What we did find out so far is that our site is another riverfront site, this one across the river from Philadelphia in Camden, New Jersey. Camden, hmmm, why does that sound familiar, you might be asking yourself. It’s because of this.

At least when we go for a site visit for the analysis phase this Friday I can stock up on my crack supply.

After seeing all the stars at center court, Lori and I wandered around the grounds and saw some portions of a few other matches. The highlight for me was the discovery of my new favorite tennis player Maria Kirilenko of Russia. I didn't get many good shots of her, so check out her Web site and the wonderful 'shots' pages. I've already applied for her to be my mail-order bride. Lori is not pleased.

While in New York, Lori and I stayed with her aunt and uncle in the Upper East Side. Lori's uncle is a minister at a presbyterian church and has a sweet setup. I always feel like I'm in the Royal Tannembaunms when we stay at their insanely large Manhattan house, no, castle.

And since New York is home to some of the best graffiti in the world, I thought I'd share one of my favorite pieces.

Boom, blue light on a shelf.

What? No wires? What a bulky, semi-portable, needless creation. Why thank you, I'd respond to such a statement. How'd I do it? Glad you asked. With these simple items: An antique blue jar with lid, a 9V battery, a 9V battery clip, three blue LED lights and three 330 Ohm resistors. Little solder here and there... and that's pretty much it. Originally I wanted a switch in there, but then I got lazy and decided one can just snap on/off the battery connections. Then I figured out that once glued in it wouldn't be possible to unsnap the connections, so I had to add the switch later, which made it more difficult than just going through with it from the beginning. Lesson learned. Little hot glue later and wham, magic. Add jar and done.

Oh, what will he do next!?

Which brings me back to the dumpster. Electronics parts can be expensive, so why not see what sorts of things I can scrounge for a little project that was mulling around in my brain for a few weeks. In this case, I totally hit the jackpot, what I spied was indeed and ancient piece of electronics junk that, because of its size and its suspicious looking knobs, buttons, swtiches and the like would probably not make it through airport security, I quickly looted for parts.

After returning home I purchased the requisite bulbs (in this case special "display case" bulbs), a small wooden craft box from Michael's, a can of spray paint and a dimmer switch. The result? This kick-ass light.

The overall design/build was pretty easy. A cord off a random power supply was purchased from a local junk store for $0.90, end lopped off and wires exposed. Positive end was wired to the sweet looking, nice sounding (albeit entirely superfluous) switch, which was wired to the dimmer switch. Then, all off the light sockets (purchased for a pittance from MN legend Ax-Man surplus supply) were wired parallel with all negative ends connected right to the negative end of the power supply. Details (sort of) can be seen here. Details aren't great, and part of the problem is that I described it wrong. Positive power source (seen at bottom center with orange cap) is wired to dimmer, dimmer to switch, swtich to lamps, lamps to negative power supply. Simple. Plug in and enjoy.

The original idea of this light was just an interesting ambient light source that looked really cool at low levels because the filaments are so long and cool looking that it's cool to just have on at really low levels where the filaments just glow a light, cool orange. This is really hard to photograph but here is the best example. The total bonus is that, when cranked up high, it actually provided really bright, beautiful light. Again, not great, but see here. Other interesting thing of note is these sweet feet I scrounged from the dumpster trip.

And now to field the inevitable question: "A wooden box for electronics? Won't it catch fire?"

Okay, here we go, I DON'T KNOW! Only time, extensive testing and a fire extinguished on hand will tell. I ran it at a very high, bright level the other day for a couple hours (a couple becuase I completely forgot about it, which was, after all, the reasoning behind the test) and the only adverse effect was that the light sockets were moderately warm to the touch. I though this was safe enough so sealed the box and that's that. I've been thinking about adding some holes to the bottom and a couple to the back to allow air to move through and cool a little bit. But a fire extinguisher will work too.

One last disclaimer before I go: This was not my invention. I just made some of my own design adjustments. I got the idea from a kick-ass site called Instructables. Check it out.

And I realize that Lori is out there trying to create a big hullaballoo about The Great Beard Experiment of 2006 and attempting to drum up a whole anti-beard contingent to barrage me with clean-shaven propaganda, but let me tell you a little something; people like my beard , I like my beard , and until you find a chicken wing wedged in there somewhere, the beard is staying.

BOARD

After those strip-field models that I told you about earlier we were given our studio site and told to do an analysis study based on an in-class fieldtrip to the site lasting two hours.

