Announcement! Installation at The Standard, Hollywood
I’ve been blogging and making street art a little less since the Baja geode. All because this month I have one mission—to create a huge geode for The Standard Hotel in Hollywood!
I personally did not know what it’s called, but like most people I’ve heard of the space, The Box. You know, the Box behind the front desk, where a model lays every evening (oh Hollywood…)? Every month The Standard asks a new artist to fill their approximately 10′ x 5′ glass box with art of their choosing. I’ve been lucky enough to have been asked to participate this summer for the month of June.
This is a huge task for me, I’ve obviously only been filling small crevices in buildings so far and an abandoned phone booth here and there. But I do think this is a great segue into large site specific installation pieces. The Box is a unique interior space in a building, it looks like a chipped away area or a viewing case in which, of course you may see the actual inside of The Standard there.
I’ve hired a few assistants to help me with the folding for a couple days and I’ve employed Greg once again to help with the installation portion. I’ll be blogging more from here on and feel free to follow the process on twitter, facebook, tumblr, or instagram. Oh yes, I’ve majorly crumbled, so pick your poison!
Check out a few photos of past artists in The Box, and my first steps creating my installation:
The Standard Box - Lister
The Standard Box
The Standard Box
Panel 1 of 5 for The Standard Installation, 2' x 5'
Assistants help fold large pieces of paper
The Box Standard Photos © standardculture.com
Geode #13—In Mexico!
Lucky number 13 for my 30th birthday! This weekend I made a trip to Baja, Mexico with a lot of amazing friends. We were there to celebrate my birthday, and it was brilliant. I was having such a good time, I didn’t get to make as many geodes as I planned (I was literally folding in the car though).
I planned on doing a geode in La Fonda where we stayed and in Puerto Nuevo, but was only able to do one since we only visited Puerto Nuevo for a short time. I found quite a few holes, as I suspected I would, but settled on a smaller crack in a wall of the main building of La Fonda. I needed something smaller since I ended up using a head lamp and sitting amongst my friends at around 10pm the very last night.
This is the result! It’s not painted the best or fit the best, but you do what you can while celebrating and on the move. I’m super excited I got to do my first international geode, hopefully I’ll get to travel soon to work solely on getting these out in other cities.
Geode #13 at La Fonda
Geode #13
Geode #13
Geode #13
Geode #13
Preparation for Baja
Get ready for some international geodes. I’m off to Baja this weekend to relax and celebrate my birthday with a lot of friends. I’ve been preparing lots of diamonds, twisted pyramids, and truncated octagons for this occasion. I hope to find some gnarly Mexico cracks to fill. HA!
Baja Preparation
Geode #12
Yay another geode! This one lives in Hollywood near The Music Box. During my interview with KTLA last week you see me starting to build this one, folding and gluing some of the pieces. Good thing I got this installed during the same week…
Geode #12 is chrome in an attempt to compliment the orange-ish stucco that is the building. I don’t know what this hole was there for, it was simply empty with no bricks surrounding and didn’t lead anywhere. I’m excited to be branching out into Hollywood, expect a lot more in the Mid City area for a while.
I had a small posse while installing this piece, my usual photographer Greg Tuzin and my talented friend Jeni Wamberg. This was a late night install as you can tell by the photos, I love the affect! We’ll swing by soon to get some day time photos.
Jeni and me making sure the geode fits
Installing Geode #12
Geode #12
Geode #12
Geode #12
All photos © Greg Tuzin
Micro Geode Projection
This past week Greg and I had three friends (Carmen, Jake, and Dustin) visiting from San Francisco and it was a whirlwind of collaboration, creation, and brainstorms.
My friend Carmen and I had one specific project we’ve been talking about—to create a micro projection on a geode. Image mapping is rapidly becoming something more artists are exploring for visuals and installations, but it’s generally done very large. Large would be amazing on these geodes, but we wanted to see how small we can go, a personal and unique challenge.
