NEW from The Trinity Series -

"Trinity #22 - The CSX Readymade"
manipulated digital photograph by Mick Mather

"... below there! look out! look out!
for God's sake, clear the way ..."
- Charles Dickens ("The Signal-Man")

NEW from The Trinity Series -

"Trinity #26 - 3343 Milton Readymade"
manipulated digital photograph by Mick Mather

It's been some time since I've posted anything from The Trinity Series. I've had this particular image in the files for at least two years - to illustrate the point - and I have every good intention of doing a few more throughout the summer.

NEW from The Trinity Series -

"Trinity #21 - Sands Road Readymade"
manipulated digital photograph & digital drawing by Mick Mather

I'm thinking about a proposal to a local park where a partnership might fund some work on a trio of fir trunks. All that's required is adjusting the height on two of the pieces and some sculpting. This will likely be a project for next spring but it's on the radar.

NEW from The Trinity Series -

"Trinity #20 - The Black Hats (Alternate Version II)"

manipulated digital photograph by Mick Mather

This piece actually predates The Trinity Series by a few years but when it comes to seeding one's thinking, it's surely part of the process and therefor part of the series. At this point, I'm not even certain that the original sculpture exists. I'm even wondering if this doesn't fall under the category of book arts as well. If I ever find this in one of my archive boxes, a shadowbox frame will be the final step.

NEW from The Trinity Series -

"Trinity #19 - Jones Road Readymade"
manipulated digital photograph by Mick Mather

Here's another readymade from The Trinity Series. Since I have more than one proposal to assemble and submit for calls requesting works of public art, do forgive the hit and run posts this week.

NEW from The Trinity Series -

"Trinity #17 - Gere's Lock Readymade, Post Documentation Study I"
manipulated digital photograph by Mick Mather

Last week I posted this readymade with a promise that there would be more to come. I'm making good on that warranty right here and am ever mindful of a future readymade to commandeer. I suppose that means still more to come.

NEW from The Trinity Series -

"Trinity #18 - Warners Road Readymade, Post Documentation Study I"
manipulated digital photograph by Mick Mather

In the short weeks ahead I'll be making a proposal for a public artwork that, if selected, will be another major public sculpture in downtown Syracuse, New York. Also during this time my collaborator, Mark Moncavage, will be replanting and shaping the topiary sculpture, Trinity #2, that was installed last year at the Inner Harbor. Thus begins the season for site specific sculpture, land art and walking art projects of which today's post is the first documentation of a realized, readymade. In the footsteps of Marcel Duchamp and that dadaist tradition, I post this study ... more to come.

NEW from The Trinity Series -

"Trinity #15 - Milton Avenue Readymade, Post Documentation Study I"
manipulated digital photograph by Mick Mather

On my way to work every morning I drive by a pair of businesses that share a parking lot. Along one perimeter of a no man's land separating the two, is a series of metal posts wrapped with orange, construction barrier fencing. After a few weeks it began to register that these might be a candidate for The Trinity Series. Soon after the realization I stopped to take a few photographs - see the original here at No Matter What Shape - The Archive - and while doing so was quite taken with the conceptual idea of the readymade art object popularized by Marcel Duchamp. Even though the idea seems a simple one, I discovered that it's not as easy as it sounds. In any case, there are likely to be a few more post-documentation studies to come.

Green Spaces Grant Project 2008 -

"Post Installation Study I"
manipulated digital photograph by Mick Mather

I spent part of my weekend finishing up the installation of Trinity #2 which, in spite of the weather and other considerations, is currently in place and doing well. The piece as it now stands is a living topiary sculpture that is completely in tune with the intent of this grant and I'm finally able to say that it's an idea that should've been more prominent in my thinking from the beginning. I would've posted the original photograph of the piece but planting arbor vitae bushes this late in the season allows no opportunity for the sort of pruning that my collaborator, Mark Moncavage, and I will do in mid-Spring of 2009. Once the piece has taken firm root and grows a few feet, the shaping will begin and I promise to show those results in about 6 months.

