Inside Passage School of Fine Cabinetmaking in Roberts Creek, BC is holding its annual Christmas Open House this Saturday between 1:00 - 5:00 PM. You’re invited to visit the school’s shop and view this year students’ first term projects as they are being worked on.

Links:
  + Inside Passage School
  + Resident Craftsman
  + Google Maps

Just a very short post and plug for Mr. Jeff Briggs who has recently updated his web site with his latest work. Four new paintings from 2009 and nine great works form 2008. Viewable work on the site dates back to 2003. The above work entitled Envelope Filter is from 2008.

The only question now is, how to get this painting or any other one of Jeff’s paintings hanging on my wall.

Links:
  + www.jeffbriggs.com
  + www.carriehaddadgallery.com

A minor revamp and update Kathryn Parker Almanas’s site is now complete…
The new Spellato images are up, as well as an additional section of New Work.

For a further look: www.kathrynparkeralmanas.com

The trend is definitely not just seen in Ikea, but now it seems that every furniture and design shop is peddling the latest plywood designs. The rebirth and appeal plywood design is obvious; its clean and organic lines, simple joinery and (theoretically) it’s at a minimal cost. Who couldn’t resist an Eames knock-off chair in their living room?

Bent Ply - The Art of Plywood Furniture (2003) by Eric Pfeiffer and Dung Ngo is a fantastic little book devoted to the history of plywood in modern design. The book spans from the earliest uses of wood veneers, through the Industrial Revolution, to design today, covering everything from how plywood is made to how it is molded into furniture. A detailed look into the making of the Wave Desk is explained from begining stages of harvesting and selecting the trees in Eastern Europe to the final stages molding and finishing of the plywood in Italy. The contributions to plywood design by Alvar Aalto, Michael Thonet, and Charles and Ray Eames is clearly explained and illustrated. But of equal importance is the presentation of this book; incased in an extremely striking hardcover made from plywood itself.

This past summer Sarah Sudhoff’s new site was launched to coincide with her images being published in a July issue of New York Times magazine. Sarah’s site contains five bodies of work (photography and video), plus one section with her commissions.

Sarah also writes regularly on her artist blog: http://www.sarahsudhoff.blogspot.com.

To see more of Sarah’s work please visit: www.sarahsudhoff.com.

Set backs and the chaos of living in Poland are to thank for the never ending delays in launching the two following sites. Although still needing a few minor touches, the sites are up and runing. Here are the two new sites:

JK Fotografia:   Jakub Karwowski and Joanna Kowalczuk, two young Polish artists located in Krakow, offering their commercial photographic services. Weddings, portraiture, stags and more.

Michal Kowalczuk:   Creator of complex mechanical drawing machine. Computer programmer by profession, an artist at heart.

My first year in the MFA photo program at Mass Art resulted in three silver gelatin prints shown above. Althought many more photo projects where worked on during this first year, these three are the only ones worth showing. Non of the projects, including these three were ever completed. No digital techniques were used in the process of creating these images. Most of the materials used in the process of making each of these images are listed below.

untitled 1, 2004
 + materials used: tape, plexiglass and paint on paper.

untitled 2, 2004
 + materials used: marshmallows, wax, tape, plexiglass and paint on paper.

untitled 3, 2004
 + materials used: chalk, tape and wax on found Polaroid.

My final year at Mass Art ended with a series of drawings form my thesis show. Click here to view the thesis show.

While writing this post I came across the web site for Paul Lowry who was my professor from undergrand that introduced me to this process of working.
 + www.paullowry.com

Picturegrid, designed by Kieran Delaney is the newest addition to the blog. This Wordpress plugin acts as a the front end for your Flickr profile, showing up to 500 of your most recent photographs.

The enlarged size of the images is one technical aspects of the plugin that I’m hoping to still to improve upon. Other then that, Picturegrid is up and running!!

Links:
  Picturegrid
  Kieran Delaney

News and rumors travel overseas at a slower rate than they should so, only recently, but with great joy I became aware that DriveTime, after a long break, is back in action again.

But episode Three.Five quickly confirmed all the rumors that the legendary program will shortly be coming to an end. What is still unclear is how many more episodes of DriveTime there will be and how the series will come to an end. During episode Three.Five, some parallels to the finale of Seinfeld were discussed for DriveTime’s final episode. Slim are the chances of DriveTime’s grand finale being taken abroad (such as Seinfeld’s final episode found them in Paris). With the new guest lineup and the mystery behind a returning guest, the final episode of DriveTime promises to be a thrill-ride of a conclusion.

Links:
  DriveTime
  Ravi Jain (artist site)
  Ravi Jain (blog)

Today marked the 45th anniversary of the 1944 Warsaw Uprising. The attempt was to liberate the Polish capital from German control before the arrival of the Soviet army. A liberated Warsaw was to demonstrate sovereignty in order to withstand the Allied devision of Eastern Europe. The uprising was expected not to last longer then a week, lasted for 63 days with a quarter of million lives lost.

To coincide with the anniversary of the uprising the exhibition Miasto Feniksa - War*Saw Everything is on view at Krakowskie Przedmiescie 64 for all of August. The exhibition contains 28 photographs that are montages of images from the Warsaw Uprising with images taken from the same viewpoint of present day Warsaw. A thoughtful project, but I have to admit after seeing the exhibition the end result is somewhat poorly executed. Snowy streets from 1945 combined with heels and miniskirts form 2008 doesn’t really seem to fit well together.

The image above, of downtown Warsaw was originally taken between January 19th and 21st 1945. While in the background most of today’s postwar downtown cityscape.

Links:
 + Miasto Feniksa - War*Saw Everything (the exhibition)
 + Warsaw Uprising (an overview)
 + Palac Kultury (about the tallest building in the photograph)