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gretchen faust 2007, 2003 greengrassi
I'd been making spin paintings on the boardwalk in Ocean City, N.J. ever since the mid-1950s -- some forgotten entrepreneur, inspired by Abstract Expressionism, devised a little machine so that tourists could make themselves an automatic abstract artwork -- and somehow I'd gotten a kid's toy spin-art machine, and was making little paintings on cardboard using housepainter's enamel, which you could buy in small half-pint sizes.
I wanted to make them larger, but didn't know how to make a big spin-art machine. So my girlfriend (who I later married) went down to Canal Street and bought a fan motor and a pulley and rigged up a little spin-art machine. It sat in a wire base and had a three-foot-wide arm made of wood, with little L-angles on the ends to hold the canvases on. That was that.
At Pearl Paint, I bought three-foot-square Fredrix prepared canvases, five to a box. I would set the spin machine up on the floor of a borrowed studio, and build a kind of corral around it with scrap lumber and plastic dropcloths. This would catch the paint as it spun off. I put a on-off switch in the wire, and controlled the machine by turning it on and off.
I used One Step sign-painter's enamel, and poured it straight out of the can onto the spinning canvas. The paint is high in lead content, and gives bright colors. It was very heavy. I made the paintings so fast that I had to build a rack to dry them in, not unlike the racks that bakers have for their loaves of bread.
The idea of the spin paintings was to have a machine that would take all the subjective, arbitrary decisions out of making abstractions -- decisions that always seemed so trivial. The machine would make the artworks automatically. But in the end I subverted my own plan for subversion, and struggled to use the machine as a tool.
Instead of random abstractions, I made "target" paintings, after Kenneth Noland, and tried to make imagistic spin paintings as well, like "exploding hearts" and "volcanic eruptions." I made Op Art paintings with bright blue and red, and "composed with the entire palette" like Hans Hofmann. I made "rose window" paintings by first using oil enamels to make a multicolored image and then pouring black water-based enamel on top of it, with the resulting "resist" creating a latticework and stained-glass effect.
I had two shows of spin paintings at Metro Pictures in SoHo in 1986 and 1987 -- and no one paid any attention. No reviews and only a few sales. I got all 50 spin paintings back. I was kind of happy about that. My plan was to have a show every year, and every year make the spin paintings bigger. I did in fact make some paintings that measured 4 x 4 feet, but a little math will tell you that even though it's only a foot larger to the side, it's almost twice as much area. To make a spin painting that large takes a lot of paint, and a lot of power to spin the canvas fast enough.
Then other things began to happen, and the spin paintings went into storage. I'd spun enough canvases, at least for the time being.
This story is to be continued.
-- Walter Robinson, 4/27/05
and then theres the other guy
IN 2000, when M. J. Gladstone began thinking about the design of his weekend house, he didn’t initially focus on a floor plan, or materials, or even an architectural style, but rather a shape. “I want a 25-foot-diameter octagon,” he wrote to his architect back in 2000.
“I don’t want to give it away — it’s an asset,” Mr. Gehry said. “It’s the one thing in your life you build up, and you own it. And I’ve been spending a lot of rent to preserve it.”
Mr. Gehry, 78, is among a small but influential number of celebrity architects who are considering selling their archives — which can include tens of thousands of objects, from multiple large-scale models and reams of drawings to correspondence and other records — even as they continue to practice.
3 container stack house in altanta suburb
unstable shipping container stack
via zoller
After a flurry of renegotiations, arguments, Congressional wrist-slapping, and a lot of steam blowing, webcasting's D-Day (July 15) has passed. A low fog still hangs, and for many webcasters, the future is still up in question.
Late last week, as the new webcasting royalty fee schedule approached, outcry from webcasters, the listening public, and Congress sparked another round of negotiations with SoundExchange, the company that collects and distributes webcasting royalties. The minimum per-channel fee that threatened services like Pandora, Live365, and Rhapsody was rescinded. SoundExchange also promised not to take immediate legal action against webcasters who were still in negotiations. But in the meantime, the threat of large looming royalty payments has silenced some small webcasters.
Although NPR's request for a court-ordered stay on the new rates was denied, they have filed a formal court appeal, but hearings may not happen for another year or two. On Thursday, members of Congress introduced a bill postponing the new webcasting rates for another 60 days, but this failed to pass in time for the July 15 deadline.
So what does this mean for WFMU? While the details of SoundExchange's new webcasting rates for non-commercial stations are still unclear, WFMU will continue streaming. We hope that NPR and SoundExchange continue negotiating fair terms for public stations in the coming weeks. If that falls through, there's always the possibility of Congressional intervention (the Internet Radio Equality Act, more info at savenetradio.org), or an appeals hearing in the distant future. With luck, WFMU won't ever have to place a cap on our online audience.
More than 10,600 of the hefty gray bicycles became available for modest rental prices on Sunday at 750 self-service docking stations that provide access in eight languages. The number is to grow to 20,600 by the end of the year.
The program, Vélib (for “vélo,” bicycle, and “liberté,” freedom), is the latest in a string of European efforts to reduce the number of cars in city centers and give people incentives to choose more eco-friendly modes of transport.
“This is about revolutionizing urban culture,” said Pierre Aidenbaum, mayor of Paris’s trendy third district, which opened 15 docking stations on Sunday. “For a long time cars were associated with freedom of movement and flexibility. What we want to show people is that in many ways bicycles fulfill this role much more today.”
setting the pool in place
ellenville ny (woodstock area) bungalos
boneyard
oak barrels
wood tank forum
timber tanks
spa dome
1959 lancia flaminia touring gt coupe
go fast (site down)
The last ounce of hope for preventing new webcasting royalty rates from crippling internet radio on July 15 has been dashed by the U.S. Court of Appeals. NPR's request for a stay on the new rates was just denied.
This means that many webcasters, small and large, will go out of business, and non-commercial webcasters like WFMU may have to cap online listenership. The situation is dire, and it seems as though our only hope is to convince Congress to pass the Internet Radio Equality Act (even if they pass it after July 15). If you haven't already, please contact your Senators and Representatives. Visit savenetradio.org for more info.
lawn chairs are everywhere
via zoller
full cleveland
Tourists come here from all over the world to see the shop," says Ryan Titilah, shop manager. "It's like they're walking into the Sistine Chapel. It's the Sistine Chapel of skateboarding."
For much of the 1970s, the store was known as the Zephyr Surf Shop. The 2002 documentary "Dogtown and Z-boys" chronicled the achievements of a rag-tag group of teenagers who collected at the shop when the surfing was bad and went on to reinvent the sport of skateboarding as members of the Zephyr team, or Z-boys.
"[Our families] really didn't care where we went. Where we ended up was this building," says former Z-boy Paul Hoffman. "This was our home. This was where we hung out. Skip Engblom and Jeff Ho were our dads."
Shop owners Ho, Engblom, and Craig Stycek gave the boys odd jobs and helped them build skateboards. New polyurethane wheels allowed the boys to adapt their surfing moves to the cement, and the partners encouraged them to practice and to invent new moves. In 1975 they sponsored a team of 11 boys and one girl to compete in the Del Mar Nationals, where the Z-boys blew away the competition with their aggressive surf-skate style.
In May, the Santa Monica Landmarks Commission officially landmarked the portion of the 1922 building that houses the surf shop based on its cultural, rather than architectural, significance. The commission first reviewed the building in October after the owner filed for a demolition permit as part of a plan to build a "green" 14-unit apartment building with underground parking and retail space.
rip ladybird johnson