something new

Over the past year I have done a few tile jobs for customers. These have just been standard tile work on floors or walls. I enjoy it but always wanted to do more absract work. So I have taken some of the leftover tiles and broken them up and added some other tile people have given me over the years and made a table top. This was really fun, but the next time I do this I need to make sure all the tile is the same thickness. There are a few places on here where if you sit a glass down it might be leaning a bit. I don't think it would fall over. Oh well always looking for new creative adventures. Let me know if you need a table top. Click on the photo for a little larger view.

Check out this wonderful website of an artist I met a while back when she needed some circles cut in plywood. She makes pictures in tile. They are amazing.
 Carol Shelkin Mosaics

Jeff grouting

New Obsession

My new obsession are these four panel graphics. I have been doing them for some time now, but I continue to enjoy making them. I started in this case with paint out in the garage. Then I photographed the painting like I explained in my last post and enhanced the images digitally. I like this pin wheel effect cause it creates a sense of motion as well as allows the abstract image to be viewed from four different perspectives. If you are looking for meaning here your guess is as good as mine. These are explorations in emotion, there is nothing here to be known only felt. I will surly make more.

Jeff Stuck

more paint works, I mean plays

Well I am back in the garage using up paint. I have lots of paint left over from all kinds of projects and from time to time I try and use some up. I paint fast just getting into the flow of the brush and  the mixing of colors. I then photograph the   paint I have put on to scraps of wood and play with them in the computer. I can change colors, cut up the photos and rearrange them any way I want. I love the digital world.

 Send me your old paint.
Jeff with paint in his hair

moment #9

A few things I have seen this fall.

Where Have I Been?

Yes It has been a long time since I posted and here is why. Ever since I returned from vacation (back in August) I have been working nonstop on The dinosaur exhibit at the Garden State Discovery Museum in Cherry Hill New Jersey, "The Dinosaurium". I had a great time working with the in house exhibits team to bring this place to life. Now that it's over I might be able to find time and energy to get back to blogging. Check out the photos That range from April to September.


Here I am back in April cutting out ribs for the Tyrannosaurus Rex.This is three sheet of 3/4 inch plywood glue together to give us child safe bones. That makes for hot saws.

 
These three little boxes allow the visitors to roar into the pipes and and have there voice transformed into a dinosaur sounding voice. It's just a guess  who knows what they really sounded like.

 Here I am placing the activities inside the Paleontologist dig site tent.











Here I am crawling through the belly of the beast. Well okay I'm just cleaning up the deck

Here is the climbing structure on opening night, The adults eating and drinking will not be apart of the normal activity.


 Here are two links to a news article about the opening.
http://www.nj.com/gloucester-county/towns/index.ssf/2011/09/dinosaurium_opening_at_garden.html 

http://www.phillyburbs.com/news/local/burlington_county_times_news/discovery-museum-to-open-dinosaurium/article_7d379e49-185b-5fc0-91c1-4692426d39df.html 

 Jeff "I'm not a real paleontologist but I play one on the internet"

notion #15

Dance is not about movement.

It's about putting together a whole bunch of stillness

and then showing it or watching it

all at once.

Image Title: "Lift off"

Jeff - not sure why I was thinking about this. oh well?

moment #8

"Soul Lift"

I love this Song and Video. It has nothing to do with the picture and then everything, to do with any picture. Check it out on Youtube. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DXr3CCQPxJY

The making of a tail

Still working on the Dinosaur at the Discovery Museum. Now the Dinosaur needed a tail, but the tail needed to bend around the slide. In the first picture I built a form and glued together 4 pieces of flexible 3/8" ply-wood. Clamped it and let it dry.

Once the bend was set I was able to cut out the vertebrae and spine element's. Then in order to give the tail some dimention I cut out and attached individual vertebrae pieces.

The tail will now be painted and hung in the next few days. I'll post pic's in the next few weeks. Follow the link below to see the latest pictures.  

http://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.226011260760911.70249.150455301649841&l=df47743a3e

Jeff at the tail end

Using up paint



Beyond the Stand



Fragment 31



he always shows up



I have spent sometime out in the garage using up my paint. These are a few fragments of larger works (close-up shots).

