Earth and sky complement each other so well
they kiss on the horizon.

Cattail marsh.  Norman, 2012.

Glass ball on stump. Norman, 2012.

School starts again 5 days.  I have a major sinking feeling when I think about it. It is not that I don’t want to start again, it is just that I didn’t accomplish all that I wanted to during the break. I didn’t make one thing. And I definitely didn’t come close to finishing Lab Star.

But that’s ok, I guess, because, I read a lot.  And I started many little projects. I also watched many movies, including (my favorites in bold):

• Bill Cunningham New York
• Troll Hunter
• Page One (inside the new york times)
• The Names of Love
• The Fighter
• The Extra Man
• Power and Terror: Noam Chomsky
• Limitless
• The Cove
• Aeon Flux (possibly the worst movie ever made?!)
• Vanishing of the Bees
• The Way We Get By
• The Philosopher Kings
• The Trip
• Sweet Grass
• Damn! Is The Price Of Fame Too Damn High?

At the end of this break I have to let it go, it doesn’t matter what I did or didn’t do.  I can’t measure my success by finished objects, if I did I would just be failing all the time.

“The real beauty about time is
that you cannot waste it in advance.
The next year, the next day, the next hour
are lying ready for you,
as perfect, as unspoiled
as if you had never wasted or misapplied
a single moment in all your life.
You can turn over a new leaf every hour
if you choose.” (Arnold Bennett)

I thought I might write a post recapping the year, but then I couldn’t really remember it …

The Fall semester is a huge blur for me.  After the Twitter Heart rush in October I struggled to finish the semester, as I had no motivation or energy left for school work.   I slept more than I ever have during a semester at school.  Even as I tried to stay up and work, my body just caved, I slept  8+ hours most nights.

I was totally uninspired. //

Finally the semester finished on December 15th, and due to the nature of my job (student union food services) I was also off work.  A true vacation.  But as I am demented, I have been feeling so guilty about resting I can hardly enjoy the time off.  To escape the guilt I have been sleeping even more, which only begets more guilt.

This past week I have been trying to fix my sleep schedule and work on a list of projects >> namely Lab Star.  A didactic arcade game console that presents a series of videos and games related to the use of rats in scientific research.  But instead of making gains on this project, I just keep reading and researching the subject.  I cannot bring myself to actually MAKE any tangible progress.  It is probably 50% done, here is a shot of the cabinet (in progress):

I feel so strange.  Perhaps this is just what Winter feels like?

I want to finish the Twitter Heart recap I started last month:

Saturday October 8th, after one of the hardest weeks of my life, it was time.  BUT FIRST, we installed some last minute pvc piping to conceal the cords running from the computer to the sculpture.  At 3pm, just hours before the show, it was finally set up.  What a great feeling to see it hanging in the gallery:

3pm: My anticipation for the event was building.  To distract myself I went shopping.  I bought the dress I wore that night, it had flowers all over.  Also, I wore a ridiculous bracelet that had a HUGE heart charm.  Plus heart earrings.  Yea, my accessories were out of control.

6pm: I climbed a ladder to turn on the sculpture.  It was working, EXCEPT for one of the frames wasn’t moving.  My heart sank, it was working when I left it at 3pm!  But I knew there was nothing I could do, so I went and got a beer.  15 minutes later that “broken” frame started running again.  My heart sang!  I got another beer.

7pm: My family arrived, nearly 30 immediate and extended family members… then ALL my friends.  It was perhaps the best Saturday night I have EVER HAD!  So much love and support, I nearly died right then and there I was so happy:

A lot of Bagley boys in this picture! Sonja and Anna too.

Sonja and Jaymin looking scared for my sanity.

My dad sabotaging a cute picture with his faux drinking habits.

Josiah and Peoria!

TIFFANY! She won an award that night for a cast iron sculpture she made.

What an awesome night, and what an awesome show.  There was a TON of art, music, fashion, cool looking people, yea it was a pretty hopping place.  More pictures from the evening:

LOVE THIS photo! Compliments of www.msawyerphotography.com

This kid was running around Twitter Heart, chasing the movement – it was really cool to see his response.

Crazier than I ever imagined it would be, here are the highlights:

Wednesday 10am-10pm: we hung the sculpture and finished wiring.  After hanging it, the individual frames could be removed and put back individually.  We removed the frames for finishing touches.  My dad, mom and brother made all this possible.  Friends at the gallery helped with providing tools, advice, ladders, etc.

Sometime on Wednesday I FRIED my wireless chips.  10:30pm-Midnight: My mom stayed up with me while I banged my head on her table trying to bring the chips back to life.  2am: I updated the code to run without wireless chips.

Thursday we moved the sculpture.  That’s right, we moved it.

Thursday Isaac sanded for 4-HOURS.  I was amazed, and thankful, because it really needed it.

Thursday I thought about the fact that this sculpture was no longer wireless.

