Installation for "Denied and Underexposed"

I have been hoping to do a large-scale installation for a long time. I finally found the opportunity with the Denied and Underexposed Art Show that happened Friday night in the Kress building downtown.

The Kress is basically one giant room that stretches all the way through its city block from the famous Dexter Ave to Monroe Street. Because of this, I decided to create a ceiling plane that would offer a sense of intimacy and enclosure that could not be found elsewhere in the space. My first decision was materiality. I quickly picked card stock paper mainly because that's all I could afford but also for its potential to reflect and diffuse light. One intention for the installation was for it to create juxtaposition between itself and the space. Against the Kress' strict structural rhythm and derelict finishes would be the prestine-ness of white paper arranged in an expressive, organic form. I experimented with card stock sheets using cuts and folds to create a module with shape, structure, and opening.

I decided on a pattern that creates a smooth curvature, a defined crease, and a system of notching to hold the pieces together. I created four iterations of the module pattern that vary in the degree of curvature and consequently scale of opening. I used 390 of these paper modules to create a 14'X16' surface.

  

I took on a little more than I should have, which I have a tendency to do, and spent every spare moment of this last week trying to finish the piece. Thanks to a couple nights of less than 3 hours of sleep, some vacation hours from work, and the help of my friends Mike and Scott, I actually finished in time. The show was a blast, and I'm already looking to the next opportunity to do another installation.

A Temporary Move

Today we are moving from our loft apartment to a little rental house in a nearby historic neighborhood.  We hate to leave downtown, but we will be back... soon, I hope.  In fact, this move is the repercussion of our trying to buy a space downtown to turn into a live/work -- Unit A.

It boasted 14' ceilings, fantastic brick walls, and a ton of well-detailed windows to the sidewalk. So sure it would work out, we decided to go ahead and put in our sixty day notice to end our apartment's lease.  I even did some architectural photography of our apartment for the owner to aid them in finding a buyer. Our plans for Unit A were thwarted, however, when the owner decided to increase their asking price by fifty grand.  It was a fun design project, nevertheless, and eventually it could work out.  Here are some drawings of how we would have turned Unit A into a tight 2 bedroom condo with a small retail space to the street (the kids would even have a lofted play space):

After Unit A fell through, we had to find another place to live while we await the right opportunity to arise downtown.  Brooke quickly found a small, cute square house in Cloverdale, still biking distance from work and walking distance from some restaurants and shops.  Better yet, it has lower rent, no lease requirement, and no deposit.  I'm hoping this is part of God's plan for us to find our place in downtown, but I am trying to be patient.  In the meantime, I am really going to miss our casual family walks to 2Cities church, the Riverfront, the Biscuits baseball stadium, and all of the fountains around downtown.