F O U N D

The thing that first caught my eye about this feather was that it was white. I usually only see brown-ish feathers, and already have a lot of them. It was also fluffier than most of the duck feathers I usually see. So, as I stepped over it, I paused and looked closer, and I saw that it was covered in blood and some green stuff that I can't identify. Gross. So my gut reaction was to abandon the feather. That's when it became kind of interesting.



Who cares about a little blood and guts? I mean, our society is so sterile and we are all so conditioned to feel like if something is dirty or whatever, then it's somehow wrong. But, my closer inspection of the feather led me to the opposite conclusion. First of all, since it is white, the colors of the blood and green stuff are more vibrant. My pics are a little weak and they're not as vibrant as real life, unfortunately, but I can assure you that the red and green are pretty bright. Color. I like it.

What could be a more appropriate symbol for fraility but a feather covered in blood and guts? So weak and delicate and dead.

Brian posted at 2:03 PM.

I enjoy the naturally occurring spots on these branch segments. They remind me of the leopards of the tree kingdom. If I use these in artwork, they get to have this cool artistic pattern, but at the same time represent nature.

I found the spotted sticks on Damen. I don't remember where I was going. I do remember I had just left my house, was not going home. There's not really much else to say about it. Maybe I'll think of something later...

Brian posted at 10:48 AM.

I don't quite remember where I picked up this little gem from the archives, but it was quite some time ago. Years, probably.

This is the kind of object I would consider donating to Found Magazine, but I am just too attached to this kind of funny stuff. My main interest for a while has been how my found objects can be worked into art, but I always love picking up stuff that I really don't have an artistic vision for.

I picked up Found Magazine #3 recently, but haven't had a chance to thumb through it. I understand they're having a gathering here in Chicago soon. Maybe I can bribe them into adding this page as a link to theirs by giving them some good stuff?

Brian posted at 6:35 PM.

audio post powered by audblog

Enjoy!

Brian posted at 11:34 PM.

I found this in the street on Damen. I just like the color (which has not appeared very brilliantly in the image, but you'll just have to trust me that it's pretty). I also like that it's actually a bead, which can be used in jewelry making or can be strung, for whatever purpose.

I also had a dream recently where the shape of this dream surfaced in my subconscious.

Brian posted at 2:01 PM.

On the way to and from Filter today, walking down Damen, I found these objects. I just decided to post them all together because it was such a good group of finds. On the top of the picture, we see a few potter shards. There are little snowflakes on it, so it's probably from some sort of seasonal item. The colors of all the images are a bit whitewashed because I had to turn up the brightness so you'd get to see any color. But color is what drew my attention to the shards right away. The blue is more brillian than what you see here. The shards made me think of the amazingly wonderful Asian practice of taking antique pottery shards and making new items out of them, by cladding around the shard with another material, like pewter. They make beautiful little boxes out of them. It's so wise to re-use the shards in that way.

On the block of wood (which was not found today - I just used it so the colors of the objects wouldn't get lost) we see two translucent materials. One is red, and I think it's from a busted tail light. The other is roundish and I'm sure comes from a pair of tinted eyeglasses. I like translucent materials. The red of the tail-light shard is really quite brilliant in person - it's too bad I couldn't capture that.

What's cool about the eyeglass lens is that it's not only a color, but it has a definite geometric shape. So much of my collection lacks that kind of form. I know I have a lot of cogs, but often they're rusty or damaged. The lens looks in pretty good condition. The best part of the finds from today is that in my studio, I began a new construction. The process for this starts with amassing the right materials and sort of just stacking it in the same area. I'll probably not touch the pile again for a couple weeks, but will look at the pile often and just feel my reaction to the different objects' proximities to one another. It's a little instinctual. Occasionally I'll rearrange the pile or completely remove a certain object that I know must be ruled out. Then I'll start arranging the objects inside a box in the way I think they should go. It's a long time before I actually affix anything to anything. A lot of observing.

I can tell you that the new project is going to be called Assembly. It will have a strongly futuristic theme and will reference technology and it's intersection with nature.

The last object is a Von Bondies Sticker. I found it outside the Double Door. The Von Bondies had just played there the night before, and my friend Alex from In The Periphery went to see them, so I thought I'd pick up a sticker for him.

Brian posted at 3:05 AM.

Have you ever heard anyone say that Coke tastes better from a glass bottle than from any other source? I suppose I used to say it. It might even be true.

This bottle top will go with my collection of glass items. Part of this project is to help me categorize my items. My goal is to have them all in clear plastic boxes in my studio so catalogued in a way that I can look through them quickly. I am sure I will have a sort of glass area, and some sub-categories will be glass things that hold liquid, glass with words, and then colored glass shards would be another set of sub-categories. Color is very important.

Anyway, this is my second broken bottle top. It's a little taller than my other one, and it's kind of cool because it can stand upright independently.

I'm kind of excited about a few of the items in the next set of images for the rest of march. Stay tuned.

I'm also closer to a conceptual design for the skin of this site. Cool.

Brian posted at 3:00 PM.

I don't remember where I found this, but I think it was on Damen, in Wicker park. It may eventually become the background for this page, if I ever get around to re-designing it.

I think the drawing is of a birthday picnic for a gem-eyed monster who is happy. Above, the sun sleeps lazily. There was no signature. The image was taken with a camera rather than scanned, which leads me to believe I wasn't near my home computer when I uploaded it to my image-hosting site, photobucket.

Brian posted at 4:32 PM.

audio post powered by audblog

We went out for food to a restaurant in Andersonville on Friday night. Calo is a restaurant that advertises live music and they deliver. The band consisted primarily of either Philipino-Americans or latin-Americans, I'm not sure. The female vocalis, who wore a shimmery red-sequens halter top, was the only caucasian. She was the only one who danced in the band, too. She also occasionally shook a red tambourine.

The voice you hear in the audio is of the bassist, who played on a six-string bass. The band was very talented and had top-quality equipment.

I overheard at the bar someone say "As long as she doesn't sing, it's ok." I thought that was a little unfair. She wasn't bad.

Overall, it was a pretty surreal experience, though.

At one point, they played the electric slide, and two philipino couples got up and tried it. They were either drunk or horrible at the slide or both, but that just meant more entertainment for us. Good times. Definitely made me wish I had a cameraphone. Damn me.

One thing caught my eye at the restaurant. Near us, sitting in a booth was an older gentleman and a younger asian woman. The dynamic between them was very odd. He looked like he might have served in Nam and got a taste for Asian women or something. I know it's bad, but I couldn't help but wondering if she was like a mail-order bride or something like that. He was totally into the Neil Diamond songs that the band played - knew all the words.

Brian posted at 1:14 AM.

I have lots of pieces that are broken or whole pieces of glass. I like the effect glass has on light when light is filtered through it, whether the glass is clear or colored. What I was especially attracted to about this broken corbel bottle was the label, which looked old-timey. I found it on the ground somewhere, I can't remember now, and I fortunately had a plastic bag with me (for picking up doggy doo doo). I say fortunate because the shard is very sharp at one point. It sliced right through the plastic bag pretty much instantly when I put it in. I was nervous about forgetting it was in there and cutting my hand open. I was OK though.

Brian posted at 2:33 PM.