Thursday, September 27, 2012
sep. 27th, jessie parker
Tuesday, September 25, 2012
sep. 25th
I'll get to be one of the artists in WAAS Gallery's first ever juried group show! The opening reception will be November 16th or 17th and I'm going to be making a series of 3' by 5' paintings for it...YA! The paintings are going to revisit the dark color fields that I used to do, but with the looser painting style that I have now. The color field way of painting lends more to the concept of the show that's forming right now. I'll post more once the title/refined concept of the show is established closer to the date. hooray!!
http://waasgallery.com/exhibitions/
http://waasgallery.com/
http://waasgallery.com/exhibitions/
http://waasgallery.com/
Friday, September 21, 2012
Sep. 21st-Save a Frank Lloyed Wright home! Sign this petition!!!
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CITY OF PHOENIX: Save the David and Gladys Wright House by Frank Lloyd Wright Building ConservancyPlease Sign this Petition!!!!:http://www.change.org/petitions/city-of-phoenix-save-the-david-and-gladys-wright-house
A remarkable Frank Lloyd Wright house in Phoenix is under threat of
demolition. Wright designed the house for his son David and it is unique
among all his residential designs. Your support is needed to urge the
City of Phoenix to approve historic preservation designation for the
house thereby extending its temporary protection from demolition.
Update A VERY POSITIVE STEP! On September 17, 2012 the Historic Preservation Commission of the city of Phoenix voted unanimously to recommend landmark designation for the David and Gladys Wright House. That is the first of three bodies that will provide recommendations before the City Council makes the decision on November 7. The Historic Preservation Commission’s recommendation is key to support for landmarking the building but the recommendations from the Camelback East Village Planning Committee and the city’s Planning Commission (on Oct 2 and Oct 9 respectively) also are extremely important. The Conservancy and its local partners continue to work to secure these additional recommendations and to secure City Council approval of landmark status. Landmark status means any demolition permit would be delayed for three years. Critical to our efforts are more signatures on the petition – please sign today and ask your friends and associates to help save this house by adding their voices. The numbers signatures are reported to these bodies and they do have an impact! In the meantime the Conservancy is also in discussions with potential buyers. Background One of Frank Lloyd Wright’s most innovative, unusual and personal works of architecture. Built in 1950-52, it is the only residence by the world-famous architect that is based on the circular spiral plan of the Guggenheim Museum in New York, whose construction followed it by six years. When the house was first published in 1953, it was stated that no other Wright house since Fallingwater was as praiseworthy and remarkable. Since then its reputation has only increased and several architectural historians and architecture critics consider it to be among the 20 most significant Wright buildings. The spatial design, the processional movement through the patio and along the spiral ramp, the custom-designed concrete-block detailing, and the total interior design all give this house a spectacular expression especially appropriate to the desert environment. -Neil Levine, architectural historian and Harvard professor When it learned in May that the house had been purchased by developers who had indicated their intention to bulldoze the structure and build two “luxury homes,” the Frank Lloyd Wright Building Conservancy requested the City of Phoenix to grant historic preservation and landmark designation to the house. A number of local organizations, including the Arizona Preservation Foundation and the Phoenix chapter of the American Institute of Architects, as well as national organizations such as the National Trust for Historic Preservation and the Society of Architectural Historians endorsed the Conservancy’s appeal. In mid-June the city’s Planning Commission voted unanimously to initiate consideration of a preservation designation, an action that triggers a delay in approval of a demolition permit. However, such a delay is only temporary. For this reason the Conservancy and its preservation partners are mounting a campaign to find a suitable, preservation-minded buyer or buyers for the property and working to urge the Phoenix City Council to approve landmark and historic preservation designation for the house. Consideration of this designation by various commissions is scheduled now and through November when it will reach the City Council for a decision. For almost 40 years no intact Wright building has been intentionally demolished. The Conservancy works every day to avoid deliberate destruction or demolition by neglect of Wright’s built work. Wright is widely considered to be America’s greatest architect. In a remarkable career spanning over 70 years, he created over 1,100 designs, more that 500 of which were built. His buildings have been