Tag Archives: inspiration

Artist Date – Indianapolis Museum of Art

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My friend Jem and I went on a bit of an Artist Date, as prescribed by The Artist’s Way. I was feeling the need for some inspiration, something to cause my brain to make different waves. I took a day off work, and in the morning we went to a coffee shop and worked on our drawings:

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Then in the afternoon we went to the Indianapolis Museum of Art:

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Unfortunately, while they did have some cool kinetic sculpture (including work by Alexander Calder, the inventor of the mobile!!!!), those were in areas where I was not allowed to take pictures. I was able to shoot this wall, which is kind of cool, if not a seminal work by the originator of the mobile:

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Fair enough, the other stuff is in my head anyway, where it will do the most good!

The whole idea behind an Artist Date is to take the art half of yourself (or maybe it’s the art 7/8 or the art 3/4, whatever – you decide the exact equation) out and treat it well, show it a good time. In return, the art portion of you will grow and flourish and start helping you do really awesome stuff. It’s also part of a practice called “refilling the well,” where you replenish some of the energy needed to run the creative engine inside of you.

There were honestly some kind of scary moments in the museum, like when I realized I was writing down tons of names of sculptors, but almost nothing about photographers. What does that mean? Does it mean I’m not going to be doing photography? Does it mean I’m supposed to be a sculptor? Does it mean…well, what DOES it mean? I mean, that lamp, the one with all the brass on it – how do you do that? And those clocks! The clocks with the copper, brass, and steel faces! Those were gorgeous! How…can someone make a living like that? How do you make something so precise and so gorgeous? Many questions, no immediate answers. I guess that’s part of the price of admission with this stuff. (Actually, the IMA is free, which means my confusion and fear cost me nothing. Huzzah!)

Overall, I really enjoyed myself. I got some new ideas for sculpture work, and found out some fun stuff about the Art Nouveau movement. Things could get more interesting. I think we’re entering dangerous inspirational territory here. At any rate, Jem and I have refilled the well, so look for some fantasticness to occur here in the near future!

What do I do with this stuff?

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This is how it starts: a piece of wood, a spiral, and a leftover part from a harmonica. You just put them all there on the table and then wait for some kind of genius to strike. I don’t know if genius has ever struck me, but I do end up making stuff. I’ll take what I can get!

Influences and Inspirations

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Following up the steam engine (train wreck?) that is my interest in automotive art, I picked up a bunch of magazines and books with different images that seemed like they might provide some push and fire to the whole shebang. Juxtapoz magazine does “low brow” art – weird stuff that’s cool and different and likely isn’t going to show up in any kind of fine art gallery or event anytime soon. The top and middle images are from that mag. The bottom one I got kind of on a whim, and it’s pretty awesome. It’s a custom car magazine from Japan. It’s written in both Japanese and English, and I have to say that those guys have built some pretty impressive machines over there, especially considering the fact that they can’t just drive down to some junkyard and pick this stuff up locally.

Inspiration

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I’m a little chagrined here, a little excited, a bit enthused, and rather admiring. It is my wont to occasionally peruse that veritable cornucopia of visual medium known as Youtube. There’s TOOOOONS of absolute crap on it, but there is also an amazing amount of truly wonderful material out there to inspire, assist, and educate. Today, while trying to re-find a video on a giant rolling ball sculpture that a college student built for his thesis in engineering or physics or something (it uses bowling balls that reach speeds of 80mph – sweet!) I came across a video I’ve never seen before.

Behold, awesome readers, a copper rolling ball sculpture that aspires to art as much as movement:

View, view, view, and view. I can’t get enough of this thing! I mean, just, like, just check out…LOOK! The frame, it’s not just eight pieces of water pipe soldered together to make a box. Those curves, so swooping and graceful, and notice that where they dip they become contact points for the supports that hold up the track – gorgeous and effective. Two points! The solder joints are all very well done, and the spacers for the track are shaped into rings rather than simple flat bars. Note that other support legs are formed into curved pieces as well, and small termination points are shaped into curls. All these elements add to the whole of the sculpture. It’s very harmonious, no?

And look at the use of open space. The marbles seem to zip and float across the curved track in the center, then gracefully move through the spiral, exiting at the bottom without a bump. The visual grace is fantastic. I admire how he has taken car to not use too many support rods. It has a very clean feeling to it. I wish I could see it up close without the shadows in the background to distract from the effect. It’s really great stuff.

In addition, the lift wheel is beautiful. I’m trying to figure out what it’s made of, as I believe a solid copper piece of that size would price in at an extremely health chunk of change (brass wheels of three inches in diameter are 80 bucks, for what that’s worth, and all metals have sharply increased in price in the past year). The fit and finish on everything is of very high quality.

I post all this, partly in reference to some comments made by Matthew Gaulden about some characteristics of my own work. I must enjoy the curving lines, as I was immediately drawn to this when it came up on my screen. I also post it as a point of interest, to give you an idea of just what inspires me when I do my own work. You and I are learning this stuff together, as I’m very early in the process, and there will be many discoveries as to what makes me go, “Oh, yeah! I wanna do THAT!” Right now, this is the sort of thing I want to do. I’m finishing a smaller work right now, but the long, uninterrupted lengths of smooth track on this piece are really, really getting me going. I wouldn’t be surprised if something like that doesn’t show up in one of my future works. This is finely crafted stuff. I wish the guy lived in the U.S. I’d love to meet him some time.

This weekend I have some free time. Hopefully, that means there will be more accomplishment news come Monday. See you then.