The story

An orb of a man looks up at the sky: A man as defined by sentient being and an orb merely because of the fact that his is comprised of an eyeball. He(1) chooses to look at the sky but not by choice. He occupies a wormhole in the ground (not the celestial kind, although to him it would not particularly matter). How he got to preside at this location, he does not know. At the moment of his first consciousness(2) he was just there. His domicile, the former habitat of a rather large earthworm that he presumed had departed for he had not ever seen it, was an elaborate network of underground tunnels, although the word tunnel perhaps gives the wrong mental image. These tunnels were not much more than the loosened loam that worked its way through the interior length of the worm as it crawled. That was enough for our globular protagonist to push his way through the softened earth and carve out a dwelling for himself.

How we come to find our eyeball looking up at the sky is a tragic story. Being underground, the eyeball did not realize his true aptitude. He would roll his round body through the tunnels of gritty soil, his viscous tendencies not particularly suited for subterranean living, having to stop and sit every couple of hours to wait until he secreted enough tears to shed the layer of grime that would cake to his body. Of course, being underground he had never seen. The dense mass of the earth prevented any photon of light from ever entering his prismatic being. However, being ignorant of the situation, he lead a pointlessly content life exploring the infinite network left behind by the anonymous worm until one fateful day. Although, perhaps it was two fateful days that I refer to. The first fateful day we know little about. It was the day the worm decided to leave the confines of the subterranean landscape. Reasons unknown, the worm dug itself up and straight out of the ground. Who knows if this action was under treacherous terms and foul play or whether the personality of the worm included a streak of spontaneity. All we know is that one day the worm left. The next fateful day was months, maybe years later when our rolling organ, lead by echos of the forlorned worm, followed the same path to the surface but before he could popped straight out of the ground, he hit a rock wedging him against the side of the tunnel. This was not an uncommon occurrence. In fact, this happened quite often so he thought nothing of it. But, this was not a common occurance. He was so near the surface of the ground that he in fact broke through but it was his rear end that was sticking out into the clear un-"soiled" air. Not having visual senses on the back side he did not realize and worked at getting free and backing back down the tunnel. It took some effort but he unbounded himself and rolled away from the rock. When he got a half turn down the way he came, a peculiar thing happened. He saw a streak of light through the hole he created with his butt down the tunnel, through his cornea, past his iris and into his consciousness. This might not be that peculiar to us who see obsesively but for this eyeball, it was the realization of why he existed... to see. Of course being down the tunnel away from the source of the light, he could only see the the edges of the tunnel itself. He needed to get closer but if he rolled forward he would be butt forward again. He rolled back down the tunnel and then forward again only to be met with the same problem. He rolled back down and roll to the right down another tunnel and then back to the original tunnel up to the hole again but now his side was facing the hole. He repeatedly rolled himself down tunnel after tunnel and looping back to the source of the light until finally his cornea was pointed out the hole, slightly skewed to the left but good enough to see out into a whole new visual realm... a world where he belonged, a world where he couldn't get to. Of course, being just one eye, fixed in his location, he could not see like we do. Not with depth perception. What he saw from his vantage point was a strange world of grass, flowers and decaying buildings. But the sky! The sky was what burned in his mind. Ever changing, he thought he could stare at the sky forever. And that is what he did. Afraid that if he left back into the darkness he would never see again but trapped by the diameter of his body in relation to the tunnel opening, he remained there pinned up against the rock, knowing he belongs to the world of the visual but all he can do is peer intently.

Notes:
1. I refer to him in the masculine form throughout this writing only because if given the opportunity between man, woman or beast, this organ would much prefer to fixedly gaze at the female form with such intensity that only an eyeball with no eyelid could administer. I can only imagine that this eyeball fetishes the gentle curves of silky feminine legs for an eyeball is only an inch in stature. Of course in actuality, an eyeball has no gender.

2. We are unsure if there was a consciousness he was assimilated with at an earlier time, but it is his own consciousness that we refer to here.

Final Painting Set

Here's a couple of images from my set... I'm not sure the view I'll paint from.

Meats Meier

Compilation of the craziness that comes out of Meats Meier

Adi's post of pictures from the car wash reminded me of these interesting little insignificant moments that can inspire us. Now that the internet has provided us with the ability to find these moments without leaving the house. Here's Google streetview of inspiration...


(via Life Without Buildings)

Toys

One of Franny's blogs reminded me of this hilarious (creepy) stress relief toy called ball-of-population...

I guess life in an office cubical can drive you to some weirdness (as seen on perpetualkid.com and officeplayground.com). Also found on that website are maybe some useful toys for building sets for our class like "The paparazzi playset"...

Or "Frogmen vs. Radioactive Octopus"...