We designed an image mapping over the shape of a 2″ x 2″ geode I created so that we could isolate each of the “crystal” shapes and make them glow. The result was actually quite fun! It looks like the individual crystals are sometimes glowing and pulsing.
We haven’t perfected it yet, but I wanted to post some of our results and process. We chose the video below to show the scale of the actual piece (starring my cat Stampy), and the images are various projections and angles of the piece. We’re thinking of eventually making this an installation piece, but aren’t sure of where or what exactly. Stay tuned for more thoughts and details as this project progresses!
Mini 2"x2" Paper Geode
Micro Geode Projection
Micro Geode Projection
Micro Geode Projection
Geode #11
Geode #11! The largest, darkest, and on the edge of the Arts District in LA. This one is located right outside a local favorite bar, Tony’s. My friend Tim works there, found the spot for me, and has kindly offered to help me secure this one behind a plastic sheet. It’ll eventually look more like an “exhibit” outside with the cover on it. We decided to take these steps to see if we can get this to last longer than the other large one that was quickly removed despite some small efforts.
I have to say I’m particularly excited about this one. I can’t use black for smaller ones because I think they’ll be too hard to see, so I was happy to expand the palette a bit. And this is my largest effort, something I hope to continue to grow in the future. I love the small detailed treasures I’ve created but it would be nice to have some obvious public art—in addition.
Geode #11
Geode #11
Geode #11
Geode #11
Geode #11
Geode #10
Finally a new geode! Well, a new geode in an old place… I’m retracing some steps here and recreated a geode for the very first hole I ever used. This one is closer to home and I’m hoping to test out some techniques on it and be able to monitor a bit. Never fear, I have a long list of holes to fill all around the mid city area! Hopefully I can start getting them out faster, life happens and production slows from time to time.
Besides that, I’m super excited by the new mutation! I found a metallic blue which is a little too sparkly for my taste but it turned out nice anyways. I also added a golden “growth” to this geode. Many geodes have two toned crystals growing off of each other and I decided to give it a try. I’m in love! And can’t wait to keep playing with this.
Geode #10
Geode #10
Geode #10
Geode #10
Oops!
I spray paint my geodes in a windless corner outside and for some reason the sprinklers went off at a different time than usual today. Woo hoo! It kind of looks cool like this, like a new texture!
Water Logged Geode
Missing Art Installation, Voicemail 1
Happy friday! First off, I want to thank everyone for all your amazing comments of support, ideas, and criticism. I’m not stressed by my latest geode being taken any longer; I think I was more shocked at the time that its life was so short (the shortest of any piece) and that my first attempt to extend its life utterly failed. I’ve always had a hard time with “starting over” when things don’t work out the first time.
I do believe the beauty of this project is that these pieces are temporary, that’s why I started out not even trying to glue them. They were all just placed into their little homes. If these are truly urban treasures that parody natures’ treasures, “humans are a force” that affects them too (thank you to my genius sister Kara).
Now! For the fun part. You all saw my “missing” art installation to replace my art installation? I received my first google voicemail today! This kind fellow let me know that he has “no information about [my] missing art”. Click the play button below to hear:
Missing! Purple, Shiny, and Awesome!
Below is my first reaction to my stolen geodes. The public used to have a cool piece of art, now they get an ugly sheet of paper. I made a google voice number just for the occasion, it’d be great to actually get a call, though I don’t plan on it! Maybe it’ll be from the city…pissed off that I wheat pasted something uglier than they tore out? This is hopefully more permanent.
I don’t think this belongs in every place a geode has been taken, but this large metal surface was just asking for a replacement. I cannot make a new one as I can see where they tore the geode out (the glue is still there) and they would do it again.
I had a dream last night that someone had written down an address on my sign to where it was. I went there and saw it was removed to a shitty storefront and I actually had to “steal” it back. Kind of a fun dream, but also irritating to my psyche.