Jeff painting

What's With Green?




What's With Green?

 

I take time now and then, no I steal it or scrap it together to do something I want to do. You see I see things in my head; shapes, lines, color, forms, figures, etc. and I draw them into my books. When I have a moment or feel the need I try and make some of these things real. Here is one of those shapes. The original drawing was just the shape, the color, painting and drawing was added after the shape was cut out of 1/2" wood. Now these are explorations. That's my way of saying I am not yet sure what the meaning of this work is. I just see it as play. I just keep adding what ever I feel. This peice is about 18 inches tall. Below are two close-ups.



A language I've been drawing for years.
I do not know what it means, but
 I feel what it means.










Creatures from the subconscious

 





 














Jeff making stuff

Still Streaming

More time in the woods this past weekend. I love this stream at Locust Lake State Park here in PA. Some how placing still images over video seems fitting. I mean that's real life. We flow along capturing moments and only holding onto a fraction of those moments. Enough, here's the video.

"Still Streaming"

I dig motion

Oh, and I loath motion

It carries me along

until I get snagged on a stick

I love it when I'm flowing on top

The tumbling over and over under the current

just makes me sick.

I really dig motion

and yes I hate it

It brings me to new places

and it wears away at my banks

I am caught up I have direction

and in the same moment I am not in control

motion is

it is

what it is

--------------------------------------------

This is just what I think about when I watch the video or it's what came to me this time any way. Next time who knows?

Jeff all wet.

Building Dinosaurs Our Way

                     Up under the skeleton of plywood

Every now and then I get to do a project that is outside the box. In other words I am not building a cabinet for someone, I'm building a dinosaur skeleton. Working with Mark Orleans, Exhibit Manager of the Garden State Discovery Museum, I am assisting in building a life size Tyrannosaurs Rex skeleton. We are not creating and exact scientific replica just and artistic representation. I find that in this process to much thought about what we are doing tends to slow us down. This is because thought always calls for precision or exactness where as just going with feeling requires leaps of faith. In other words just give it a try, draw the pelvis bone the way it looks, cut it out, hold it up to the rest of the skeleton and if it looks right you got it, if not try it another way. Now you could argue that if we just made a plan and did all the calculating ahead of time we could save ourselve all that trial and error, but that would requier Mark and I to be different people. You see both of us are tactile hands-on types. We do a quick sketch and start to build. It's just the way we are wired. I am not saying any way is better than the other. I am just saying this is how it works for me. So if you need to plan, do it and if you just want to dive in go for it. Just make sure it's your way or you'll drive yourself nuts.
Jeff Jumping in

To see more picturs of our work follow this Link

http://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.215938435101527.66130.150455301649841&l=aa62dcab13

Here is a link for the museum http://www.discoverymuseum.com/

moment #7

                                         "Structure"

I go over this bridge a lot. So I celebrate its strength and dream of changing its color. this is how I spend my time.
Jeff over and home

moment #6

                            " when all the colors bleed into one"

sharing an idea

A few weeks ago I got an idea. So I wrote it down in my idea book. Here is what the idea looked like in the book. This idea involved me cutting out random shapes and attaching two of the shapes together to create these free standing figures. I then was going to give them all to a painter friend to paint. In the process of getting them to the painter friend other people saw the cutouts and asked about them. This led to me making them for a variety of

Priming the figures

creative people. This will result in the making of about eight free standing figures who will be cut out given to a variety of people  to paint any way they want and then all come back together to become a single piece representing diversity.

For me this is an exercise in sharing, starting an idea and letting it go where it will. I can't wait, but will, to see them all come back together as a family of self expression. Stay tuned for pictures! 