45 minute video feed from Thursday afternoon: http://justin.tv/privatehq/b/297587177

Uhh, this part of the week is muddy, what else happened?  Oh yea, all of the sudden I couldn’t get enough power to my motors.  TROUBLESHOOTING TROUBLESHOOTING TROUBLE SHOOTING MYSELF IN THE FACE.  Call to my professor, “please help me, i’m screwed”, he laughed and said “i’ve been there”.  His sentiments actually made me feel better.  So, back to troubleshooting and a frantic trip to radio shack, the store associate said, “are you okay? you are talking really fast.”

Back home (my mom’s house) I looked in the mirror, I really needed to shave my mustache.

Friday morning I cried, the pressure was building, my hope fading fast.  In a phone call my dad reminded me that participating in the arts is a privilege, his encouragement gave me a boost.  To remember: keep your view of the world big, there are many things happening beyond your miniature personal universe, art is pure joy, perfection is not the point.

Friday 10am: I plugged in an additional power source and something amazing happened, it worked perfectly:

Friday 11am: It stopped working.  Friday 11am: PANIC.   Friday 11:15pm: My dad tells me to breathe.  Friday Noon: My mom feeds me.  Friday Noon: PANIC, drink coke.  Friday 1pm: Make the decision to run each frame individually.  Friday Afternoon: rewrite code.  Friday 2pm: decide to conceal wires running from sculpture to computer with PVC pipe, my dad offers to buy PVC and cut it to length.   Friday 6pm: walk away from the sculpture, accepting that what can be done, is almost done.  Final PVC install planned for Saturday.

Friday night: I can’t remember.

To be continued …

Andrew drove me to Tulsa on Tuesday Oct 4th, installation due date was Friday Oct 7th.  Twitter Heart was packaged safely in the trunk, with a ton of supplies packed in the backseat.  Oh yea, and a load of laundry.  I had NO CLEAN CLOTHES, it was sad.  I spent the night at my dads.  Well, sort of …

Upon arrival in Tulsa I went to dinner with my dad and brother John.  While eating I discussed some of the pending items I still had to finish up.  I also mentioned some of the problems I had been having.  My dad cleverly imagined solutions to them all.  This meant some RE-construction Tuesday night, PLUS ALL the finishing touches I still had to finish.  It was madness.  My dad and brothers stayed up past midnight helping me finish, after they went to bed I stayed up with some final tweaks.  I slept for 2 hours.  I was running on pure adrenaline, not that cheap 75% adrenaline they sell in Mexico.

My dad’s whiteboard offers advice and inspiration to the weary.  One snippet in particular hit home that night:

Thanks to my friends and teachers, and especially my friend Jessica, and double-especially to my family, it happened.  Twitter Heart came together and arrived safe and sound on the gallery floor Wednesday morning:

But just when I thought everything was coming together, everything began to fall apart.

Yet as my daily disasters took their toll, my family rallied around me, saved Twitter Heart from what would have been a sad fate, and guaranteed a successful Saturday show.  The story of my family’s effort trumps most memories of the show.  Their love and sacrifice was a humble reminder of what it means to love, what it means to be a family.

To be continued …

The two weeks leading up to the installation were exhausting!  I lost track of the days, slept very little, skipped classes, and FINALLY asked my friends for help.  Jessica S. stepped in and saved my butt, threading the latex strings, sanding PVC, and cleaning up my blood (among other things).  Yes, you read that blood-part right: I slit the palm of my hand with a razor blade and blood was gushing everywhere, Jessica cleaned it up and then patched my wounds:

I met Jessica during foundation courses; she always had extraordinary projects that required a freakish amount of determination to finish. We have been friends ever since, and I am so glad because she saves me not only from razor blade wounds, but from embarrassing myself at art proms:

I started calling Twitter Heart, “twitter fart” at some point in September.  Around that time I was really down on myself and the project, the nick name kept me smiling.

>> Between classes and shifts at work, I was only able to work on the project at night.  Literally, the earliest I could start on Twitter Heart was 9pm most nights.  Apparently this is the norm for 99% of artists.  So …. anyways …. that sucks!  Working late, from 9pm-3am for a few weeks straight begins to take its toll.  Compound lack of sleep with anxiety, and damn, that shit sucks!  Notice the onslaught of profanity, it explains the situation well.  In order to stay alive during this period I drank a lot of red bull and coffee, plus I ate any and all the comfort food I craved.

Not surprisingly, I got really sick and was confined to my bed for two days.  I could have/should have been in bed for 4 days, but on the 3rd day I forced myself to work on Twitter Heart, it was ugly.  Er, clarification: I WAS UGLY! JUST LOOK AT MY FACE:

The sad part is, my face never fully recovered from being sick.  I feel better, but my face still looks like a depressed pillow.

One frame down, 11 to go …

During the course of this project my mom (among others), kept saying this project was ambitious (and I don’t think they meant it was ambitious in a good way).  Per the usual I rolled my eyes, but when I started making the frames my eyes rolled into the back of my head and this song became my personal anthem: