its been a long long long time

Well this seems a good of a time if any to start this shit show back up being that we are all cooped up in our homes.  I hope everyone is doing well and staying healthy.  Just be prepared, the following will probably be a lot of blah blah blah, boring, snooze, hey listen to me, garbage!  I am really not sure if anyone really reads these things anymore. I need something to keep me sane so this is it.  My apologies if I don't address the elephant in the room. I get enough of that with the news and social media.

After some thought, I don't think I am going to go back in time to talk about the past.  I could. There would be so much to talk about.... but no one really cares about my problems at this moment.  So I think I will start posting things starting from this moment on. This will include crazy projects, studio time, and misc adventures with the Liz.  Let us see how long I will keep it going.

I guess to begin, only for framing,  I will talk this one time about what I will call "the time in between".  I left academia..... It is probably for the best. I realized that I just was having an internal conflict with formal education as a whole. So I left. Also, I was asked to leave. I will leave it at that.  For the most part it has been amazing.  I am getting paid more with the new gig (a post on that later) No emails in the middle of the night. No waking up worrying about students. No prepping all night for meetings and demos the next day. No squeezing in family time. No debilitating anxiety.  Honestly I really just couldn't see myself sustaining that for the rest of my life. Kudos to those who can.  Really.....I don't know how you do it.  All the teachers in the world should get paid more. Give them all the money. Seriously.

The biggest shift leaving academia has been giving myself time to heal mentally and physically. For a long time I was burning the candle at both ends while trying to light another candle, while figuring out how to make a candle, while trying to glue two candles together. You get the idea. I think I lost a lot of focus in the process. Abandoning people and projects for something that I didn't really want in the first place or that ultimately I lost passion for, but more than likely just wasn't really good at it (at least some people think that otherwise I would still have a job).  I hate to do it (fucking memes) but for me this sums up my entire academic career.

Thats enough of that garbage.  Moving on.

So now.... after the dust has settled, Liz and I have started a new/new to me life in New England. We actually really love it here (At least I do). While a little cold in the winter and mostly gray the rest of the year it really is an amazing place to live.  There are so many amazing things happening in Rhode Island not to mention that if you need to be near the water, which we do (Liz is secretly a mermaid) then Rhode Island is the best.

So here goes:

While trying not to go out for anything we have been using instacart to have groceries delivered.  While looking for flour to do some stress baking the only place that had it was our local restaurant supply house.  I ordered a 50 pound bag...... and now we are a bakery!  Recently our friend (Barbara Seidenath!!!.....the best!) gave us some sourdough starter. So it is off to the races. We have made bread, pretzels, bagels, cookies, pie crust...... SO MANY BREADY THINGS.  I have been trying to grow the starter using whole wheat baking flour so we can spread the love.  Recently,  after posting my plans to bake my way out of this mess on instagram someone asked to do a trade!

ISCO spirts (Industrious, Spirit Company) makes vodka......but now they now make hand sanitizer! I guess there is some part of the distilling process that can be converted to something that can be converted into hand sanitizer.  So while they make vodka they can also make sanitizer.  Instead of another small business going under they have continued to grow by getting a contract to supply local businesses and health care providers with vodka....I mean hand sanitizer. They have a touch-less "to go" window (everything gets sprayed with alcohol).  If you buy a bottle of vodka you get a free hand sanitizer!  What a great thing.

So here are some photos of everything I mentioned above including some amazing copper stills from the distillery.  Also I 3D printed some cookie cutters.

 

metalwerx brooch and earrings.

The last few months have been kind of brutal. 

Basically when Liz and I came home from vacation there was a "for sale" sign in front of our apartment building.  We had less than a month to find a new apartment. We probably looked at 20 apartments before finding one that was not total garbage. So we packed up the studio, rented a new studio space, packed up the apartment and rented a new apartment all in the span of about nine days. Two weeks prior, our property in Virginia caught on fire and basically has to be completely remodeled.....again. The tenant was burning incense which caught a dry plant on fire which in turn caught a window frame on fire which spread to the ceiling which spread to the..... you get the idea. Thank goodness no one was hurt. (photos at the bottom if you are into that sort of thing)

We have insurance but it is not going to cover the entire cost of renovation. There are a lot of structural issues that were revealed when we ripped out all of the fire damage. There are a lot of super old, compromised joists that were under layers and layers of hundred year old plaster, plaster lath and drywall. The brick pockets holding up said joists are falling apart being that the 100 year old mortar has turned to sand. We have a pretty serious termite infestation....the list goes on and on. 

On top of all that school started, which has required a lot of prep being that two of my three classes have been almost completely reinvented. Oh yeah and we are down a car (our ten year old SUV totally died on us). We donated it to the SPCA. So getting around has been a little tough. All of this has basically brought me to a screeching halt on all of my "creative research projects"/art. 

I guess when the pendulum swings one way in your favor it tends to swing back eventually.  

On a up note, I am working on a very simple, parametric brooch project for a fundraising event.  It is the first time I have used grasshopper to make unique objects the are all based in the same design aesthetic but all unique. These will all be 3D printed in DMLS (Direct metal laser sintering) stainless. The last DMLS stainless print I made was super chunky and had a not so great coarse texture. This was probably six years ago. I have seen some very nice prints since so fingers crossed. My hope is that the pin stem hole will not close up in the print process. 

The GIF below explains how this works. Basically I can change the number of points in the voronoi randomly and control the number of cells with the proximity, shape and length of the curve that controls the culling.  Every movement or reduction in points will create a new unique shape. 

Very happy with these Zbrush textured rings