Orbit

Just completed last night. The shell of half a sphere, made of Mohair fibers, 42cm diameter.

Dancing up and down, between ceiling and floor - strung, crocheted and sewn with nylon thread.

And it's full moon today.

PS: Orbit is now part of a private collection.

Working

My 'work bench'. Drilling holes into acrylic glass with a drill thankfully borrowed from neighbours upstairs.

Most things take a little longer than expected... Finding material is a task on its own, but very rewarding. I came across Modulor and was happy to cycle 8km back and forth, twice. Three storeys packed with an enormous range of materials. It was hard to get me out of there.

I'm working on various items simultaneously. Things that I've done before happen in different ways. Using other materials changes the outcome. And, Marion's facilities provoke different procedures.

Sketches

1. co-ordinates

2. static

3. spiraling

Patterns of dots in a circle - with a sphere in mind. The co-ordinates (from H to B, see post 30 April) may have left their traces in these drawings.

4. sunflower seeds
[Source of image]

The first sketch 'Co-ordinates' merged into a drawing based on circles which is more static (2.). This turned into a spiraling (3.) version.

The resulting design recalls the pattern found in fir cones and sunflowers (4.).

The aim is again to transform from second into the third dimension...

Walking

Finds during the first few days, all within about 15 minutes walk from my current dwelling:

West:

Having said that there isn't much green near my doorstep I 'found' this piece of landscape not far from my current home:
Ploetzensee, a lake fed by groundwater in the middle of a huge green park, or rather three large parks.


South:

Lady with a hat peers over the trees into a street further south from here.




East:

Galerie Max Hetzler resides high up on the forth floor of the 'Osramhoefe'. A huge space entirely lit by daylight.
Work by Tony Ziegler.

Some more pics here.

From H to B

It looked like an installation, the studio in Hull, before I left for Berlin two days ago; everything packed up to one large central block, ready for doing up the space.

Sunday night I arrived here, in the place that I'll occupy for the next four weeks. It is about 13° further east, a journey of roughly 1000km by air, without counting the detour to the airport.

I'm still settling down. The deal is the welcoming charm of this steadily changing and lively city, Berlin, in exchange for the light and green ambience of Hull.

No garden here. I'm living near the pavement, separated from passer-byes, a children's playground and a residential street (leading to a major traffic artery) only by huge shop windows - plus shutters at night. Yet, all I noticed so far is that I feel comfortable.

I took with me a few things to work on. Not sure, but curious, what I will do, since whatever I'll be making, will happen in a different manner; simply because the two cities, H and B, feature such different climes.

Another tree

It looks like finally spring has sprung. The small Japanese cherry tree in the garden is now in its pink-white outfit. The buds have been on stand-by during weeks and weeks of cold weather.

I sniffed a first whiff of mild air in Berlin a week ago. To prepare a month of living and working in the studio of a friend I stayed there a few days. I'll occupy Marion's studio in May while she is abroad.


Here I had set up the loom to make some 3-d prints using the usual silk- and some polyester-thread which looked perfectly fine. Yet, surprise, surprise ... the 'poly'threads behaved like Velcro, very fine fibrils jamming and clogging together! :-//

I look forward to unjamming the threads in June, with a fresh mind and possibly warmer weather.

A snapshot

... of a page in my notebook. Another cyanotype trial

Deforestation - reforestation...

A couple of days ago I had a go at tidying up the computer. Then on Good Friday, confident that only rubbish was in the trash I pressed this sweet delete button to empty it. I remember the crunchy sound of the process - it took a short moment...

Next thing, I felt a strange mixture of bliss and amazement... The whole iPhoto library magically had disappeared into nothingness! And with it hundreds of tree pics that I've taken over the last couple of weeks, intrigued by the drawings of the bare branches and their signatures in the sky.

Luckily dear Stefan found a program that allows to recover 1GB of images on a mac for free. So I spent Easter Monday browsing through about 37'000 deleted pics (many of them trash) to find the ones I wanted to restore. The images below are about 10% of the now purged tree library.

Thank you, Stefan :-))

Veggies

A while ago I captured this pair in the kitchen while cooking - and wasn't quite sure whether this is rather for the eye or for eating.

But in the end just these pics survived...

Papilla

Capillary and Papilla @

Monomania / Cupola Gallery / Sheffield

In 19th century psychiatry, monomania (from Greek monos, one, and mania, mania) was a form of partial insanity conceived as single pathological preoccupation in an otherwise sound mind.

Opening Evening: Friday 15 March 7.30pm onwards
Exhibition from 15 March to 24 April 2013

Capillary

    Studio pics of the completed piece



Click here to see a glimpse of the installation process in the gallery (details below) - some look like ready for a nice warm bath...  

Papilla and Capillary, the anatomical couple, will be shown in Monomania, at Cupola Gallery in Sheffield, 15 March to 24 April 2013.

More threads yet another piece, Capillary, in the making:



Bundled Mohair (left) and Nylon thread tied from below (right) - a bit like book-binding.