Breakfast w/Ian and Lori

If you have the money I have the Goodes.

Holy crap.

So a sign that fox is a joke. They have their own retail store. That
is on par w/ Disney and Looney Toons. Granted we are in Texas. At the
George bush intercontinental airport. But still.

Thick skin fashion forward

So my good friend shell toes -http://www.thickskinfashionforward.blogspot.com/  has taken an interest in my wine project. She writes-

  

When I was surfing all my morning blogs I noticed your post about drinking only wine. I will admit I have had many a fantasy of chugging bottles of wine while creating masterpieces of art. Just watch Modigliani. But that will have to wait until Helmi's out of the nest I suppose. As a wine pro at this point in my life, let me give you a little advice and testimony.

First of all, wine hangovers are a BITCH. The headache is way worse. Second of all, you will never get as silly on beer as you will on red wine. Beer can make you loud and obnoxious. Wine is the smart person's beer. It still assists you in making a fool of yourself, but in slurred slow motion. It makes you feel warm and fuzzy. And therefore reality and everyone in it is warm and fuzzy. Why do you think so many housemoms drink it all day? Wine is like cocaine as a downer.

As far as sexual side effects, I guess you could say those are good. For women, it makes you want to have sex, which can be hard to want to do sometimes, especially when the sex is boring or the guy is a jerk and leaves his laundry everywhere.

Here are a few tips:

Red wine is the only good wine. Drink white or zinfandel and you might as well be rollerblading in the front of the gay pride parade waving a rainbow banner like the sword in Braveheart.

Simultaneously drink the red wine in one glass, and WATER in the other. You will still get drunk but you are preventing your head feeling like that hard shrivled brown thing in the middle of an apricot in the morning.

Wine stains- a lot. Don't spill. And if you care about personal hygiene brush your teeth before passing out or you'll wake up looking like a vampire.

Personally, I prefer wine when I'm trying to savor the night, beer when I'm trying to forget. And liquor, well that's just an asshole move at this point. Happy drinking!

Oops forgot about transformer.

So I didn't know that the transformer benefit auction which I was a
part of on saturday was going to have complimentary Belgian beer. Wine
tasting officially started Sunday.

The 9%12% project.

So let's try this. My whole life I have had an aversion to wine.
White, red, I never like any of them. As it stands right now beer
drinking is getting me into a bit of trouble. So I am pulling the old
switcheroo. I will only drink wine (as a booze) until new years.

Kind of a saucer procrastinators version of a new years resolution. I
feel that wine might make me a bit more tolerable at at openings.
Maybe make the work at said openings more tolerable as well. I stole
the title from Glenn Beck. Partly because wine is generally 9 or 12%
by volume. But also as a wacked out liberal socialist I believe in
stealing as much from Glenn Beck as possible.

The social expiriment seeks to answer the following questions.
• is it beer or booze that turns me into a juvenile asshole?
• does wine make my desire to smoke cigarettes as strong as beer does?
• is the hangover different?
• is "medic" really the best outdoor drinking game ever?
•what is the difference between a $12 bottle and a $12 jug of wine?
• are there sexual side effects? (good or bad)

I am sure that there will be room for other side projects during the
test process.

ok great.

Nudashank

So I just went to knit wit at nudashank gallery. All work involving
knitting and thread and other softeeees. The space is quickly becoming
one of my favorites in Baltimore.
These pics are a few highlights for me.

New work installed at Arlington arts center

Here are some images of this work installed at the Arlington Arts
Center in Arlington VA. This show runs through Nov 7 2009.

Fall Events

Good afternoon everyone,

I hope your summer has been pleasant. This is the fall update for things I am involved with.

Things went very well with the residency at the Jackson county Green Energy Park. The work that I made there will be At Arlington Art Center As a part of their fall solo exhibitions. The opening for this is Friday sept 11 from 6 -9 pm. I am particularly excited because the solos this fall are almost all sculpture, If you live in DC and are a fan of that type of thing I highly reccomend checking it out.

http://www.arlingtonartscenter.org/fall-solos-2009

Also in DC, I will have work in the 6th Transformer benefit auction, November 7 2009 at the Mexican Cultural Institute. Details are still developing on this one, but it sounds like fun.

In Baltimore, Two pieces are on display as a part of the exhibition Hunter Gatherer. August 24 through September 25, 2009: Hunter Gatherer. The Galleries at CCBC, Catonsville. Hunter Gatherer features works made by foraging, stalking or collecting discarded materials. Like urban manifestations of the mythical "noble savage," these artists combine elemental processes with contemporary skills and concepts. Reception: Friday, September 25 from 6 to 8 pm. Curators, Paul Glasgow and Sarada Conaway.