Jeff cutting

take two

Last June I started a second blog I called "Just Notions," but a week or so after I started it I shut it down. I felt like I didn't have enough time to do it. I moved the idea of "Just Notions" into this blog. Now I still don't have the time, but the fact is I never figured out how to clear it from the internet so it just sat there. From time to time I would think of it and sometimes go to it to see if it was still there. Well it never went away, so I started it up again. I'll just add radom stuff to it when ever I'm in the mood. Just one more place to share images and thought. Here is the link http://www.justnotions.wordpress.com/
It is what it is, no explinations just fragments of thought and image.
Jeff one more time

order sought

"putting a blanket on darkness"

I keep trying to remember to put the hammer back on the hook where it goes so when I need it again I'll know where it is. I'll know where it is while I am looking for my car keys. I'll know the hammer is there while I am trying to get my hands on last July's Mastercard bill that is somehow not in the file with all the others. I will see that hammer while I am looking for a matching pair of black socks. I am working to maintain order and then a big limb falls in the yard and lays there looking at me saying, "yes you need to pick me up, cut me up, stack me neatly with all the other wood that has fallen before. Keep this yard in order".

Okay, I have a lot of trouble with organization, not just spelling it but living with it. I keep trying, but it just becomes stress. There is the stress from things being out of order and the stress of trying to keep order. I keep trying to remind myself to just do the best I can. Organization after all is an illusion and that no matter how much structure and preparation I try and put into place there is always a chance things will go in a direction I had not intended.

The image above is an example of letting things go where they will. This is a photograph taken early one rainy evening as I was sitting at a traffic light. I picked up my camera/phone an while moving the camera (on purpose) took a picture. Put the camera down and drove on. Later another evening I dropped the images into my computer, found this particular one and started playing with it. Mostly it is over saturation of color and tone change that created the image. The swirls are the lights from the cars in the on coming lane and the rest I think is dash board and door frame, who knows?

So I claim it as art, my right as someone with feeling, and give it a name, and post it for the world to view. I guess even though I have trouble keeping my life in order, by capturing random fragments of time and claiming them as art I am some kind of organization freak. Aren't we all? 

Jeff giving order to chaos

moment #5

"getting out of line"

Jeff smearing photos again!

notion #14

When I look out
I see what is there,
but I also see the other "theres"
I bring with me.
Into each moment comes so many fragments
of moments that have come before.
This leaves me with an increasingly complicated present
That I am trying to make clear,
But I do love the beauty of the confusion.

Jeff lookin'

the place

I have seen the place

where I am everything.

Where I have no need of a name

to define my being.

For here

I have shed the self

and I am content

to be part of all the moving.

With in a fragment of time

I am but a particle

moved by wind and rain.

In my moment

I will dance and then fall.

The self I worked to be

released.

Somehow here

I am good with this.

----------------------------------------

Took these photos last summer on the north rim of the Grand Canyon. I did not even see the color spectrum until I was home and gazing at the photo. Notice how from the distance forward (in the above Photo) it goes from blue to purple to reds and then the yellow foreground.

I also find humor in writing about surendering individulizm in a blog that defines me as an individual.

Jeff diggin' it all

Words are too direct

I have been playing with words mixed into my images. I am not sure if I like this. It gives the image my feeling and too clearly directs the viewer to my thought instead of allowing them to have their own feeling inspired by the image. Although I guess it is a different level because the words also evoke feeling and yet I still feel like it is me clearly starting the conversation. I will keep playing with this. I might try not ordering the words so clearly.

Now a few words on the statement in the above image. This comes out of thinking on people needing to humanize the creator. My feeling is we as humans are often assuming this creator has the same perspective as we do. That god is happy when we are good and sad when we hurt one another.  I think (or do I mean feel) this is our human need to be one with God, on the same page. I feel God is bigger than this, there may even be levels of emotion that we cannot comprehend in this level of existence we call life. Most of all our life experiences are based on a time frame that the creator moves outside of. Birth, death, love, jealousy, revenge, triumph, greed, etc. are all part of our experience, not the creators. What god is getting from this we can only imagine, even then I belive it is way beyond our imagining. That does not mean I won't keep trying to imagine.
God holds all this and if you want to humanize it you can say, "in his hands" (then the whole gender thing is there too). I could ramble on, but I am going to stop for now. Below is some self talk. This is what I keep saying to my self to get through each day.