Missing Sign for Geode #9
Artist Rant
The purpose of this post is just to rant.
I passed by my latest geode last night, the large purple one, and it was gone! …What the hell? I’m perplexed on this one—it stood up to the kind of heavy rain a day after it went in, it’s in a piece of obsolete pay phone encasing, and it was pretty. This is the most frustrating of the bunch because either it was stolen purely because someone really loved it and wanted it for their own or because the city is a bunch of dicks and said, “We just can’t have this art just sitting in this city property, harumph”. They had to go through the trouble of tearing it out because it was glued too.
This is incredibly frustrating in every way. I really don’t care that they don’t last long for other reasons besides just plain being taken. I work incredibly hard to make these and spend all my extra time and don’t have much free time besides half the weekend. I’m feeling like I took big steps forward last week with new work and a little press only to take twice as many giant steps back this week. I feel like people are bad, coming at me from all sides and personally attacking me (this comes from other issues in addition!).
Anyways, the conclusion I’ve come to is that I’m going to finish the ones I have going right now and not do them any more. At least the way that I’m doing them. It’s so much work and only four still exist—three of which I was actually asked to do. I am, however, attempting to create them in other ways that do not take as long, but they will look completely different. Idea still there, method dead.
Geode #9
How timely! A purple geode on Valentine’s day… I installed this bad boy last night on Spring Street between 6th and 7th in downtown LA. This is the largest geode so far, and the first official colored one. I bought a glossy purple, which I’m not completely satisfied with the tone but I sprinkled some silver to help it shine a little and let it be. I’m still on the search for metallic colors if anyone knows where to find some.
These are some quick photos I took today from my iphone, we’re going to do a better photo shoot tonight so stay tuned for more.
A huge shout out and thank you to my friend Consuelo Chozas, who cut out the majority of the pieces to construct this one. She’s an incredible help!
Geode #9
Geode #9
Geode #9, Closeup
Geode #8
My friend Consuelo just took an amazing photo of geode #8 at Daily Dose. When we took our fancy photos last week, we didn’t have a stand to take photos in the dark lit cafe so we got this lovely iPhone flash/instagram action going on in this one. Just wanted to post this more detailed photo up to show off the teeny tiny pieces I made in this one.
Geode #8, Brighter Details
Geodes 6, 7, and 8
Late last week I installed three new geodes in one location. They live at The Daily Dose, a little gem of a cafe in the Arts District of downtown LA. Sarkis, the owner, saw my geodes on Facebook and asked if I would add some to the cafe. Hell yes I will!
These three geodes are the most difficult I’ve done by far. They took me over three weeks to create, which is average for three geodes, but the amount of time per day put in was tripled. Each piece was precious since I knew they would be in a place where customers would be sitting for long periods of time, able to see every flaw.
Geodes number 7 and 8 were the challenging ones, the molds crumbled when I took them out. Putting them back together was a puzzle piece nightmare. I had to make both their casts twice because I made the glue mixture too strong and couldn’t get them off the molds. Also, while gluing the pieces in, I was constantly stressed and checking whether the folded nooks and crannies of the pieces would be too filled or if the whole piece was maleable enough for when I placed them in.
So much time and stress and these pieces were successfully created. I can’t believe they fit and I don’t know how big a puddle on the ground I would have melted into if it they didn’t.
Geodes 6 and 7
Geode #6
Installation of Geode #7
Installation of Geode #7
Geode #7
Geode #7, Closeup
Geode #8 Installation
Geode #8, It fits!
Geode #8 Closeup
Geode #8
Geode #8, In the Cafe
Test Geode
For a long while I’ve known that I needed to figure out how to create geodes to fit into real cracks. I can’t depend on finding perfect pipes and missing bricks forever and I really can’t imagine spending hours longer gluing pieces directly into holes in the middle of the night. I’ve been scheming up this process that I’ve confirmed today—works!
