Plants

I attached my custom tiles to the front of the planter my friend Scott Thurmon came over with dirt and plants so the front planter is now complete (except that the irrigation still needs to be connected). In a year or so the red yucca in the middle should grow up to be more proportional to the mass of the planter.

Acid washing

Today I acid washed the back wall. What a difference the acid makes. Compare to the earlier pictures. I started playing with tiles on the front steps. I haven't made my final decision on that yet. Some of my friends hate it and others love it. Amusingly, so far it seems to break down roughly between those who have lived/traveled in Spain or Latin America and those who haven't.

The destructive power of Wikipedia

Today I find myself defeated in a manner that often occurs to me -- I'll be excited by some idea and in the processes of experimenting with it, I'll end up on Wikipedia where my enthusiasm will be defeated by the overwhelming amount of knowledge instantly available.

I often have ill-formed ideas that need developing; I'll begin by jotting down any aspect of the fuzzy ideas that I can get into words with the hope that somehow it will become evident how to formalize as I go along. Then, in the middle of this exercise, I'll think "this part has been done before" and I'll go to Google. Within seconds I'll be bogged down in a Wikipedia page with a sense of "Look at all the stuff I don't know! 'Everybody' else understands this but me." Within a few minutes I find my creativity defeated by the overload of information -- a sense of "If I don't understand all this, then I'm just repeating existing work." Hours worth of creative enthusiasm can be deflated by this process in mere seconds; I find it very discouraging and creatively unhealthy.

I submit that in regards to creativity, Google, Wikipedia, etc. are dual-edged swords. On the one hand, the instant access to reference material supports experiments. But on the other hand, the instant connection to all knowledge easily overwhelms one's spirit for exploration with a sense of "everything is known already". I don't know how to balance these effects and today I am squarely on the defeated side.

Finished back wall masonry

I finished the last of the back wall masonry this morning. It's been mocking me for 2 weeks so nice to have it done. Acid washing is next.

2009 People's Gallery New Installation

My piece "Elevator Goblins" was elected "2008 People's Choice" at the Austin City Hall. Unfortunately they can't afford to buy the piece (the amount they offered didn't even cover the cost of the camera!) However, because so many people seemed to have enjoyed it, I have decided to donate another year of a new piece entitled "Dragonflies". I like it better than the old piece as I'm now using infrared lights so that I don't have to project a white background and the dragonflies can seemingly live in the cracks of the natural stone. This new piece will open tomorrow Friday 20 Feb 5:30 to 7:30 p.m.

End cap masonry

I spent the week programming things which do not yet work and thus have nothing graphically interesting to post. Here's progress on the end-cap of my rear-patio instead.

Completed brick seat wall

Weekends for 2 month and finally finished today (less acid washing). The end cap came out a little crooked as it was very difficult to get the unsupported bricks to stay vertical. I ended up propping chairs against them to hold them while setting. If I were to do it again, I would build an interior support and let it harden for a week and the affix the out bricks to that support as I did along the other walls.