The Challenge:
The site is about 4800' x 1200' or, five million, seven-hundred-sixty thousand square feet. It is just north of downtown Philadelphia on the Delaware river. It is the site of a former shipping company. Boats used to moor against the jetty and cargo would be unloaded; shipping containers left in the yard to be hauled off by semis, bags of cocoa on pallets stored in a 900', climate-controlled warehouse, or either placed on railcars to be riden to major cities in the northeast and midwest. The site is large and flat, spotted with buildings, has rail running into it, and is severed in one corner by a section of N95. The majority of the site did not occur naturally, it was piered and filled in the early 1900s. It is a constructed environment with only an industrial past. It is a barre, blank slate. Or is it?

The site is bound on one end by the river, the opposite by the freeway, one side by a waste plant nearby, and on the other side a senior living center, a prison, and beyond those the historic Pennypack Park.

We were also told that the next steps would be to design a miniscule 60' x 60' garden on the site, and then to design a full-site park.

The Result:
Well, what can you do? I traversed as much of the site as I could during the brief visit, taking pictures and notes about things I found and found interesting on the site. The assignment included requisites of three panoramas and three cross sections of them, a plan, material studies, and five detailed sections with photo montages. My board shows the plan at the top bordered on the left with a material study of Permeability, on the right a material study of Emergence. The Permeability study looks from the breakdown of the impermeable asphalt to smaller and smaller pieces, to the sandy dirt found in remote corners of the site, and is represented in the plan as, dark grey->light grey : impermeable->permeable. The Emergence study looks at the plants that have been able to inhabit this inhospitable site since the corportion has been dismantled, it also looks at how these plants have found root in the cracks of the pavement and hasten and further its breakdown. Plant populations, dark red->light red : dense plants->less dense plants. Where the red and grey overlap the plants have infultrated the pavement. Over each photo is a symbol representing the particular study; these symbols can be found on the plan showing their location.

On the plan can also be found one vertical and two horizontal white lines. These are the major cross sections and can seen montaged with panoramas in the white river space below the plan. The short orange lines on the plan are the detailed cross sections and can also be seen with montages on the river below. The bold orange line is the site boundaries, the blocks are the buildings, and the rest is the surrounding area.

The major cross sections are pretty straightforward and I'll just take time to explain one of the detailed sections. The topmost montage is the mid-left orange line on the plan and looks at an area where plants have settled and have penetrated into the pavement near the pier. Along the cross section line, which is hard to see at this size, is a horizontal series of photos showing the surface condition gradient, plants to impervious surface, the thin strips to the left are more pervious, the progressive solidity of the surface thicker photos. Below these I've used inverted images of grasses to represent the amount of liquid that is able to penetrate the corresponding surface condition. This is also used to mirror the actual plant material that is able to grow at each particular condition.

Finished size: 24" x 36".

So, for those of you who've asked, that's what I've been working on since those stupid strip fields. We've now been working on our 60' x 60' garden plots for two weeks. I'm struggling with quite a few aspects of my design at the moment. I'll try to get something out about that soon because I'm sure talking about what I'm trying to do is very different that what I've done, and I'm as interested in the choas that gets me somewhere as you might be.

Peace out.

And yes, this is only one of my classes.
And yes, it is 4 a.m.

So the project we've been working on since we've been back is a little project called "strip fields." Although each 502 studio (first year: 5, second studio: 02) has a different location of study, different foci due to the specific critic (teachers are called critics, apparently they don't teach us anything, they are just critical of everything we due), and different assignments throughout the year, apparently each 502 studio for the past 10 years has started with the strip fields project. The idea is this: take a 8" x 8" white paper base, take 4 - 2" x 8" strips of black paper and manipulate them with two of the four following rules applied across a single plate: move, slide, or rotate; tear; cut; fold. First make forty different plates. Then, be criticized. From the ones that are working, take the specific rules from a plate (e.g., cut move) and make a set of thirty of these. Afterwards arrange the thirty in a matrix light to dark, rough to smooth, etc., with armatures moving in different directions when one's discrete rules have changes (e.g., angle of cuts change). Then, be criticized. From the armature that was working the best create a progression of 5-8 plates that show even steps from 1 to 2, 2 to 3, etc. Then make 5-8 3D models of these plates. My models were ridiculous. They took me about 10 hours each. Suffice it to say, I only finished three models. I'll post some pictures as soon as I can get Meghan to put down that damn baby and teach me how again. Let me tell you what, kid, no matter how new and cute you are, I'm still the favorite. Get used to it.

Thankfully there's some amusement amidst the abuse.

