My week so far; Wednesday night I left seattle. Thursday Morning I arrived in Charlotte, checked in at the McColl Center went to Coluimbia, took a cat nap, literally, then came back to Charlotte to resume work on the Installation. Today around noon I  realized that I was working on an installation and tomorrow I will make tracks on said installation.

Since this is going to be the end of the “tour” I am going to great lengths to fold in as many of things as possible, artwise, that were acquired during the tour. On the wall in the background is the stencil from the show at 18rabbit gallery back in march.  This stenciled text when finished will serve as a sort of title wall within one room of the installation.

Look a giant banner, I love giant banners.

I was able to re-use the sleeves from the sticks straws sleeves and lids, so I could re-conifgure the sleeve line to better interact with the gallery at the McColl center

I was also able to re-use my black, brown and white lids too.

The Bumbershoot Piece, 2010
wooden coffee stir sticks woven in place and held by tension

The Bumbershoot Piece was a commissioned site-specific Installation created for the 40th anniversary Bumbershoot Festival in Seattle Washingtion.

Press

“Marty Riemer Radio Show Episode #71″

“Bumbershoot art exhibits are decidely Northwest”

“An Insider Look: Artist Jonathan Brilliant”

Just taking a moment to mark the end of this journey, and the moment that got used to west coast time, just as i prepare to board a plane back east.

Since the Bumbershoot production folks install tracks wherever you ask, for the first time in a couple of shows I will really get to play with light and shadow across the space as most natural light has been blocked from the space.

When you’ ve got signage you’ve got art .

I managed to get the general foot print of the Bumbershoot piece in place and now I just need to keep on trucking. I am hoping to finish most of the ladder work by tomorrow night, and begin integrating more of the woven panels for the lower part of the structure.

Of course I couldn’t miss another opportunity to use the stencils that 18Rabbit gallery gave me from my show there in April.

Then came Bumbershoot day one

It almost seems like just a continuation of working at the McColl Center yesterday but when I got to the Seattle center this morning my other crate was waiting for me. It was like two days of working in the studio only spread from east to west coast.

and as if on cue, it was in fact chilly and overcast when I headed to the work space today.

An old crate packed with 4 framed prints, 1000 coffee cup lids, some sleeves and odds an ends. on top of the crate  is a box with the sleeves from Sticks Straws Sleeves and Lids, my show that was in january, re stacked in sections to be assembled next week at the McColl. here is a nice detail of a giant tupperware container with the lids that formerly comprised the wall piece in  Sticks Straws Sleeves and Lids, also on their way to being remade into a new wall piece next week.

Tomorrow I head off to begin working on what will be the final installment of the “Have Sticks Will Travel World Tour”. After spending the day laying out and setting up the final show in the gallery at The McColl Center in Charlotte, I will hop off to Seattle to install the penultimate piece for the tour. It will be interesting to split between the two, as the thinking for each is a bit different. For the Bumbershoot piece I am following the rules of the tour as it were, making new commissioned pieces built in situ during a fixed time on the ground. For the McColl Center I am steering more towards encapsulating a little bit from all the previous incarnations. For the first time I will  try and capture everything I have learned and made from the past 18months.  It will be nice since the McColl space gives me two rooms to work across allowing for some separation between the works that will be there. But as with all the work in this series half the joy is discovering new things about the space I can only learn by spending an extended amount of time working in it. Speaking of which I will be working on site at the McColl from Sept 2-Sept 10 so stop by if you are in the Charlotte area.

On a separate note I am very excited that my piece Iced Beverage Basket was installed last week at the University of West Georgia as part of their inaugural outdoor sculpture show, you can see more images here.

In preparation for my installation at Bumbershoot in Seattle next month, I have loaded a crate with about dozen pre woven sections of sticks, and another case or so of sticks I had around the studio. I still need to order a couple cases to be shipped to the site, but the chore of getting this crate packed and ready to ship has occupied most of my studio time during the last couple of weeks. Since I only have about six days to work on the ground in Seattle I wanted to give myself a little cushion so I could finish in a  timely manner. I have of course emblazoned the crate with the “Have Sticks Will Travel World Tour” stencil from the show at 18Rabbit Gallery back in March.

To ensure that none of the panels ” stick” to each other (pun intended) they are each interleaved between 4mil sheets of plastic then the top layer of the crate is packed with some sheet foam and the boxes of stir sticks as extra filling. In the foreground of the image above you can see some of the Iced beverage basket which is headed to the University of West Georgia in the coming weeks. I just need to finish cleaning up a little bit more before applying the sealer.

This shot shows a stir stick panel in progress on my work table. To make sure there was some consistency between the panels and to gauge the size I used a series of C-clamps mounted to the table with the handle parts of the clamps providing a rest for the weaving.

I am trying to schedule the pickup for the crate for after I get back from the University of West Georgia installing the Iced beverage basket. After the crate goes I will have a couple of weeks to prep for the show at the McColl Center. My plan is to head up to the McColl the morning I fly to Seattle and do a quick layout and prep for that show, fly to seattle do the bumbershoot piece, then hit the ground running in Charlotte when I get back. It will make for a very exciting end to August and an insanely busy start to September. I am so ready for the gift of time that the McColl center residency will provide, it has been the carrot dangling at the end of the tour and I am really looking forward to it.