July 8, 2008 - A day at the zoo

On July 4th Amy and Jeff invited me to lunch and a walk at the Vilas Zoo. I needed a break from all the lampmaking and it was one of those days where the weather is perfect and the sky is dotted with cottonball clouds on a blue blue sky that are indigenous to Wisconsin summers. I don't always love zoos. I can't help but sense that the animals are bored and caged in a very unnatural way. But they do offer joy on some level, and there are many animals who seems perfectly content and even happy. Below are a few of the critters who inhabit the place along with a particularly happy monkey in the upper right corner who goes by the name of Mia (actually Amy and Jeff's daughter).

And Dubai continues to entertain us with completely absurd architectural gymnastics, now offering a rotating skyscraper. It seems each floor can turn on a central axis allowing the building to change shape continually. The building is 80 stories high and powers itself with 79 wind turbines located between each floor. The building boasts the feature of offering it's residents the ability to change views at will, but I wonder if your neighbors will all cooperate and all want the same view. Living in a continually rotating environment might get a little disorienting. The building was designed by David Fisher.

July 4th, 2008 - Alternative Motivational Posters

On this July 4th take a look at the beautiful, well-designed and inspired pieces of art offered by Right Brain Terrain. The posters are printed on post-consumer recycled, FSC certified papers, chlorine-free soy/vegetable inks—in other words about as green as you can get in printing. There are 17, 18"x24" posters as well as a set of note cards.

The Art Fair on the Square in Madison is coming up next weekend and I'm ramping up by making more lamps. Unfortunately I won't have electricity to display the lamps the way I like but that's life. It's hard to pass up a local and high-quality fair like this one. Please come by booth 458 if you can. The hours are Saturday July 12th, 9 am to 6 pm; and Sunday July 13th, 10 am to 5 pm. Of course it will be one of the hottest weekends of the year, it's just tradition. And if a storm comes up just pray I don't blow away with all my very kite-like lamps.

Have a happy and safe 4th of July. 

July 1, 2008 - Back from the LFOA

It's been a week since I've gotten back from the Lakefront Festival of the Arts in Milwuakee. I had a wonderful fair selling more lamps than at any other show I've done. My booth is shown below. The weather was perfect except for a few thunderstorms on Sunday at the end of the fair. But as luck would have it the rain stopped right at 5:00 when everyone started packing up. I should also say that the entire 172 artists are housed under a huge tent structure so the rain wasn't a big deal. The festival learned a hard lesson many years ago when their art fair turned into a mud fest. They've been under a tent every since. When they designed the new addition to the museum I'm sure they planned a space for the art fair. 

If you haven't been to the Milwaukee Art Museum it is a wonderful piece of architecture. The building was designed by Spanish architect Santiago Calatrava. The main hall features a 90-foot-high glass ceiling and a Brise Soleil, a moveable sunscreen that unfolds every morning to form a 217-foot wingspan.

 

June 14, 2008 - New Lamps

The Bo lamp is one of my favorites but it's quite wide and people don't seem to have a lot of space to fit one in. I decided to make a smaller version. The large Bo is 22" wide. The new ones are 15". Both are the same height and use a similar base. There are two versions of the small Bo, one with straight sides and the other with a slight angle which I have come to like. I also like the square-ish shape. I've come up with some new compositions and have also made smaller versions of some popular Bo styles, like the one below. You can see these this coming weekend at the Milwaukee Lakeshore Festival of the Arts in front of the Milwaukee Art Museum, June 20-22. I'm in booth 36. See you there.

May 22, 2008 - For those into gadgets, large expensive ones

The Trilobis 65 is a 65 ft semi-submerged floating home designed by Giancarlo Zema, an Italian Navel architect. It has four levels and offers two single and two double bedrooms, each with a private bath. It has a fully submerged observation bulb in the lowest level that provides a 360 degree view underwater. Perhaps Neiman Marcus will offer this in their next holiday catalog, if they haven't already. It's on my wish.

May 17, 2008 - Ah Spring

 

Spring has sprung in Madison. And it seems so much more glorious after the long harsh winter we went through this year. The flowering trees are booming with blossoms, more abundant than I can ever remember.

With Spring comes the Farmer's Markets. The most well known is on the capitol square. Here are some pics I took this morning while picking up my breakfast, pumpkin and almond scones. Bakery booths are all too abundant and it's hard not to stop at every one to check out the fare. And Morel mushrooms. Luckily good friends brought some to me from my home state of Indiana so I didn't have to pay the $35 a pound price this year. Thanks Katie and Dave! And the flowers! It was a perfect morning.

Enjoy the pics. If you look back a few months you can compare this mornings photo of my block to the one in the depths of winter. It's a good reminder.

May 10, 2008 - Been busy

Hi all. It's been way too long since my last post. Been busy. As many of you know I'm a freelance graphic designer as well as an artist. The design side has taken over my life, which is good and bad. It pays the bills but takes me away from making lamps. I have two art fairs coming up; the Lakefront Festival of the Arts in Milwaukee on June 20-22, and my home town's own Art Fair on the Square on 

July 12-13. 

I want to congratulate the One Family Campaign for the Goodman Atwood Community Center for last night's gala event sponsored by Merrill Lynch. I was proud to donate a lamp to the silent auction. (The photo above is a quick shot of the front and back). Congratulations to the new owners and thanks for supporting the Goodman Center. I had a great time. Also a big congratulations to my friend Kristin Groth who, I'm quite sure, put a lot of work into the making the event a big success. 

It's the weekend and I'm taking a break from design work to build some lamps. I'm currently working on a smaller version of the Bo lamp. And it's coming along well. I'll post some pics when next time.