Abelardo Morell

Abelardo Morell's earlier work involved photographing books. They are pretty interesting photographs of images. He also did a series about Alice-In-Wonderland (pictured here) and room sized camera obscuras. Abelardo Morell link

Paxton Gate, SF

Speaking of dead animals... I was in San Francisco over winter break and walked into a shop called Paxton Gate (www.paxtongate.com). It was filled with exotic plants, animal skeletons and taxidermied things. They had a bunch of taxidermied mice that were posed and dressed. (Yes, that is a mouse dressed up like the pope.) Creepy fun. If your in the neighborhood, I would check it out.

This pic looks like a set but it's real.

Air Jelly

OK, speaking of floating... A company called Festo creates these robots. This one looks like a jelly fish. It is filled with helium so it is air neutral and is just controlled by it's legs that move...

jape

I love this video... JAPE "Floating"
Why? I think it has something to do with broccoli in slow-mo.

Robert Wilson

I was introduced to Robert Wilson's work from my friend who worked with him over the summer. His work continues to blow me away, especially his sets that he creates for his operas and theatrical productions. The lighting and minimalist styling is really amazing. I couldn't find any really good pic of his sets online but here's a movie trailer of a film about him.

This is just amazing lighting.

Panorama

I was looking @ Timmy's blog and saw his panoramas of providence and his studio.

It reminded me of some of the panoramas that I have on my computer. It's really a bizarre optical effect... (Click on image below).

Andrew Wyeth

Andrew Wyeth passed away on Friday. Here's one of my favorites....

Dead Clown...

Something about this image reminds me of what I was painting today for class. Disturbing...

(as seen on Getty Images)

Nicholas Evans-Cato @ the BEB

There's an exhibition of really incredible oil paintings by Nicholas Evans-Cato in the BEB Gallery right now. Worth checking out if you're around...

Lurie Garden -- Chicago

Here's a landscape project that Nora might know. The Lurie Garden in Chicago's Millennium Park designed by Kathryn Gustafson.

With George Lucas like ambition, Robert Irwin revamps his 1983 classic “9 Spaces, 9 Trees"

Here's a post from B!'s other blog... Seems appropriate for this blog as well.

Robert Irwin’s “9 Spaces, 9 Trees” rises from the dead! But, is it still the same display of the avant-garde or a soulless reproduction riding the coattails of nostalgia?

Irwin’s “9 Spaces, 9 Trees” (1983) originally installed in the plaza in front of Seattle’s Public Safety Building, was taken down in 2001 with the demolition of the building. Preservation efforts landed Irwin’s influential work on grassy patch of underutilized land within the University of Washington campus in Seattle.

A short unauthorized biography on the piece begins in the 80’s at the height of the environmental art era when artists were leaving the white walled galleries to experiment with art in the real world. Words like land-art and earthworks were being thrown around like neon NERF footballs and Maverick-Goose flipside high fives. Irwin’s exploration of site specificity in his work led him to many important works of the 1970s and 80s. “9 Spaces, 9 Trees” was claimed to be one of those site generated works by Irwin. Placed in a public plaza of Seattle’s Public Safety building, the original light blue screening contrasted the urban grey of downtown Seattle. Although an important work in the art world for its play with light and space, the piece was rumored to be unpopular by the employees and users of the plaza who interpreted the 9 spaces defined by chainlinked mesh as allegorical for the incarceration cells of the Public Safety building that it fronted. Ultimately, the plaza was sealed off from the public when the building entrance that Irwin’s piece guarded was eliminated for a controlled central entrance on the other side of the building.

Now that “9 Spaces, 9 Trees” has been nostalgically restored back into the public realm, it evokes many questions leading back to Irwin’s coined ideas of site determined art. Are we suppose to view “9 Spaces, 9 Trees” version 2.0 as the same work that briefly graced the public realm 25 years ago? Not having seen the original in person and only in the form of slides, B! was excited to experience “9 Spaces, 9 Trees” for myself. But was it wise for Irwin, who once did not allow photographic reproductions of his work since he felt photographs do not record the phenomena of his pieces, to try and recreate his acclaimed work when it, at least in my mind, achieved near mythical status because of the few images circulating and experiencing it only through folklore style verbal recounts? B! votes no. Experiencing it in its new location, there was an odd sense of insincerity… maybe it was because it was sited in an awkward space behind the undergraduate library, or maybe because the color of the scrims turn from the original pale blue to a dark purple (purple being coincidentally being the school color of the Washington Huskies). B! couldn’t help but feel that he was witnessing another George-Lucas-ing of a classic (as in meddling with his original Star Wars). Is this a genuine effort by Irwin to rework “9 Spaces” into the specificity o f its new home or just another piece of art being victim of nostalgic preservation? You can decide for yourself.

Below Three: 2007
Bottom Three: 1983

B!'s first entry

This blog was created for the Wintersession Course "Painting the Constructed World" offered at RISD. Enjoy!