Below is an image of a tester I made in our house. I wanted to do it inside so I could have control over the situation if anything didn’t work or needed extra time and care. The process includes making a mold of the crack, creating a cast of the mold with gauze-like cloth and homemade “size”, and following the rest of my old steps to completion. The inner shapes here are technically too large, I just used some extra pieces I had that would at least fit.
I rounded out this geode with a glossy red spray paint. I like it for our house because it kind of matches, but it doesn’t quite pop enough for the outside world. I am still on the hunt for metallics in other colors.
Test Geode in Crack
What IS a Geode?
My sister had a brilliant idea today. We’ve been noticing not everyone knows what a geode is or how exactly to pronounce it. We also noticed that many people do know what they are, they just don’t know they know what they are. The idea was to post about what geodes actually are to help people see where this project has evolved from. Thanks for the help Wikipedia! (sorry for the not great quality of the photos, I liked these examples most)
Geodes (Greek γεώδης – ge-ōdēs, “earthlike”) are geological secondary sedimentary structures which occur in sedimentary and certain volcanic rocks. Geodes are essentially spherical masses of mineral matter that were deposited syngenetically within the rock formations they are found in. Geodes have a chalcedony shell containing various minerals, usually quartz. Geodes differ from vugs in that they were formed as a separate entity from the surrounding rock, whereas vugs are voids or cavities within a rock formation. Geodes also differ from “nodules” in that a nodule is a mass of mineral matter that has accreted around the nodule nucleous. Both structures had the minerals contained within deposited from groundwater or hydrothermal processes. The exterior of most geodes generally consists of chalcedony, a cryptocrystalline form of quartz. Inside the chalcedony shell many minerals have been found such as calcite, pyrite, kaolinite, sphalerite, millerite, barite, dolomite, limonite, smithsonite and quartz, which is by far the most common and abundant mineral found in geodes. Geodes are found mostly in basaltic lavas and limestones. The Warsaw Formation in the Keokuk region near the area where Missouri, Iowa, and Illinois join contains abundant geodes.
Formation
Geodes can form in any cavity, but the term is usually reserved for more or less rounded formations in igneous and sedimentary rocks, while the more general term “vug” is applied to cavities in fissures and veins. They can form in gas bubbles in igneous rocks, such as vesicles in basaltic lavas, or as in the American Midwest, rounded cavities in sedimentary formations. After rock around the cavity hardens, dissolved silicates and/or carbonates are deposited on the inside surface. Over time, this slow feed of mineral constituents from groundwater or hydrothermal solutions allows crystals to form inside the hollow chamber. Bedrock containing geodes eventually weathers and decomposes, leaving them present at the surface if they are composed of resistant material such as quartz.
Quartz Geode
Amethyst Geode
Amethyst Geode 2
Geode #5, Venice CA
My 5th geode has just been installed. This sort of replaces my 2nd geode that was recently stolen out of its pipe, hopefully this one lasts longer (it’s going to be hard to rip this sucker out, wink). Technically this one’s color is “brass” but it looks a lot like the “gold”, I’ll be switching up the colors of these soon.
The location of this new geode is at 1661 Abbot Kinney Boulevard in Venice CA, my first geode on the west side. Happy new year!
Gedoe #5, Venice CA
Geode #5, Venice CA
Geode #5, Venice CA
Geode #3, Deterioration
There were heavy rains (which means a heavy sprinkling in LA) in December. The third geode I created, in the corner of a building on Spring between 7th and 8th, has started to fall apart and deteriorate. The images below show how parts of it have fallen off onto the sidewalk and left some gaping holes in the geode construction.
