There’s some great generative work posted over at Soulwire the online blog and portfolio of Justin Windle. I’m inspired by the piece below to take up Marquetry

Matthias Pliessnig has been getting a lot of attention lately for his bent wood furniture and sculpture. And with good reason. For me his work exemplifies a perfect combination of a data driven computer aesthetic with the human touch you only get from hand crafted items.

Matthias first creates a 3d wireframe. He then uses a CNC machine to output a form. Finally he bends wood around the form to create his sculptures.

Last summer Pliessnig built and sailed his own 35-pound, translucent boat constructed of wood strips and covered with fabric, an experience that inspired a new direction for his furniture. Using thin, steam-bent strips of ash and oak constructed into undulating, geometric networks, he’s created a series of dynamic, curving seats that fit the natural contours of the body. Though they’re sturdy, there’s a pleasing sense of flexibility about the pieces—something we don’t normally associate with furniture made of wood.
—via American Craft Magazine

Visit his studio to see more.

Spammers put random words together to beat email filters. With the right frame of mind some of it is pretty good. Makes you wonder if the internet has achieved self awareness.

I found Italian studio ToDo’s Spamghetto project recently on flickr. According to them, a quick glance at spam mails gives fresh inspirations, bizzare subjects. So much so that they fed over 2000 junk mail subjects into generative software to produce an endlessly variable wallpaper pattern.

I want to do a wall of my studio with this so bad.

Nora, Eric Noonan and I cohosted a poetry reading at my studio featuring poets Sara Larsen and Jason Morris. We hope to make this a regular event either at my studio or by roping in other local artists.

Sara Larsen reading

Jason Morris post reading

I’m just getting started on the second piece in a new series called Fixed Landscapes.

Here’s the drawing it’s based on.

And here’s where it stands now. I’m adding in the landscape before overlaying the drawing.

One of my favorite artists right now is Maya Lin. Nora and I went to see her recent exhibit Systematic Landscapes at the DeYoung then a few months later we saw her talk through City Arts and Lectures.

She seems to effortlessly create emotion-laden yet simple forms. Taking seemingly sterile data she’s able to humanize it giving it a quiet depth.

“Every human being is interested in two kinds of worlds: the Primary, everyday world which he knows through his senses, and a Secondary world or worlds which he not only can create in his imagination, but which he cannot stop himself creating.” —W.H. Auden

The everyday aspect to my work is the craft: the act of carving, the fetishizing of the tools and materials. There’d be no way to carry through a 6 month project if the process didn’t fascinate me. An ongoing intellectual component of my work is the concept of alterity (otherness). Our relationship to the other, both culturally and physically.

I’ll be trying to tease out some of my ideas and my love of craft in this blog by exploring my inspirations, tools and showing my work as it progresses.