coincidence

just an odd interesting addition.
the main character in "dante 01" is named st. george.
he is celebrated as a saint and martyr on april 23rd...today.
hmmm.

imagine

walking home tonight from the imagine film festival i started seeing the harbingers of queen's day...chalked areas on the sidewalks marked with the word "bezet" meaning that that spot has been claimed for the citywide open market that takes place on koninginnedag.

imagine is formerly known as the afff or the amsterdam fantasy film festival is a ten day festival of fright, gore, fantasy and exhilaration...i tried to go to my first film last night, "let the right one in"(highly recommended and thus sold out.damn.). got tickets for tonight and saturday. say dante 01 tonight...a very intense french film by marc caro(writer and director) who also directed my favorite movies: city of lost children and delicatessen. the film was visually stunning...the story a little bit less so but would have been better had i gone with a group... cause i leaves a lot for pondering and discussion. kind of a futuristic, messianic, creation story. definitely recommended.

this after a day of bustling about the studio building things and organizing still.

yesterday was a treat...in the morning we went to den haag(the hague) to the gemeente museum. an incredible complex of buildings designed by berlage with some prismatic lighting tiles restored and created by the vrij glas foundation!!
anyway, we went to see the exhibition recording the past forty years of glass from the rietveld. it was a good show. the rest of the museum is phenomenal!!! the basement is one big wonderkammer and the glass collection is incredible...here's a fopglas or trick cup that i've seen in books before and tried to recreate. seeing it in person i'm inspired to try again.

and here is a piece by durk valkema called "glass city" made for his graduation exhibition in the early years of the rietveld...in the background from left to right are durk, scott and andrea.



on the way home from the museum, we passed a sight that before now i'd only heard of....the fields of tulips in bloom. so much more luscious and amazing than i could have ever expected or than these pictures represent.

decadence and work

This past week was incredible.
i mentioned earlier that Scott and Andrea were here.
i should do right by them and start with scott's arrival.
he came almost straight from murano where he'd been for ten days researching an article on the state of the glass industry in murano.
he came with bottles of fragolino...a lovely wine with a subtle flavor of strawberries...illegal in many parts of the the e.u. because the grape they are made from are an american varietal that is resistent to a grape parasite and thus has been known to transmit these devastating parasites to other vinyards.

anyway we started our week off by drinking a few bottles of that stuff.

then the work started...friday saturday sunday and today good long days of oval rondels for the commission. and just to prove that i've actually been doing something here's this:




hard work begets decadent nourishment here with my friends in amsterdam.
the first day at the instruction of anna i made a spectacular "plumenspekenfleskarey"
for those of you who don't speak swedish transliteration, that is pork tenderloin stuffed with prunes.
the next evening andrea made lentils with mint sauce to go with racks of lamb that i grilled at the studio:


of course, there is always time for a beer after a full day of working...here's durk about to enjoy his...in a glass i made last year.


after a successful week at the studio we enjoyed a spectacular dinner at our reliable staple...the amsterdam cafe housed in an old machine station a beautiful old building almost completely open inside...almost as spectacular as the company toasting our successful week with a nice bottle of bubbly:



new favorite whisky: Caol Ila
new favorite dessert: lemon sorbet with vodka

some fun vids to check out that i made this week:


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VWNXCwaQ5Kw

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CHZgCM8FTcc

New or Re-newed focuses for this week are:
the tree house, Imagine or the AFFF...hope to succeed in seeing several films, taking Torde Boontje's work: transglass to new levels....i feel like this stuff was novel and interesting but could be taken much further and still keep the simplicity of design and concept as well as stay away from complexity in production...we'll see...i'll post images of what i come up with.

staring into fires...

today was a wild one.
gray and cloudy skies greeted me too early.
but it was off to the studio.
i spent the morning blowing glass with Scott Benefield and Andrea Spencer, dear friends freshly engaged and currently engaged in the production of a large architectural installation.
we made flat oval plates all morning...experimenting with color combinations from a furnace with molten blue and several additions of bars of color.
it was so nice to be using glass again...my first time since i've been back here.
refreshing to focus on clean gathers and fluid efficient movements.
bright hot fires burning before me.
at ten til one i jumped on my bicycle and raced across the north sea canal and through the edges of amsterdam for my blacksmithing lesson. a free day as bert was busy with clients. so daniel, my fellow student and i took turns masticating iron with our unskilled hands. staring at the black wreathed fire in the forge i danced with the metal finding the right heats to make some traditional tapered rings and then loosening up to slowly meticulously smash a chunk of iron into an undulating leaf thin and delicate. pictures will come soon.
before i new it the afternoon had been burnt up and i jumped back on my bike and retraced my steps under the emerging sun...back to the studio, with burning thighs, to do some clean up and organizing in the work shop and then to take on my last firey challenge...grilling two whole racks of lamb for dinner. a feast with lentils and mint sauce and a nice spanish wine.

three fires...three crafts ascending into art.

