Just this minute got an email from someone who has given one of the Williamsburg Tarpitters a new home! Hope he behaves himself!
.. click HERE to read the cool newyorkshitty.com blog entry all about it (it's a pretty cool blog anyway!). And remember there are more still out there (in the c-cold!)
Day 2. Williamsburg, NY.
Quick note: KCDC is one of the coolest, friendliest skate shops around (thanks guys!).
......
.....yum, yum, must eat leaflet!....
.......
...... bad ass.......
.....
......
.
... Ah, it all seems like a distant memory now.... Sorry about the delay in posting these photos but I've had to rely on my iPhone to take all my pictures as my camera got a dunking in Key West while shooting the "Whaler's Delight" post (see below).
You've all been to New Yoik, so here are the photos from day 1....
.....
....
......
.
As I mentioned in an earlier post I'm playing catch up on my posts here so they are a bit brief but I'll revisit them when I get back to Tarpit Towers and flesh out the details a bit more.
RPC and I spent about 3 days in Key West and we had a blast. The strangest thing was that the old town and the docks looked really familiar to us both and obviously we'd never been here before. We couldn't put our finger on it, the wooden watch tower in the middle of town, the little market streets running off it, the old docks and the large amount of people walking around dressed as historical pirates... then it hit us.
If you have ever had the joy of playing "Zelda: Majora's Mask" on the Gamecube then you've already visited Key West! I swear!!
As well as setting "Whalers' Delight" adrift again I left a few tarpitters behind....
This last picture was taken with my iPhone at sunrise, so apologies for the quality, but this sign is at the end of a short pier and is the south western most point in the States, ooooh!
While sitting soaking up the sun on the shores of Lake Tahoe (Nevada) I spotted this piece of drift wood. Now I immediately thought it looked like a broken skateboard, but as RPC pointed out it was probably an old piece of wakeboard. Anyway it really sung out to me, so I dried it beside me on the beach and decided to take it with me and paint it as I travelled. I didn't know what I was going to paint on it, I was going to let it form organically, see what springs to mind so to speak.
For some reason I can't find any earlier photographs of my design than this one...
.. I was painting layers of colour, darker layers over lighter layers of the same colour and then sanding back through the top layers to create tone and texture. it also gave the design a weathered effect that fitted with the old beaten up board. It was a brilliant way to form an image on the board because I could use the sand paper to erase any parts that didn't work out. This meant that I went through about 4 design changes, the final piece was an honest reaction to the board and to the creative process.
This was the final piece: 'Whalers' Delight". I am really proud of this piece. But the board wasn't mine to keep, I was just embellishing it and sending it on it's way again. I had hung on to the board in it's various stages of design for nearly a month, then we planned a trip to Key West and I knew that I wanted to set it afloat again, let it drift off once more.
So during a really cool eco boat tour of some of the mangrove Islands off Key West I decided to set it adrift again....
.... this is the last picture of Whalers' Delight as it winds it's way towards the open sea and maybe Cuba.
God speed good sir, God speed!
RPC and myself were lucky enough to spend a week in Washington DC in the company of our good friend Gretchen Schermerhorn. Not only is she a good friend and a brilliant artist but she is the Director of the Papermill, and Director of Artistic Collaboration and Outreach for Pyramid Atlantic.
....Gretchen rolled out some pulp and our old friend Jeebus appeared before her very eyes!!! We came in the next morning to find some wackos had hastily erected a shrine around the whole building!...
... One way to give your artwork market value is impregnate dollar bills into them! Once I'm off the road and have time to sit down and do it properly I will post a "how to" for the different types of pulps and papers, honest..
... This is our first attempt at Paper pulp stenciling. As you can see we didn't get the paper pup mix quite right, but we're well on the way. The idea came after a few cold beers in the Quarry House Tavern, spray paper through a stencil. I'm going to keep experimenting with this idea, I'd love to perfect the pulp mix so I could stencil blocks of A4 paper directly onto walls so that artists could draw straight onto them with pen or pencil..
...I couldn't resist putting a Tarpitter outside the Whitehouse. This is at the back of the Whitehouse on the corner by the Renwick Gallery. The Renwick is devoted to exhibiting craft art, some of the sculptures on display were breathtaking. Again once I get off the road I'll blog about this place in more detail, needless to say if you're in the area it's well worth a look....
...detail of above photograph.
Our visit with Gretchen and Pyramid was a breath of fresh air, they are full of ideas, know how and enthusiasm.. really got the old imagination firing! Toot, Toot!
*sorry these entries are so short, but I'm playing catch up here.
