Look ya’ll, I built a website! Oh.. crap. Now I’ve got to get work ready for the show before I leave for Ox-Bow in a week and a half. Talking with some of the MFA students that just graduated, they commented on how the work never stops. It doesn’t feel different. An undergraduate student commented today on how MFA’s never catch a break. But don’t get me wrong, I’ve been enjoying myself. I’m getting pretty good on a surf board.

But I also drove to LA four times last week to help a fantastic artist I know from Seattle, Margie Livingston, put up a year-long installation at Los Angeles Contemporary Exhibitions.

We did a bulk of the work right on Hollywood Blvd. Margie had conceived an installation for the archway that enters LACE’s first, main gallery. It consisted of five panels that we had to fabricate on site, so that she could affix the paint that she had put together in her Seattle studio (see those colored strips that look kind of like bacon in the above image? It’s paint). First, we made patterns using luan plywood. Next, we used the patterns to cut five panels out of aluminum/plexiglass ply sheets. After checking to make sure all the panels fit properly, there were three layers of gesso that needed to go on. Once the gesso was dry, Tim and Margie heat bonded (with heat guns) the acrylic paint to the panels. I trimmed them (see above image). In the end, each panel weighed about 50 lbs. Here’s the first one:

And we pushed through till around midnight last Tuesday to get all five of them up so Margie could do some touch up on Wednesday, all in time for the opening on Thursday (which was a great!)

Here’s what LACE has to say about it all: http://www.welcometolace.org/exhibitions/view/margie-livingston-twenty-gallons/