Now this is something I was prepared for and am happy about. I know these are all “temporary” installations because of people and weather. I realized after two geodes were stolen that I can’t really emotionally deal with the people problem, but I can deal with the weather problem. Erosion is so cool, it’s a natural response to nature and the effects I think are still beautiful. Paper does unfortunately erode incredibly quick so I do plan on starting to explore other materials. I’d also like to find a way to combat the “people problem”, but I’m not sure I want to disclose that yet. To be continued…
Geode 03 Deterioration
Geode 03 Deterioration
Handsome Wheat Paste Painting
The week before holiday vacation time in Texas was a hectic one. Greg had a production for Logitech in which he put on many hats—writer, art department, creative director, and director. He hired me as an extra and an artist, ah we love nepotism in this house. Although, being an extra in a bathing suit at a pool scene in December is the opposite of great, so maybe I don’t like this particular “in”.
Besides that dreary pool party, I was asked to create artwork that the hero of the video would wheat paste onto a wall. A. I’ve never actually painted anything and B. I’ve never wheat pasted. I was nervous, went through several designs, and had to email my images out to friends for help deciding which to use. I finally settled on designing in a way I’m used to (without overwhelming myself with something new), using illustrator and vector art with heavy block colors.
In the pool scene, all of the people are wearing animal masks, dancing, and swimming. I decided to take that idea and repurpose it for the painting, drawing four girls with animal masks on. The “handsome” at the bottom of the image comes from the new coffee shop, Handsome Coffee Roasters this was pasted on, coming soon to downtown LA.
Handsome Wheat Paste
Handsome Wheatpaste
Handsome Wheat Paste
Handsome Wheat Paste Close Up
I’m pretty happy with how this turned out, Greg and I are both quite enamored with the look and process of wheat paste (we’re rubbing our hands together conspiratorially). The whole drawing and painting took me 3 full days to complete. The wheat paste went up on the wall for about an hour and then was torn down. One of the more painful things I’ve had to deal with—I helped for a bit and then ditched the final cleanup.
Geode #4
Today I placed Geode #4 into its home in Echo Park. It lives in the wall of the Taix French Restaurant right off of Sunset.
This one was actually the very first geode I ever made. It was the largest by far and meant to fit in a wall in the Arts District but I sadly had mis-measured by an inch all around (I didn’t understand the foreign tape measure I was using). I luckily found this new hole on Taix while on my way to brunch last weekend. It was only larger by a little all around, so I took my original apart and remade it. It was easier than cutting it away and making it smaller.
I put it in this afternoon and it didn’t exactly fit in the end so I have plans to revisit during the night this weekend and do a little mending.
Geode #4 Placement
Geode #4, Echo Park
Geode #4, Echo Park
Geode #4, Echo Park
Geode #4, Echo Park
Geode #3, Downtown LA
Here’s geode number 3! This one lives on the east side of Spring Street between 7th and 8th Streets. It was such a huge challenge to figure out how to properly handle this space—this one looks like Frankenstein on the back end. I changed my mind a dozen times on how to fit the piece and decide where the geode formations should go.
I first measured and went home and built the piece to fit. I went back and tried to put it in but quickly realized there were major mortar and brick pieces in my way in the seams of the hole (where the missing mortar is). I decided to shorten the length of the mortar areas and not the depth but realized then I would have to create hundreds of those teeny tiny shapes to fit. So then I shortened the depth of the mortar areas so I could cosmetically make it seem like it goes deep but someone hasn’t chiseled that far back yet.
Somehow, even after testing, the geode didn’t fit when I went back to install! I had to mash it in, causing a few tears. I also had to cut part of it away at the top, that’s why you see scissors on the ground as I’m installing below.
I wish I could have filled every mortar area missing but I simply don’t have the man-power at this time. Therefore, this was an excellent test. I’m not totally happy with it, but glad I figured something out and learned some lessons.
Geode Placement Into Wall
Geode on Spring Street
Closeup of Geode on Spring Street
Closeup 2 of Geode on Spring Street
Geode on Spring Street
A New Geode In Progress
A quick look at the new geode I’m making. These paper shapes will go in a space about .25″ high. I want to challenge myself as I move forward with these, how small can I make them? How big can I make them?!
Tiny Paper Shapes for a Geode
