The windows have arrived and we are on track for having every thing closed up by Fall.

There were many interesting interviews but I chose to feature Miranda July. Miranda July was a prolific performance and video artist in the 1990s who stepped into the mainstream limelight when her 2005 film Me and You and Everyone We Know became an international hit. She now is making exhibitions featuring do-it-yourself art taken from the ever-expanding Learning To Love You More project, an ongoing collaboration with Harrell Fletcher.

The Learning To Love You More website features 65 creative assignments, as well as the reports from people who completed an assignment. With over five thousand reports and counting, the website has become an amazing archive of personal creative endeavors by people from all over the world. Browsing the pictures, drawings, and videos that were uploaded, you kind of feel a connection to them, which is due to the nature of the assignments. Learning To Love You More is a project for and about other people and, as Miranda says in the interview, it’s a great source of inspiration for her and keeps her sane.

Filmed at MU, a great art space in Eindhoven, The Netherlands, on Friday 24 August 2007, the day of the opening of the Learning To Love You More show.

Now the fun starts. We have been playing around with a combination of Sil-Leed cement board panels, strong and cost-effective sheets that not only exhibit a unique beauty, but they also help protect against fluctuating temperatures helping to reduce energy costs as well as any maintenance.   They are attached with rivets and you can cut them to any size so our plan is to use some interesting patterns in two colors. We are exploring two reclaimed woods, one is a redwood originally used as wine barrels and the other cypress from pickle barrels.  I think I should get some credit back for all of the wine I’ve probably tapped from those barrels and Gregg eats pickles everyday for lunch. What I love about the redwood is its warmer red tone with some irregular staining.   Both are from the Duluth Timber Company.

We thought about using a reddish orange cement board color as accent and then tabled it.  We’re boring, I know.  Has anyone every taken that what primary color are you test?  Seriously, from the bazillion colors I ended up as no color–snow.  I guess that says something about me and my artwork too!  Test yourself.

Bronze trim, two grey tones of cement board and cypress

Bronze trim, sand blasted window for shop, redwood and cement board

I love hats and I’m envious of anyone that can pull them off without looking forced.  A story you may remember in one of my first posts features my grandmother and her four friends who owned a milliner business in 1907.  I created a 3-d piece with American early 1900 vintage hat forms. So you can see why this London exhibit is of particular interest to me.

Hats and architecture may not appear to have anything in common—at first blush, anyway—but architect-turned-milliner Gabriela Ligenza begs to differ. For the London Festival of Architecture, Ligenza and design duo You&Me commissioned several local architects, artists, and designers to produce hats inspired by their visions of London.

'ant hill' by riitta ikonen

In 1849, london hat makers Thomas and William Bowler designed the bowler as a close-fitting hat to protect gamekeepers’ heads from low hanging branches while on horseback. In the following century, no hat would become more synonymous with london itself. American architects austin+mergold have reinterpreted the bowler in a sustainable version. Its recycled corrugated cardboard layers keep the sun’s rays at bay while providing ventilation. At the same time, the hat is both adaptable to the whims of fashion as it can be easily painted in any color.

'A + M bowler. 2010

'A + M bowler. 2010

I walk every evening in my Linden Hills neighborhood.  Usually I get caught up in thinking about my day and forget to really enjoy and observe my surroundings.  So I’ve started to bring my camera with the intent of finding artistic expressions by my fellow neighbors.  Once you really start looking you will be amazed by what you see.  Some very tasteful and some just make me laugh.

Understated, almost hidden under some bushes

Neighbor down the street constructs these lovely little sculptures

Ted says this is better for peeing on than lying in unless of course there is a tempurpedic mattress and fan included

Crazy folks but I like that they are not afraid to be who they are

All sorts of things hang from this tree

This made me laugh, I remember my collection from piano lessons

Oh yes, it is Linden Hills after all

We’ve ask the phone company to stop sending us phone books at our apartment building several times.  Still, we get piles on our front steps.  After seeing what Jolis Paon did with her phone books I may be chasing after them to bring me more.

Artist, Jolis Paon caught my attention recently with her handmade dress constructed out of phonebook paper.

Paons says of the Paper Dress she designed and created for her Creative Processes class, “I pleated, stuck, sewed, and glued everything by hand.”

It’s amazing what you can do with simple resources when creativity is involved. Think of all the phonebooks that go to waste!

I love this video created by the Chicago Tribune that follows the creation of the highly anticipated public sculpture “Eye”, from Sparta, Wisconsin to downtown Chicago. The 30-foot eyeball, designed by Oak Park artist/sculptor Tony Tasset is on display from July 7 to October 31.

The “Eye,” modeled after one of the artist’s blue eyeballs, is in the final days of completion in the Loop’s Pritzker Park, at State and Van Buren Streets. Last week (JUNE 21), sections of the giant 30-foot fiberglass sphere arrived in carefully cut, expressway-friendly pieces via truck from their manufacturer, the Sparta, Wis.-based F.A.S.T. Corporation. Assembly on the white of the eye was completed last week and the sculpture’s striking blue iris was put in place Monday. The finished sculpture is scheduled for a public unveiling on July 7.

Barn swallows have made a nest in the corner of my future studio.  They have been so busy gathering sticks for their new home that I hate to break it to them that they will eventually have to move outside.   We also have a wood chuck that is enjoying the sandy surface with his paw prints tracking the interior.  Things are moving fast in spite of the torrential rains.  All of Gregg’s earth moving last week slid down the hill.

Barn Swallows Nest