Off site, On site -

"Visit to the Unfinished Cathedral"
digital collage by Mick Mather

I'm not here today and this post is an old image that I was having some fun fiddling with. In actuality I'm at Syracuse Inner Harbor finishing up the "Green Spaces Grant" with the installation of "Trinity #2" which has become a topiary sculpture more in line with the concept of the grant in the first place. Documentary evidence will be posted at No Matter What Shape - The Archive once things are completed, tidied up and whupped into basic shape.

Back to basics -

"Late in the Day"
digital collage by Mick Mather

I've been immersed in a recent flurry of land art and installation art projects and proposals. I also have a maquette to build for "Trinity #2" in preparation for the Public Art Commission review in a few weeks while simultaneously attempting to complete the "Kings Court Cube". It's been rainy with enough fog to make things interesting and I took a short movie of it when I went out this morning to check its status ... with no ability to edit the thing (I don't have the proper software to do anything with it) I've post it at No Matter What Shape anyway. That said, it's been a comfort to be able to fall back upon old methods of working to accomplish some new work, such as today's post, in a relatively short space of time. Well, I'd better get back at it!

NEW from The Trinity Series -

“Working Class Silence and Hope”
(Trinity #13 - Installed)
marble sculpture by Mick Mather

As those of you who have been following along already know, I spent much of this weekend at The Carving Studio & Sculpture Space in West Rutland, Vermont creating "Working Class Silence and Hope" (Trinity #13). This piece will be part of SculptFest08 with an opening Saturday, September 13th and the exhibition continuing through October 26th. This year's theme is "Human Interventions and the Industrial Landscape", curated by Carlos Dorrien, Sculpture Professor at Wellesley College. As can be seen, the piece is dry stacked marble on a large marble plinth. From the bottom of the base to the tallest column the work is 7-feet tall and 7-feet wide. Upon arrival at the site things began to vary a little bit from the original sketch when it became obvious to me that the columns needed to be separated from the industrial dock where the work is sited. The natural marble slab was the answer and this monster weighs in at almost 2 tons. The industrial surroundings, merging sharply with the natural environment along with shape of the plinth, further suggested an alternate arrangement of the columns - each measuring about 15" to 18" inches in diameter. When you consider that better than 60% of the marble pieces needed shaping before placement amid hordes of mosquitoes, black flies, midges, no seeums, bees and wasps, it was a major task of whack & stack to get this erected. While my body is bug-bit, sunburned, muscle and tendon stressed, I'm on the mend. Those physical issues fade in the shadow of accomplishment and, in a heartbeat, I would do this again ... just not for a little while. Okay?

On the Road -

"Trinity #13 - Proposal Study #3"
digitally manipulated drawing by Mick Mather

No sooner am I back from vacation than I'm off again! As you read this I'll be on the road, driving to Vermont to The Carving Studio & Sculpture Center, where my proposal for "Trinity #13" has been accepted for exhibit in SculptFest08. I will be constructing this work from 'found' materials on-site over the weekend. "Labor Day" takes on a whole new meaning for me this year I think. In any case, no Illustration Friday for me this week and apologies, again, in advance for the short shrift given the pre-scheduled posts through Monday. More documentation of the piece upon my return and, until then, please have a glass of red wine with me in celebration.

Another "Trinity Series Sculpture" sneaks in -

"One Stop on a Walking Tour"
digital collage by Mick Mather
- from an original photo by Bill Ives -

I know that things come and go in streaks more often for me than for some, I think. Case in point is this second post based upon another Bill Ives photograph. I think it was the rope standards around the perimeter of the ancient Temple at Arigento that kicked things off in my mind as regards layering the digital study of "Trinity #2" into the tightly cropped section of that wonderful image. More than the usual manipulation, altering placement and repainting went into this before running it through the usual array of filters here at the secret visual laboratory. My many thanks again to Bill for permission and for writing about the earlier piece that was also based on one of his photos and posted on Saturday.