Neptune Pool, Hearst Castle, San Simeon, California

Last December, I took this photograph of the drained and dirty Neptune Pool at Hearst Castle on a drizzly, cold day. It was an ideal subject for the cyanotype process because it was anything but what I remembered it and making it blue would correspond with that memory. I spent many Fridays in February creating the digital negatives and the first "draft" above. However, it was not right.

The scale was off and I wanted more of an abstraction. After some brainstorming with Brent, the above work prints were made. Ironically, I had a little help with the texture in the reflection from the Riverside Hotel in Garden City, Idaho.

Fast forward to July and the digital negatives were made and the next round of cyanotypes, as seen drying on the racks below. The new dimension is 50" x 40".

Yet a third round was created to perfect some of the inconsistencies in exposure and a mock-up was documented in the Atrium Gallery at school. I have the highest hopes of creating a glass version of this prior to Brent's and my collaborative exhibition, Treading Water, in January.

Cyanotypes with Brent

My collaboration with Brent Cole is back in full swing but first some "process images" made last month as he created a large grid of stars for his solo exhibition at Earlham College.

Clear Creek, Indiana

Clear Creek, Indiana, October 2013

While on the Ucross residency, I stumbled upon an 1893 United States Postal Guide displayed in a glass case in the waiting area of the Big Red House. I was struck by the page it was turned to featuring all the places in the US with the name "Clear." Two of them were in Indiana ("oh, the irony" was my second impression).

Over the past year and a half, Brent Cole and I have experimented with exposing cyanotypes on glass followed by firing them in the kiln. The blue is quickly transformed into various hues of brown depending on the temperature. My concept involved using the clear water samples but it wasn't until Wyoming, did I realize that there was something more.

I visited Clear Creek, Indiana last weekend, collecting a gallon of water from the surprisingly translucent stream. I plan on making artwork with the contents, extending further than photographs of the sample. The end product will, in part, comment on turning the seemingly clear water (represented as blue) into the polluted cesspool that it really is (symbolized by brown).

From the City of Bloomington website:

"Riparian habitat damage, sedimentation, excess nutrients and algae, toxic substances, and sewage-related problems contribute to severe habitat degradation in some stretches of Clear Creek. In Indiana's most recent Integrated Water Monitoring and Assessment Report, Clear Creek was in multiple locations not assessed for its ability to support certain designated uses. However, the data that is available shows that certain stretches of Clear Creek are impaired by contamination from E. coli, mercury, and PCBs. These findings are consistent with the history of Clear Creek, which has consistently been described as impaired by the presence of toxic contaminants."

Clear Lake is next on the list before winter arrives.

"Love Potion Specimen #1"

Brent Cole invited me to participate in this. I wish I had more than a weekend to work on it as the concept would be more developed. In addition, this was a challenge considering I never make artwork about this topic. The above tweet sums up the experience.

It will be exhibited, along with several other artists creations, at this exhibition next week in Indy. Here is a portion of the audio that will soon be available on the website:

For the past two years, I have collected water samples around the world in small glass vials. When thinking about the topic of love, Venice, Italy - the "city of love" - immediately sprang to mind. Incidentally, I also had a water sample from the canal, Rio d. Carmini in front of the Palazzo Zenobio that I collected on 21 July 2011.

The book is one that I have held onto since 1997. I wanted one that looked worn (= well loved) and it fit perfectly with the concept. The best part is that it is a sculpture (hooray!).

Two of my favorite artists and friends from grad school are featured in the archive: Adam Davis and Io Palmer. Check out their books here and here. 

Water as Desire

Brent Cole and I are working on an exhibition proposal focusing on our mutual interest in water. He left a book in my mailbox today and after perusing through it, three images encapsulate the feelings of desire I often associate with clear (yet often blue) liquid.

Anonymous 1965 photograph taken in Corsica of a child learning how to swim. This contraption reminds me a tiny bit of this.  I would have loved to learn to swim in the Mediterranean and how much fun would it be strapped to this?

