what Robert Smithson refers to as “A Discreet Stage”, now recovered, unraveled, investigated, considered momentarily, contemplated, now ready to be unrolled, the present moment restored.

[Aged objects acquire traces of their journey through time. Unpredictable marks and stains are left like finger prints . Through use utility is deteriorated as parts are worn and softened. Decay re-shapes, even when an attempt is made to restore or preserve, as with layers of paint the color and form is altered. Time fades the original object, time authors a new one, it digresses closer to the organic, nearer the original state of the natural materials. In this way all things are fluid]