A Blast From My Past

Here's one from the deep archives. Climbing in the Indian Peaks Wilderness west of Boulder, CO in the summer of 1984 (trying a new route on Mt. Shoshone if I recall). The sleeveless Fear and Loathing t-shirt and the bandana headband were de rigueur for me while climbing in the mid 80s.

The photo was taken by my good buddy and climbing partner at the time, Keith Egan, whom I had moved with from Norman, OK to Boulder the year before.

Livin' the dream ;-)...

Rust

Those that know me and my art know how enamored I am with rust (or any iron oxide really...), at least part of the time. This is a shot of some rusty split washers doing their thing on a pieces of Arches cover. I've been making "rust prints" for many years that are basically transfers of rusting steel onto paper.

Recently I've been trying more controlled experiments with the test pieces being covered or uncovered, leaving them in contact for varying amounts of time and using different solutions to accelerate the rust formation. In the photos below you can see the set up. I tested all combinations using the same paper and the same washer so I could get somewhat comparable results, comparable in the sense of being able to limit that one variable so I could more easily see the aleatoric results.

I ran each piece with four different solutions: white cooking vinegar, Birchwood Technologies Presto Black, strong black tea and Birchwood Plum Brown. Interesting how the palette of each solution was consistent and hopefully somewhat repeatable.

Anyway, I continue to learn more and more about the interface between iron, water, oxygen and cellulose.

Starting the process...

Clockwise from top left: black tea, white vinegar, plum brown, presto black...

It Was a Clock Tower...

...now it's an ICON Tower (well, arguably it still has two clocks as opposed to the original four, but you get my drift). A few weeks ago I watched the construction crew put up two new BD icons that I had built. The clocks came down and the icons went up. The old clock tower is the tallest structure on the Black Diamond campus. I'm honored to have been asked to tackle this project and very happy with the outcome (and so are the pigeons, apparently...).

 


Above are a couple of shots of the install. The guys did a perfect job.

And a sadly blurry shot of the raw steel icon in my shop before the bolts were welded on and it was sent off for sandblasting and powder coating.

Every Driveway Needs a Tesseract (aka Hypercube)...

One of my favorite pieces around The Compound here in SLC is the hypercube I have hanging from a boom over my parking area. I'm particularly fond of the shadows that it casts against my shop in the early mornings.

Truncated Hexahedron (cube)

I recently made this 4-inch polyhedron out of 6 hand-cut octagons and 8 equilateral triangles. It's for a project that I hope to be able to share soon, but for now...

I love the beautiful simplicity of creating octagons from squares using simply a silver pencil, a straight edge and a compass. No actual measurements of any kind (other than getting a 4-inch square to begin with).

Typically I find myself making one or more of the five Platonic solids (although though this is not one, but a modified version of one) in various sizes and for a variety of reasons—sometimes closed like these below, but often open as well.

For example, I love the way my large-ish (approx. 3 ft dia.) open dodecahedron holds the snow...

Bringin' the Heat

Here's another shot my buddy Gary took last summer during his time in the shop. I don't often need to break out the torch but it's always high value when I do...

11-11-11

One year and 11 days ago I had my first solo show—HyperObjects: Shards of the Eschaton. The show was held at the Cordell Taylor Gallery here in Salt Lake City and opened on a Friday night with a wonderfully auspicious date. (Another 1,000 years and we can do it all over again!)

HERE are some great shots of my work as documented by Shawn Rossiter's 15 Bytes. Thanks for the great article, Shawn and team! (Follow the link at the bottom of the 15 Bytes page to see the full review of my show and the photos mentioned above...)

Anyway, it was great turnout for the opening night and the interest continued for the full month the show was up. Cordell is a local metal sculptor of tremendous talent and it was an honor to be invited by him to show in his gallery last year.

And here are a couple of photos of opening night:

This is my Artist's Statement for the HyperObject show:

HyperObjects

Shards of the Eschaton

In the mid 70s I began making small drawings that seemed to arise spontaneously. For me they are a communication that I have been documenting with pen and paper for over 35 years—a communication that wants to be shared in steel.

Notes regarding a series of 23 steel sculptures that I would call HyperObjects began to appear in April of 2001. These objects would be sourced from my drawings and inspired by key concepts of Terence McKenna, especially those concerned with the Eschaton at the end of time that he believed was drawing mankind and history toward cataracts of transcendental change. I chose the name HyperObjects because it reflected his terminology for this “transcendental object” as well as my own experience in birthing these drawings from some kind of imagined hyperspace. They emerge during moments of reflection or anytime I am in a suitable frame of mind that seems to help me precipitate their concrescence.

All of my work is essentially an effort to recreate the Mystery in material form. My HyperObjects Series is specifically an attempt to accrete a group of unique pieces whose qualities reflect the Mystery for me—multi-dimensional, embedded, arcane, enfolded, enigmatic, patinated, archaic, alchemical, sacred and emergent…

—Randall Hankins, 2011

Happy Thanksgiving

Giving thanks today for a number of things... like my recent introduction (thanks, Catherine) to the work of Alice Fox, for example. She is a UK artist who I think makes beautiful, evocative and compelling work. See more at www.alicefox.co.uk

The Grind

Here's a recent shot of me grinding on a project. The photo was taken and treated by my good friend Gary during a visit last summer. I do SO much work alone in my studio that it was fun to have someone take a few shots of me actually working instead of just me taking shots of the work after the fact.

Underway

Well, "off the ground" might be a bit of a stretch...

Self-portrait on Jenny Lake, Grand Tetons, August 2012

Here We Go!

Okay, the new blog is off the ground!