recognized internationally as among the most significant structures of the 20th century. He created a modern building aesthetic that powerfully affected the course of architecture around the world as well as in the United States, inspiring generations of architects. His body of work constitutes an irreplaceable cultural treasure. The general public often assumes that Wright’s buildings are protected legally or are untouchable due to the significance of his work in the development of modern architecture. Periodic threats to Wright buildings, such as the current one to the David and Gladys Wright House, demonstrate that is not the case. Please make your voice heard and urge the City of Phoenix to approve landmark and historic preservation designation. Approval will ensure that no demolition will take place during a 12-36 month period (depending on what level of designation is approved) and allow time to develop a long-term solution to preserve this important piece of architecture. Loss of the David Wright House would be tragic – an irreparable blow to architectural preservation and Wright’s legacy. Please join us by signing the petition today! For more information visit the Conservancy’s website. The Frank Lloyd Wright Building Conservancy, a Chicago-based preservation organization founded over 20 years ago, works to preserve all of Wright’s built designs. |
Thursday, September 13, 2012
Tuesday, September 11, 2012
september 11
I just started working
for Charles Kendrick & Co.. They are model makers and what they make is
INSANE!!!! I'm so excited to get to work with them and help in any process of
making their models. ...They have some framed photography on the walls of their
studio and I thought they were photos of skylines and large cities- they
are photos of their freaking models!!!
here's an article that
was in D CEO Magazine:
Model Maker Crafts Small-Scale Depictions of Large-Scale Construction Projects
If he builds it, developers will come. Charles Kendrick & Company manufactures the beautiful, precise, minature depictions of what will be.
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| Charles and Susie Kendrick are a husband-and-wife team that works well together. portrait by Kevin Hunter Marple |
“I do it very well,” he says.
For a man who so loves sharing his passions of design, art, and construction, and whose biggest thrill is the unveiling of one of his masterpieces before an audience, getting answers on the how of what he does is like asking a Southern lady her age—you feel a little embarrassed, and he deflects it with deft poise.
The models that Charles Kendrick & Company craft—“build” is far too small a word—are the magic totems that open investors’ wallets and ink the stamps of zoning boards. Before clients or critics see multimillion-dollar skyscrapers erected or the last available stretch of beach get developed, the money men and the civic bodies want to see those architectural renderings come alive. That’s where Kendrick’s work comes in.
“It takes it from the ‘maybe’ world to the ‘real’ world in a way no other representation can,” he says. “When there’s a lot on the line—as there is in the top projects—you have to bring an idea into reality in a way that people can connect. A model on the level we do it draws people in.
“Everyone in development has seen thousands of renderings and elevations. This,” he adds, motioning to a model of a beach high-rise on the Florida panhandle so compelling a viewer can imagine the very sand that somehow makes its way to the balconies of the top floors, “this creates something magical between the viewer and the model. It’s something that you can feel and touch and put yourself in. This is what makes or breaks deals.”
“People can walk around the model and it really invokes interaction,” says Andrew Flanigan, design manager for architecture firm Jonathan Bailey Associates. “It makes a huge difference in winning contracts. Not only do we give the model to the client, they end up using it for marketing purposes as well.”
Kendrick has been leaving models in his wake since growing up in Arkadelphia, Ark. The son of an Army veteran who married a West Berliner, he had early access to highly detailed sculptural models only available in Europe at the time, which stood in stark contrast to what he could find on American toy store shelves. So he did what any obsessive boy would do before the Internet—he made his own models. He built everything from train sets to a replica of his hometown, down to the last detail. He studied architecture at Louisiana Tech where a professor and a group of students were commissioned to build a replica of Shreveport—from scratch. It wasn’t hard to tell where his calling was. In the early 1980s, he moved to Dallas and worked for a number of architecture firms, primarily building models. He was inspired by master model maker David Gibson, and during the down cycles in the commercial real estate market here, he found work in other places—San Francisco, where he met his wife, and even Bali, where in addition to his modeling work he was commissioned by the Balinesian royal family to produce a videography of the disappearing Balinese culture.