Work at not being afraid,
know that you belong here
and that everyone and everything belongs here with you
and the gift you have been given is choice or free will
And that the creator loves you in a way that is
so far beyond human understanding
it leaves us all a bit confused,
and that's ok.
Forgive and forgive again...
"Do not be afraid" (Share your fears, paint, dance, write, sing, play, etc...)

Jeff talking to himself.

fragments off the phone

"New Light"

Here is a shot off my cell phone camera into a new light bulb. I love the ability to mess with the color.

"Bridge Fragment"

Shot this section of bridge and made it into something. I love parts of stuff. Details are so cool.

brake me down

am I more than the sum of my parts?

every fragment tells a story

of its roll in the big picture.

I'll tell you mine

if you tell me yours.

Jeff makin' stuff up

Moment #4

                            




 


"somebodies place forgotten"

Jeff on a winter walk

                             








 Wolf Hollow -New park out in Chester County PA

 http://www.chesco.org/ccparks/cwp/view.asp?a=1550&q=650653

wait for it

Make no sound

and you might sense me

the noise you make

drives me away

talk and my form

is shaken

move

and I am all

but blown away

I have moved
around you

all the time you have been

alive

you know me as fear

but you deny I exist

I can not be known

only felt

felt in the moment

when beauty peaks
when emotion is
filled to the brim
when the music falls silent
and leaves you alone

make no name for me

to identify me

would make me known

and once something is known

it is harder to feel it

allow me to be

in your stillness

and quiet
with you
still
hold
wait
wait

-------------

Words on something I am allowing to happen whether I want to or not.

Cool poem I found http://www.spiritisup.com/spiritdancerbl.html

Jeff holding

ripping stuff up



This is one of my paintings digitized and all ripped up and put back together. No real idea here just playing with the media.

Jeff messing with stuff

Here is an artist whose work I really like. http://www.wendylehman.com/index.html

the individual again

I am back to viewing the individual as illusion

I walk around

doing the things I do

I place things

I remove this

I change the direction of my focus

I struggle with a physical malfunction

I achieve a new structure

the day moves forward

I think of one of you

then I think of another

You might be far away

but in this moment

when my thought is of you

you're here

the here I have

and I rehearse conversation

you interrupt

even though you're far away

we may argue

or engage in an activity

we never would

you are not here

yet you are all about me

and I about you

to get to just me

seems impossible

I keep taking your picture

is that still you

or am I looking at a distant part of me?

in the picture

you are moving something

lifting it and about to turn

I guess that after the picture was taken

you set that thing down

were you thinking of someone

when the picture was take

while you do what you do

do you think of me

or another
or do you get to just yourself?

-----------------------------------
Okay, What was that?
A Little bit about what I am doing- The writing above, or the mass of words above are "play" on the idea or thought fragment I have of "the individual as illusion". I came across (or pulled out of thought) the phrase a few posts back and I think I may revisit it from time to time, writing what ever comes into my head with out trying to edit it or make sense of it. Sometimes in the creative process I tend to try and think things through before I write. This usually yields very little product. I find it best to just let ideas flow with out trying to understand the end result or the conscious path. I really enjoy this process. More on this in the future.
Jeff rambling on

Moment #3

"Vision waits for voice"

Jeff waits too

This is not real

This is not real
it is someplace moved to feel
made to be
away from plain
closer with each twist
south of sane

I am right here
the trees are left here
they all lean that way
the sun goes down each day
it can be alarming
and then too charming

shaping the world to my whim
branches dance
as light grows thin
the dancing was a wish I made
the light's escape
the price I paid

-------------------------------------

Something to start off the year - a fast write - Don't Know?  Oh well!
Jeff dreams

One Year

Well I have been blogging now for one year. Sharing images sounds and ideas all throughout 2010. I think I'll continue into 2011. Please take the time to visit my other web places listed in the side column. For those of you local to the Philadelphia area be sure to visit the "Playing With The Spirit Coffeehouse" Link. I look forward to continuing to share what I can when I can. Thanks to all who stop by.

Jeff at one