Lastly if you are in NY, I will have a few pieces in the exhibit Ferrous Bloom, the Nature of Iron. Curated by coral lambert, It will be in the Fosdick Nelson Gallery as a part of Alfred University Meltdown Casting Symposium.

October 30 – December 2
Opening reception: Friday, October 30th, 7-9 PM:

Christian Benefiel, Laurence Edwards, Andy Griffiths, Ginny Hutchinson, Marjee Levine, Carolyn Ottmers, Vaughn Randall
Curated by Coral Lambert

http://fosdicknelson.alfred.edu/exhibits/ferrous-calendar.html

Ok great, hope to see you all soon.

Teaching

I am teaching a drawing class at Montgomery college this fall. For
those that know me you know that this is what I have wanted to do for
a good portion of my life. There is a lot of HR bullshit going on, but
I guess that that is the nature of the beast.

Newer work

New work

More pressers

http://www.maconnews.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=5236&Itemid=85

www.christianbenefiel.com

A little starter fluid, open the choke and here we go!

So shell toes Shelton has eccomended I dust off the old bloggy blog
and tell folks what is happening. So here we go.

This is a review of a show I had in Baltimore
http://www.citypaper.com/arts/story.asp?id=18459

why are bar maids are called wenches?

So, this past saturday After heading to the Grand opening of Hamiltonian Gallery We decide to retire to the black cat. This bar is the old staple for kids who either want to be hip, and don't know where the hip place to be is, or maybe are getting a little too old for the bar, but still wish they were cool. I belong to the latter group. I think. The bar is split into two levels, one for national touring acts Upstairs, And a bar with a small room in the back for local shows. The shows there are generally good shows, both upstairs and down. In fact, this is the place i probably go to see shows in DC most often. I know that DC is expensive, I know that times are tough, I know that old is the new new, and crappy is the sheik good, but this bar is guilty of one of my all time pet peeves. This is the fact that the bar maintains a low brow motif, Torn couches, sticky tables, bare bulbs, crooked pool tables, misfits on the jukebox (actual jukebox also, which is cool. not the digital download in your pants type), All the general characteristics of a Dive bar, with two exceptions, Price and attitude. The cheapest beer is a 350 PBR, Again not bad for DC, but not congruent with the atmosphere either.
Either way, once you get passed the distinct smell of aging hipsters and lavishly priced PBR draft in the place, the shows are generally good, and there relatively fewer conventional idiots there than in around the Area. plus it is Right down the street from the velvet lounge, where you can party to the tune of natty boh for pennies on the dollar. ( i do not know what that means.)

So here is my dilemma. I Consistently tip at the bar, not a lot, but consistently. I don't order complicated drinks. beer, whiskey, highball, tequila chances are pretty good that as a bartender serving me, you wont need your shaker. I wait patiently, I dont flag the barman or wave a 20 at him/her. all in all I feel like i am a pretty good bar customer. Or i did, until this weekend.
Here is the order

4 tequila, (It was a friends Birthday) one PBR draft. Total 31 dollars. In my pocket, 32 dollars.
The bartender fixes the drinks, and i gave her all of my money. I didn't ask for change, and she put the single on the bar, so i slid it to her end, and told her it was a tip, which she replied that it was not, and slid it back to me.

Fuck you.

First off, yes, in fact it is a tip.
Second of all you filled 5 glasses with liquid, and 4 of them were tiny this took you 30 seconds.
Third, Don t play blue collar bitch/white collar snob with me lady, I went to art school, I fucking know the rules to that game.
What the fuck is this, you probably make more than i do as a fucking bartender anyway, just because you need a fucking mortgage to pay for your shitty sleeve tattoos is fuck it, lets not make this personal.
Third if you want people to come in and order champagne and tip you with a fist full of jewels, don t work in a faux Dive bar which attracts artists, musicians and vagrants such as yourself. Get on some Philip Pirrip/Oliver Twist shit and move to georgetown.

I might be wrong here, but I feel so right.
Comments and questions.

Conner

So Also, in a late review, Conner contemporary had thier grand opening ceremony last week. The work seemed ok, although there were too many people to really make an assesment of the space or artworks. Brandon Morse had a new video piece in the show, which for me was the highlight. I am a bit biased about this, as I studied under him in graduate school, but realistically The piece was really reallt good. I wont ruin the work by going into a conveluded description, but there is a beautiful balance between rivalry and cooperation in the motions of the piece. Go see it.

Also on board and noteworthy in this exhibition, work by light installation artist, Leo Villareal I hear he has a commission for the underground walkway between the east and west wing of the national gallery, so congratulations on that. this time he has several large wall pieces in the main gallery, as well as one outside in the new courtyard. The work is interesting and exciting (although my favorite part is that they dry walled over the cords which power the works.