"a goddamn beautiful day!!"

not sure what to title this one

well i just really like this photo...it's on the desk i'm making in the tree house.


so tomorrow will be my second lession from bert meister...the local blacksmith and metal smith...just across the street from where i'm living. the business has been in his family for three generations...and he's not sure what's gonna happen next so he decided to teach some classes. it's a nice shop with a couple of anvils. the goal of the class is to make a damascus knife...






i was telling durk about this amazing jazz quartet that i happened upon last year when i was here....and then last sunday i found that they were playing a concert at the "bimhuis" in the museikgebouw...this amazing concert space on the north sea canal behind central station that is a cantilevered room with one wall that is all glass and looks over the city. above is a bit of an improv by Narcissus...this time as a quintet.

ugh it takes way too long to upload to blogger.
so the rest will be youtube links.

anyway. there are tons of amazing things happening...been doing a lot of welding projecs, organizing durks workshop, cleaning the rain gutters(no small feat...you should see them...i fit inside them), lots of biking.
spend the the afternoon at the rietveld academy...gonna spend a a day a week there helping out in their glass department. as well as getting to know the campus and students...cause i have aspirations. lots of jazz as above...if you look closely you can see the train passing in the background.
glassblowing gonna start tomorrow...working with scott benefield and his fiance andrea to produce material for a large architectural installation for a hospital in ireland.
then there is this...there are amazing machines for everything in holland.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7kP3ZTna0uk





this one's for matthew...this was empty a few nights ago..an old tram depot.

Week's end

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i learned something wonderful from my friend alex, she told me that the dutch say that the clouds are their mountains.

she also told me how to explain their initial distance the dutch say that they are "watching the cat climb out of the tree" i think i'm almost at the base of the trunk if not on the ground yet.

Zondag

Hell, i've got to get to bed earlier than this...this is crazy...while you all back home and further are just finishing dinner, it's 2:30 in the morning. yeesh.
anyway, what a wonderful day.
started with swedish pancakes with fresh vt. maple syrup...from the howe/ferro conglomeration.
mmmmso good. oh yeah and tart strawberries.
then spent the day walking and made my way to arti, the local artist collective where i saw this piece by an amazing Austrian artists...well it was amazing til dinner but here it is:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZGtlbn0BJuc

so that was pretty great.
then i went to hortus botanicus to see a piece by my friend Petra Groen.
interesting, provocative title.


"on the origin of species" by Petra Groen

also spent time in their butterfly house...some of my favorite insects...lepidopterans.
this one is bigger than my hand:



skipped over to de engelbewaarder for a few beers and jazz...had the beers...missed the jazz...had to get home.

then i returned for the climax of the day:
dinner for mirette and milan

14 of us eating a 4kilo salmon that durk cooked. amazing artists and thinkers...amazing converations. incredible food.
met this artist, academic: christine who's family has collected art for ages and who blew gebhard's piece out of the water: years ago she made a film in a similar manner only it was for the use of 35 projektors....and the subject matter was way more interesting given the presentation process: rain
unfortunately...the piece was never realized cause the venue fell through.

what a day though.
so much to think about...so many new people...good people...great people.

Great excitement: knitting and more

so i finished my first knitting project today. yep. knitting. i knit a scarf...a wonderful loose knit scarf out of the finest polywire...well actually it was the shittiest polywire. it's a long story, but in short, i became fascinated with it. so fascinated that i rolled it up into the nice balls that you see in your grandmothers knitting basket. i packed it into my luggage and in brought it with me to amsterdam. and yes tonight and last night i taught myself to knit and knit a scarf. tadaa:



i plan this to be part of an installation when i get home including a fence charger and then perhaps expanded with the addition of other knitted things. umm...comfy...no.
so that 's the excitement in my life...oh yeah yesterday was pretty fun too. check it out:

hot pot change part 1

hot pot change part 2

hot pot change part 3

what a great experience to behold.
as was the afternoon sun today:

settling in...amsterdam

i arrived this morning after a unexpectedly sleepless flight.
so odd to be back and feel this strange comfort in connection with my surroundings.
little by little i will turn that into comfort with the masses surrounding me.
but it's good to be "home" in my tree house apartment 91-and-a-half on the belamystraat



there is an interesting tradition of tiling around entranceways here...interesting in that the imagery is always quite impressive and iconic i think.
here's an example.



i'm exhausted.