Things are getting settled here so far. I spent the weekend cleaning my studio and my apartment and just getting settled back into Philly before the start of a new semester. Luckily we didn't have to change studio desks, as the rumors had led us all to believe, so I got to keep my kick ass desk with the window. Well, the desk isn't the great but the window is, as there are only three in the whole studio and two for our first year half of the floor. The semester has started out pretty much the way it ended. Day 1 we were given an assignment that was purt-near impossible to finish by our next meeting on Wednesday, even though we had Tuesday off, and which will normally be a full day of class, so this will be interesting to see how things move forward. We had to make 40 of these weird little collage things and now we have to make 30 more by Friday, and we've got a frickin' 6 hour computer class tomorrow. Gonna be another late night tomorrow. Well, there's a funny story I'd like to tell, but I need to figure out how to make links again so it will have to wait until next time. So come back, jerks.

I think I've missed this whole past week, which is a total waste. I was obsessed with trying to figure out how to post pictures that I lost sight of the opportunity to document the experiences I was going through, for better or for worse... which is what this is supposed to be all about, really. Yes?

Yes. This week was pretty cool. I'm not sure what they called Week 4 of the Summer Institute, but I call it Adventure Week. Day 1 we went to the Wiccahisson Valley, which is, incidentally, spelt wrong (so don't Google it), and a really neat place... yes the best I've got right now is "neat." We hiked through the woods and identified trees, shrubs, and the herbaceous layer; herbaceous basically means poison ivy (Rhus toxicodendro {italicized}, dumbass jerk!). We were all assigned a plant in one of the preceding categories and had to speak about it in the field. Mine being Quercus alba {italicised} i.e., white oak. Glorious tree.

Day 2. Valley Forge. Home of George Washington’s winter camp, year, 1777, +- a year. History is not my strong suit. Sorry, Pops. Great variety of stone and plant life, by elevation (and the deer browse line's a bitch!); learned an extensive amount of plants by given name, Latin name, and seeing the damn thing.

Day 5. Drunk... ooops... fill in later days 3–5. Had too much fun at Sally's B-day party, tired. Played darts, mostly won... lost a few, had a kick with some new friends; Adam, Doug, Sally, Jen, and quite a few jerks who aren't in are program who turned out to be pretty cool... who knew... palled up with the T.A. of our Media class (drawing) so hopefully will get an easy 'A', but unlikely... still working on the graphite skill...

Until we meet again...

So now here we are, Week 2, Studio, which basically involves investigating a site, drawing it, surveying it (I learned how to triangulate terrain based on a single known length; incidentally, the English used this same method to plot the entire country on India, golly!), create representational drawings investigating layers or phenomena that one is interested in, making models, etc.

All these things take time to examine, to interpret, to represent; there is extensive trial and error, what works, what doesn't. Now I look back on that first week longingly. Oh, if I could go home and 9. Hell, I'd even take 11:30. Monday, Day 1, class started at 9 in the morning as usual, only this time I left class, or "studio" as desgin grad students call it (get with it, jerks), at 1 in the morning on Tuesday. But I'm not complaining, it was a really fun day and I learned some pretty cool stuff, but you know me... I like-a da sleepa.

What I will complain about is that on Monday morning we went out to select our pseudo-selected sites and we had to take a bunch of photos of the site so that we could later put together a montage (tell it with a montage!!) of a plan view of the site (view looking straight down, as much as possible) and a sort of panoramic, more experiential view of the site. So, I open an old box of color film that I have around, checking that it doesn't say "slide film" anywhere on the box, and then proceed with the picture taking. I'm not so good at the foreshadowing without being obvious so, yes, it was slide film. Apparently if the word "chrome" appears anywhere on a box of color film in any way, shape, or form, that means it's slide film. Hence, Fuji ChromaColor is slide film. Beware. So, after being up until 2 a.m. I had to get up early, at 6:30, and go back to the site and photograph it with real film. And... today I had to take a five minute lunch, get my film, and put together one of my photo montages so I could catch up. But it's fun, wicked fun, and this is only the beginning... I had a hard time understanding how, when students at the open house said you'd work 80-100 hours a week your first semester, that was even possible. I'm starting to get it. I'll try to explain this project and include some photos later in the week or weekend.

Now... the sweet embrace of sleep...

After the presentation we got our studio desk assignments and, out of the whole class, I got the only window in the room. It is awesome. I’ll add pics of the studio space when I have a chance. Saturday the temperatures topped 100 again with re-donk-ulous humidity and I had to run all over town in my black, no air conditioned car getting art supplies, studio equipment and crap from IKEA and Target. But now I’m all set for the big day tomorrow. Sorry this is wicked boring but it’s late and I’m tired. More, better stuff later…