There are the works by regulars from CC there as well, Erik Sandberg and Nathaniel Rogers round out the paintings quite nicely.

The only thing lacking was, of course the sculpture, The work there seemed in appropriate for the space, and I am personally excited to see what and who the gallery and its artists take on to utilize their new environment. The new space is huge, One of the biggest in DC, and looks like it is dying to be filled.

thanks also to the people who got me into the show, and to DC police for being out in unusually large numbers that night.

Next up. Music!

Berlinski

So this is what i was talking about.

http://www.bethanien.de/kb/index/trans/en/page/aboutlink

this is a link to the Künstlerhaus Bethanien website essentially, this is an alternative nonprofit in berlin, to the best of my assumption, which was saved by artists from demolition in 1974. I believe that the story goes...

A bunch of artists were squatting in this hospital campus, and it was up for demolition, they said, no, no (nein)
we want to turn this into an artist residency and gallery center which hosts dozens of artists each year, galleries, films, music, studios, workshops, the whole nine yards. and if we work hard at it it will kick so much ass that when other artists see it it will make their heads spin.

and they did, and they did.

the place is great, I would seriously consider cutting off one of my fingers to host an iron pour there.
It is huge, the work is awesome, the space is enchanting and inspiring. The downside, they are very secretive about hoe to get involved with it, (not that they need my help) and it seems difficult for american artists to receive grants for projects.

Either way, if you are going to berlin anyway, please go and check it out and support them, and if you are from Australia, New Zealand, the Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, Sweden, Spain or Hungary get on the stick and land a residency.

i think that norway has one open for textile artists right now.

here it is.

Ok next Back to DC

back from space

So, Long time now posty, well, I have been gone for quite a while. What have I been up to, Oh many many things.

To start, I finally received a Degree in something, what might you ask, well, Art!, yes beautiful, interesting, relatively useless art! And where to go with this art degree? well hopefully somewhere. We will See.

FAQ?

Does this degree legitimize anything that has been posted on this site, ever?
Well no, it doesn't, but the site was created as a part of my MFA studies, and now that that is over, there are plenty of other things that can be done with it.

Ok so the where have i been part.

I have been in merry ole England, casting metal, and muckety mucking with some of the greatest muckety mucks on that side of the globe. Here is information on the 9th annual USUK Iron symposium, which was great. Although the budget was tight, the people were good, and i think that our hosts might be getting close to recuperating most of the money that they personally lost in the ordeal!

USUK

This was truly a great time and much thanks to all the artists on both sides of the atlantic who made it possible.


Next Berlin,

what a great city, my favorite that i have ever been to. I am ready to move there.

More on that later this week

ok

Sigmund Freud is a hack.

So what is so sexual about this work? Though it is difficult to directly put your finger on, (no pun intended) there are elements that are mysteriously erotic about these works. Many of the elements vaguely imply a nebular round shape. Flopping and sagging over time, the shapes come to a point defined by a co centric smaller circle of similar, yet rougher often darker materials. Some forms are long ovular shapes, which stand on end when activated. at other times the work seems to fold in on itself, creating fissures, and enveloping voids, becoming more and more entangled in itself. These elements combine, interact with each other, through inflation and deflation, undulating, bouncing and shaking, in a slow almost rhythmic cycle. The cycle, remarkably runs in three phases. Upon initial interaction the work stirs, slowly coming to life rising and swelling, until at last things come to a head, the work is at its maximum turgidity, and is in full bloom. this climax lasts until the stimulus ceases, and a third phase of slow, steady decent in action begins. at last, the piece returns to its original state calm and peaceful.

Although this is not what any of the work claims to be about, it is an interesting coincidence. nothing concrete, plenty of suggestion. Like the idea of personal space, it invokes the question of the viewers relationship are we reading into the sculpture, or is the sculpture intended to read this way.

The Work

Enough talk, here is some more visuals for you

Personal space

The idea of personal space is confronted in this body of work through the same interaction as the other concepts presented. In each piece the work begins innoculously laid out on the ground, harmless and non-invasive. As the cycle of the work progresses the pieces grow and consume more realestate, meanwhile rising to an imposing height, and pressing out against the viewer. At this point, the viewer would make a choice, continue interacting with the work or walking away, leaving the piece to its own devices. Is this interaction all one sided? Are viwewers leaving the sculpture based on an invasion of privacy, cramped space, or threatening imposition? Is the sculpture declaring its own space? in the case of the more mobile sculptures the changes in orientation and position add to the idea of art chasing away its appreciates. The sculptures are almost parasitic in the sense that they require concious interaction to become themselves while taking up more space than can be tolerated.