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| Charles focuses on details of a model of Fellowship Church in Grapevine. model images provided by Charles and Susie Kendrick |
And of course, there’s that little local undertaking: the Trinity River Corridor project. For that one, still in its earliest stages, he’s producing a living reproduction of the corridor from the Hampton Road Bridge to the junction of 175 and South Lamar, including the surrounding commercial developments downtown and in Oak Cliff. Every building, water feature, bridge, tree, and proposed parkway will be rendered at a scale of one inch to 150 feet. The Trinity model is in its most basic stage as of mid-May—scaled satellite maps mark the boundaries, and just five of the buildings on downtown’s skyline are vertical—one is fittingly enough a perfect little reproduction of the Bank of America tower, the tallest in Dallas.
These days, because he usually only works one major project at a time—making anywhere from $200 all the way up to $900,000 per project— Kendrick spends his mornings photographing every building along the 20 miles the model will cover. Mid-morning to afternoon is spent practicing his secret techniques for rendering reality from epoxy and plastics and machine-tool programming. His wife Susie, who has an art degree from the California College of Arts, details the parks, water features, and the Great Trinity Forest. Evenings again find him depicting the streets and buildings and features. His photo files alone would be worth hundreds of thousands of dollars to future historians, if not contemporary developers.
On a sunny spring Tuesday morning he shows a guest around his expansive studio, one of the last going south on Oak Lawn in the warehouse district just before the road hits the levy. It’s immaculately well-organized and primarily a two-person shop, though he hires top model contractors on a project-by-project basis. The studio’s contents are as diverse as you’d expect from someone who boasts of stealing techniques and technologies from every imaginable industry. After all, it’s a never-ending battle to keep his centuries-old craft alive and relevant in this age of CGI, ersatz holography, and three-dimensional computer renderings. Here and there are CNC machine centers he’s coaxed performances out of that have stumped professional machinists. Over in a corner is a dentist-inspired precision water tool for clearing between slates in a pool lounge chair smaller than a pinky nail. Trays of various miniature flora await assembly, each arranged by species and accompanied by encyclopedia printouts of the characteristics of the different plant types. The latest Mac- and PC-design stations line the main room, working in tandem. Jeweler’s tools, surgical instruments, lighting equipment, and an array of paint sets that would confound the boys at Testors all await Kendrick’s hands or Susie’s, the master model landscaper. Indonesian music plays on an iTunes playlist in surround sound.
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| A sample of Charles Kendrick & Company’s models: The Potter’s House in Dallas. model images provided by Charles and Susie Kendrick |
“Oh, we spend 16-hour days in here sometimes. This isn’t our work. It’s our passion, and we recognize how very lucky we are to get to do something we love so much,” Charles says.
A photo album—his own work and another of his passions—documents his best models. They are shot on film, not retouched or computer-enhanced. “I supply the models, God supplies the sky,” Kendrick likes to say.
Kendrick’s ability to adapt new technologies to his craft is at once a blessing and a curse. In addition to his having to be an architect, an artist, a machinist, a programmer, and a photographer, he has to be a little bit of a psychologist and a little bit of an illusionist. Every new model is that much more realistic, and he knows that therefore every evolution makes any flaws stand out all the more. To the mind of the viewer, such a flaw is as noticeable as a boom mike dropping into frame in the middle of a movie scene. Instantly, the illusion can be erased.
“I really enjoyed this,” Kendrick says of his first interview for any publication. But his joy is overshadowed by anxiety. The kid has been kept away from his toys for too long. Besides, “that Bank of America Tower model needs to be glued together.”
Saturday, September 1, 2012
september 1st
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| I got to volunteer for the Art Con event, RZN8, (that was this past saturday), on last friday night. I made the band line up list...my hand got tired by the time i got down to the last line where it's crooked haha. the little twitter bird finished my hand muscles off |
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