what have I been thinking about in the last few weeks??

In my studio....





About Rio...





specific to Rocinha...






Artists...

Material...
And somehow..this will all come together in the next two weeks for my proposal...

Peixes

Peixes

Rio News

London Favela: Morrinho Project

NPR article

Images of the favela in Rocinha

Hostages Taken in Rio Hotel

Lauri's NGO and the work of Zezinho in Rio

Pallets! Pallets! Pallets?

After too many weeks of procrastination and little excuses left..I headed to the studio last night to try to work on something. It's like the author Anne Lamott said in the book Bird by Bird..you have to have a shitty first draft whether this is a writing or a piece of art work. Just MAKE SOMETHING ALREADY! So last night I attempted something of that nature. May and Louie came along which helped to have someone else to talk to and bounce ideas off of one another. I did a lot of brainstorming and have three pretty solid ideas for pieces I want to work on in the upcoming months, as my starting point. We dug around the other floors of my studio building and I found a beautiful, old pallet that has become..I think?..a new material I want to incorporate with my newsprint. Tomorrow will be pallet collecting day. My goal is to gather at least 10 pallets by the end of the week that I can cut into with a jig saw and create/construct a wall piece designed like a map...of course this will naturally change over the process but it's a start!

For the time being, here are some images I gathered about pallets..a few interesting websites. The first is called Inhabitat and it posted about a Modern Manafesto House that was constructed out of of pallets and resides in Chile. Check this out!





Some facts I did not know..It's estimated that there are about 2 BILLION ordinary unit load pallets in circulation globally, and about two-thirds of these are only used once. It's further estimated that U.S. companies throw away roughly 4 billion board feet of wood pallets every year. HDR Architecture came up with Unit Load_Redux, a temporary exhibition intended as a probe for sustainable living through the redux of pallets and the use of bicycle energy. Here is the original article. It has so really great photos of the installation.

and moooore images. I can't help it. This is what I love to do. Collect images. At least they are disposable and don't take up any physical space except in the computer world..right?

Caio Reisewitz

I had the opportunity to view Caio Reisewitz first solo exhibition at the CCBB during my past visit to Rio. I remember being easier intrigued and influence by the natural beauty that his photographers share with the viewer. The photograph above was probably by far on of my favorites of the exhibition. The color is just so intense and rich. He had many other images of inside architectural spaces that played a lot with light and shadow.

The photography that intrigued me, by far the most, was what simply appeared to be a shot of the forest or jungle. It was a luscious green that soaked in the color and made it feel like I was there. With further examination you begin to notice that what first appears to be a place furthest away from civilization, you notice favelas hidden among the foresta. I decided to look into a bit more of his work and found out he is a native of São Paulo and photographs many of his images within its limits. I personally did not witness or experience much of any encounters with nature while in São Paulo. It is a HUGE city, home to over 11 million people. It is nice to know areas like this do exist there and I like the juxaposition of these two different environments of the natural and processed together. When I saw that photograph, I had an "ah ha!" moment and began to think about this idea in other forms. In some ways I think it was the inspiration behind my latest idea for a piece.