When Yer Hot Yer Hot!

I was just checking the google stats on my blog and the data is truly remarkable. There was a wild spike in my visits on May 12th and I am trying to find out why. From May 1- May 12 there were no visits, then all of the sudden on May 12th BOOM! 2 visits! Out of nowhere I'm going friggin' viral! and I don't know why.

mom?

Well, whomever you are, I thank you because I truly believe that you are at least partially responsible for this great contact I made in China. Linda from Duchy Group. They have ways of finding out who is hot and a spike in visits like the one I experienced on May 12th really opened doors for me. It is very complicated but on graph paper it looks a lot like a tsunami.

tsu·na·mi

   [tsoo-nah-mee]  Show IPA

–noun

an unusually large sea wave produced by a seaquake, a spike in blog visits or underseavolcanic eruption.

Other designers are probably going to wage  jihad on me for posting this but my gratitude outweighs my fear. I haven't used these guys yet but if their product is half as good as their presentation I am sure they will do a bang up job. Please tell them I sent you. I am guessing you will get the VIP treatment if you do. Let me know how it goes.

this is Linda

and she works for Duchy 

 It's got to be a wonderful company 

Splain me this

I don't know why I did it but a while ago I started posting vids on youtube. It is an extension of my prairie scream. I have no agenda, I just want to create an opportunity to thank the academy and I don't know how else to express my gratitude. (Not that I have actually hardly even seen a whole movie at once in the past fuckteen years.)

You never know what is going to please people. At least, I don't. I aim to please but I am not always accurate. Case in point: magic jewelry box videos. You would think people would love a 48 second movie featuring an interesting box and some legitimate Belgian yodelhumming. Well, if you thought that, you would be at least two things; in agreement with me and wrong.

Of all my 26 antivideos, why has this one struck such a cord? Why are people so inclined to take all the effort to click thumbs down? Do those 6 people want me to take the video down? Would the 5 people who gave it the thumbs up stand with me if it came down to a bare knuckle affair? With me on the thumbs up side, that would be 6 on 6.  Let's meet in Nebraska or somewhere and have it out.  (I am a coaster so for the sake of convenience, I assume that all the people who dislike the video live on one coast and all the likers live on the other.)

I will take the vid down if my side loses. That is my promise. And what the hell, I will give t shirts to all who attend and two shirts each for the winners.

What's Not To Love?

Is it so wrong for a man to love a sign? Not a sign like a Sign From God but an A-board sign you might see on the sidewalk in front of a business.  I am making some signs for a new restaurant that just opened on Alberta here in Portland called Natural Selection.  One blade sign that will hang above the entrance and one A-board that will age gracefully on the sidewalk.

The materials and the design are built to accommodate the weather and to change with age. Metal will rust, rough cedar will green/gray, colors will fade and history will be recorded.  Looking forward to decay does not sound optimistic in general but in this case, it is. These signs are going to look better and better and better.

The frame for the A-board is made out of one piece of the famous junglewood.  I sawed it on the '56.

I had been trying to get my beautiful wife to consider accepting this sign into our family as a member. An intimate member. I was surprised that she seemed warm to the idea when I first brought it up. You can imagine how awkward it was. We both decided together that it would be too hard to explain to the kids and let it go.

These messy, through tenons are the physical embodiment of the loose, overshot lines of a quick sketch. To me it indicates an infinite, unfinished, hopeful element. It adds life to inanimacy because it invites inquiry.

Everything is not so defined that it closes the door on subjectivity. Rather, it is a subtle, aesthetic catalyst for an emotional interaction between someone and something.  It is neither discrete nor exclusive.

good old Ruppert oil slapped the turnip and cabbage summa cum-laude

Even the refuse generated by this project please me. I am a sucker for a trophy, having won very few. But tell me the powers from beyond weren't shining on me when I generated this off-cut when I plasma cut the "S"s for the blade sign. I humbly accept this great award.

And here is a piece of metal I was testing some milk paint techniques on. I'm keeping it.
Extra added bonus!

All in all it was a bountiful project. Thank you, good night.