It must be hard to be a blogger.

So I've looked over and over seeing that each day passes, then months pass, then, well, it's been damn near a year since I've last updated.  It seems that starting this blog has been more than I reckoned for.   In short, this past year I have applied for graduate school and got accepted; left my full time job at  ECU; I married an absolutely beautiful and amazing woman and then moved to the mountains of NC for that graduate school mentioned earlier (Western Carolina University).   The piece in my last post ("An Ode to Architectural Form") won best-in-show in the North Charleston Outdoor Sculpture show.  My fellow Graduate students and I had a show at the Bascom Center for the Visual Arts in Highlands, NC and we are soon having a group show at the Grove Arcade in Asheville, NC.

Graduate school is absolutely amazing. I really do miss working at ECU but I am happy to be moving on toward my goal of MFA.  Western Carolina University has a program I really enjoy, though at times it falls short in the tool department, I just keep pushing forward.  My professors and fellow students are absolutely helpful in all my endeavors.  The program affords us the opportunity to have so many great visiting artists; most recently, Trenton Doyle Hancock, sat down with each of us for personal studio visits and critiques (He was great to talk to!).  Lastly, we (the grads) are going to New York in March for studio and gallery visits!

Oh, I was also voted in as the student board representative for Tri-State Sculptors, a great organization with worldwide membership!

I'll try to remember some updates over the next week or so with pictures of my first semester of graduate school and links to our show at the Bascom.

Don't forget to check out my web site: www.krutschworks.com and share it around.  I have a few new pieces posted there as well.

Cheers!
Jordan

Two down, on to the next one.

My post from this past September described a piece I was working on; it was to be 15 feet tall and able to break down to fit on a trailer which I could pull with my Ford Ranger.

Well, the piece is done.  I've given it two names: "An ode to architectural form" and "Untitled Movement #1."  I feel like it's in a perpetual state of falling. I also completed another piece I consider related to this one, but I'll get to that later.  First, I'll post some more of the process and finish shots of My largest piece I've made so far in my sculpting career.

 

 

An update to update the lack of updates.

At the beginning of this blog writing endeavor I thought I could keep up with the trend of writing or posting process photos at least once a month; maybe I've become a little lazy. Even at this time I am sitting lazily on my couch watching Law and Order: SVU. It seems that there are other things that tend to take precedence over writing a blog. I can't seem to turn off the tube, I have to head to work, I'm tired, all excuses I use to not get on here and write/update.

Well, I think that counts as an apology to myself and anyone else who might care about me not keeping up with this.  On to business.

Another new piece in the works

So I'm having some fun time with the engineering.  It's a difficult thing to make some large scale works, especially when thinking about transportation (small truck bed and no trailer yet).  All of my larger pieces so far can be put together with cold connections.  I enjoy the aspect of building and rebuilding pieces when I take them apart and put them back together.  It's as if the work is regenerating or being re-born in a new space or location.  The current fun is my new idea. It's based off a truss system I was thinking about when I was reading about timber framing.

The maquette above, when finished, should stand around 15ft tall.  It's at a good scale, 1" to 1'. I first mapped out all the angles and lengths.  Then built a 3-d model in Google Sketchup (shown below).

After the Sketchup model confirmed my measurements and angles from my maquette I order my beautiful steel square tube; 3in 11gauge wall. 

I primed the tube to prevent rust and it was easier to prime in full lengths.  I cut my angles and sizes and now I'm just waiting on a weekend to bust out the welding and recutting for assembling and disassembling the piece for transport.

My idea for the assemble/disassemble ability is to use a 2/34"OD 3/4" wall round tube inserted in the square tube with plug welds and cold-connections to hold it all together.  I'm hoping it works well and I figure I might as well paint the thing red since it's already big. Why not, right?

Stay tuned for more to come.

Salmagundi Install

My piece, "Swoosh," is now installed in Rocky Mount, NC at the Thelonious Monk Plaza down town. Here are a few pictures of the install.

New piece nearly complete

I've got some images here of a Cast Iron, Steel, and Aluminum piece I've been working on for a while now.  I got myself rather motivated and finished it up quickly in these last few weeks.  Hope you enjoy it.  A lot of photos. As of right now I'm just referring to it as a test of Height, Weight and Torque.