It was all for the Idaho Triennial audio guide. The exhibit opens to the public tomorrow scratch that; it’s 5am.. TODAY (the reception is Sep. 17th), and I wanted to get my audio segment done. This is what it turned out like:

SCBGHS audio guide.

And on a good note, the art museum hasn’t called me to ask for clarification on how to set up the sculpture.. I spent a lot of time writing thorough instructions, so they must have figured it out.

                          

Off to Boise!

                          

Now that I’ve got the aesthetics down, tomorrow and Wednesday I’ll spend some time working on the inside in order to support the S.C.B.H.G.S. (Self-Contained Bionic Hydroponic Growing System). I have to write a manual outlining any contingency plans for bionic-hydroponic worst-case scenarios as well.

More exciting, earlier today before I even touched those stencils I spent some time perusing the thrift stores of Coeur d’Alene. Again, I was looking for the oldest functional VCR that I could find. The one that I had installed in the Off The Bench show currently up at the SAP, quit working after about a week of use… or maybe it was the tape.. I should check.

Anyway.. a few weeks back I stumbled into a little place called ‘Miracle On Thrifty 4th Street.’ They had a 1958 Zenith Space Command 300 TV with a sticker that said $25.00, works, and ‘make offer.’ Well, the insanely heavy, tube-driven TV was still sitting on the floor in the back hallway today. I offered them $10 and loaded it up in my trunk. According the wikipedia article on remote controls, the Space Commander remote was developed in 1956 by Robert Adler. It was the first wireless remote control. You push the button, and it strikes a bar inside the remote that creates a high frequency pitch (… yes… it’s mechanical!@). There is a receiving microphone on that TV that hears the specific pitches.. (there are only two buttons..), and in turn, makes the TV do crazy tricks:

Lastly, that sure-to-grow that I planted the grass seed in seems to be doing the trick:

                          

I finished everything except for the lid before I had to go to the opening for the Off the Bench exhibit at the SAP. The opening went well, and overall I think all the participating artists are pretty happy with the exhibit.

Part of my section included a loop of some videos I made at Vermont Studio Center. I converted the videos to a DVD, and then transferred them to a VHS and displayed them through an old VCR and TV that I scavenged for at the local thrift stores. My friend Jacki snapped a photo of the TV Screen that captures the effect:

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And speaking of Vermont Studio Center, I went to the Portland Art Museum today with my folks… I was excited to run into a piece of Carol Hepper’s. I had a fantastic studio visit with her at VSC.. (she liked the drawings that I was working on..!) She is also fairly local to the region, born in South Dakota. She is having an exhibit at the Yellowstone Art Museum in a year or two as well.

I’m on vacation with the family until Thursday. When I get back, the crate needs to get D I O S P E C K E D out so that I can take it down to the Boise Art Museum the following week to get ready for the 2010 Idaho Triennial

                          

I bought some cubes of Sure To Grow from the local hydroponic supply store, tore them up in to small bits and pieces, and embedded grass seeds within them. Technically, the system is no longer a true Nutrient Film Technique (NFT) system (as a true NFT system does not rely on an artificial growing medium), but using STG will enable the plant growth in several important ways. First, it gives the roots something to hold on to; in the past the roots grew into a tangled system and held on to each other, the sides of the tubes, and the cheesecloth. Next, the main reason I am interested in using STG, is to make the transportation of the plants a lot easier: I saturated a cube of Sure To Grow in water on Friday at 4:30 pm, and it is still moist.

Plants grown in a true NFT system, with no growing medium being used, are incredibly tricky to transport. Some species can die within 15 minutes or so if their roots dry out because the water isn’t flowing. Grass seed is probably a bit more hardy than that, but regardless; when I took the sculpture to Seattle I had the plants sitting on the passenger seat, with the water pump plugged into an inverter. It looks like the sure to grow will be able to sustain the plants for about two days, which will make building the crate a lot easier.

In order to brush up on crate design, I downloaded the ol’ “Forest Service Wood Crate Design Manual”. When I was working as a preparator at the Yellowstone Art Museum, the curator gave me this design manual on my first day; it was a little bit overwhelming at 134 pages. Since using STG will sustain moisture around the plant roots for around two days, I am moving away from a design that will require electrical power during transportation toward a design that will simply need to be plugged in once it arrives at the museum or other venue.

                          

The best part is, they didn’t accept the spaceship thing, or the spinning neon disco ball projector thing.. no. They accepted the one with the hydroponic grass whose roots will dry out quickly if not tended to since they don’t grow in soil. When I drove that sculpture to Seattle for the SOIL show I had the ‘intestines’ sitting in a tub on the passenger seat with the bladder on the floor and the water pump plugged into the inverter. I’ll have to figure out something a little bit more professional(/futuristic!) to bring it down to BAM, and come up with a comprehensive guide to installing & maintaining it. There is also a chance that the sculpture might tour with a selection from the Triennial to two other venues in Idaho; the 2007 exhibit went to the Sun Valley Center for the Arts and the Prichard Gallery at the University of Idaho.

One of the things I am most excited about is the catalog they are printing, which basically means that any of you will be able to go the Library of Congress in the future and find my bionic hydropnics. I also get to add another notch on my resume; the Bibliography. The 2010 Triennial opens on September 4th at the Boise Art Museum and runs through December 5th. The opening reception, with awards and some words from Beth Sellars, is on Friday, September 17th.

But before all that, there’s a show at the SAP this coming month. I’ll be exhibiting some of the work I completed while in residency at Vermont Studio Center this past March (this is the part where I thank the Idaho Commission on the Arts and the National Endowment for the Arts for generously supporting my residency..) I’ll be exhibiting that spaceship thing and the spinning neon disco ball projector thing called The Beacon, which I collaborated on and completed with my pal Rachel Watson from Portland, ME. The show at the SAP opens on the Friday, August 6th, sometime right after happy hour.

                          

In other exciting news, I’ve been putting some miles in on my new D I O S P E X bag from R.E.Load
. They missed a few minor(?) details, but considering the last bag they custom made for me had to have the entire front flap re-done due to a shoddy intern, the mistakes on this bag weren’t that big of a deal. After spending a month or two trying to come up with a design, and 6-weeks waiting for the bag to be made (along with a good chunk of change) , I was pretty happy to have it finally arrive on my doorstep. With that, it’s nothing less than bomb-proof.

Other than that, the lake is warm, the beer is cold, and theres a new 12-week old puppy runnin’ around the house! Summer is pretty lazy so far.