 Swimming pool in Saint-Martin, Lesser Antilles, 1986 (no need to elaborate)

I am wishing James Turrell made more audience participatory pieces like this. It was exhibited at Le Confort Moderne Center for Contemporary Art in Poitiers, France in 1991. "It displayed the four elements and invited the visitor to dive in." I'm wondering about fire...

Cyanotypes on Glass with Brent Cole

Brent and I are figuring out the process of cyanotypes on glass. They will be fired in the glass kiln and will turn brown. This week we deduced etched glass and two coats of horrid gelatin works best. Next attempt a clear water sample!

If all goes well in the kiln, the last of the glass plates were made today

Remember the shield? It was scorched today to push out the glass and make an indentation so it looked like the 5-tier was sinking slightly (and to make it larger).


Ben and Brent had to put up with a lot of flames during this process.


So much so that Ben was also scorched (though not too badly).


The result of the indentation (can you say "50 pound weight?").


The result of the flames (Ben's burned facial hair).


The table was so hot, it had to be cooled down before the final cake plate for Little Great Lakes was poured.


I made Li and Jon's recipe for "Decadent Chocolate Cake" yesterday to celebrate. Here's what it looked like freshly frosted.



Here's what it looked like (posing on a cake plate on top of a fake cake plate) after sitting in my car for a few hours in 15 degree weather.



It was Hannah and Mike's belated birthday cake (ahem two months late) but still was edible nonetheless. Brent also shaved down some of the sharp glass pieces on four of the plates and they are sitting underneath their respective cakes in the studio. I'll post a photograph when today's three are done.

Glass Puddles AKA Cake Plates

We are almost done with the glass cake plates. Since the last visit to the glass studio, I decided to go with the clear molten pours because they replicate water best. They have many imperfections (size, amount of bubbles, etc.) just like the cakes. Seven of the nine are complete. I will go back later this week to make the final one with the "shield" constructed yesterday. Brent requested photographs to be taken of this event for the glass website and Elise kindly was up for the task. All these images were taken by Elise Rorick. THANK YOU!


Brent and JR figuring out the diameters of the plates before the pouring begins.


Organization (no surprise there) and ordering from largest to smallest.


... and so we begin.


Pressing out the bubbles and pushing the glass outward to make a larger plate.


It starts to smell like S'mores right about now.


Using the torch to get the edges right.


Hannah was recruited to push the plates onto the plywood.


I became an expert kiln door opener.


We weren't getting large enough diameters of plates so Ben, the grad student, stepped in to help pour as well. This photo shows the order of operation: Brent poured first with JR manning the kiln door followed by Ben with Hannah at the kiln door.



Ben's pour for the largest plate 18 inches in diameter (and I can't imagine how heavy it's going to be).


This one had the largest bubble which popped in an irregular shape. It might fit the "Slice" well but I'll find out later this week.


Of all the images Elise took, I love this one most. It captures the difficulty of this task. When I visited Niagara Falls this summer, many people talked about the lure of the river and their desire to jump. I did not have this experience AT ALL but I will say that a desire quite similar to that was recognized today. I just want to touch that glass. Of course I wouldn't but the temptation was great.


Smile and Wave (spoofing the genre of images to be found on the school's website).

c. 1978

It snowed/sleeted/hailed Friday (I stand corrected... Drew informed me that the correct terminology was graupel). Dreaming of swimming pools.... Since it is late fall, getting dark far too early with the time change, and bordering on winter, how about some black-and-white swimming pools? It helps imagining a combination of the previous IKB post with these images.


The only color photograph in the whole book (courtesy of Brent Cole = thank you!).




i seriously want this pool (except for the snakes undoubtedly basking in the sun on the boulders).


Nice burned in cloud of doom in the sky above.



Love how the diving board looks like a straw (and the "freeform" a bladder).


Just insert Yves Klein's Folding Screen seen in the previous post here.