Burning Man 2009 and AZ Decompression 2009

I went to the Burning Man Festival for the 10th time this year. We brought the Amphibia structure and had a camp of about 45 people. Lots of fun, as usual. Nevertheless, I am planning to take a break in 2010 and do something else for my big vacation. Burning Man is always fun, and there are always cool things to see, people to meet, and experiences to have. For a change, I would like to have a different experience. I am not sure what, yet. It could be travel to a foreign land, or attendance at one or more other interesting edgy events here in the U.S. We'll see.

Anyway, here is a link to some photos I took at Burning Man this year:
http://picasaweb.google.com/zebulonspleen/BurningMan2009#

In October, I attended the Arizona Burning Man Decompression party at Gateway Ranch near Flagstaff, AZ. It's a much smaller event than Burning Man - only about 100 people. Compare that to the 50,000 that go to Burning Man. I love this event. Great time and great friends! Here are some photos' of the Decompression:
http://picasaweb.google.com/zebulonspleen/AZDecompression2009#

Almost Famous

A little over a year ago, my sculpture, Cosmos, was rented to be in a movie. The movie, Surrogates, just came out last weekend and the sculpture does show up, but just barely. If you happen to see the movie, Cosmos is at the human reservation in a green area where The Prophet hangs out. This scene is about a third of the way through the movie. Cosmos can be seen spinning away at the left side of the screen for maybe two seconds. If you aren't looking for the sculpture, you will probably miss it. Cosmos is almost famous!

Over the last year I have told people that Disney rented my sculpture and I have gotten many questions about how this all happened. Here is a brief description of what happened and maybe it will give you a little bit of information on how this small part of the movie industry works, at least in my case.

In May of 2008 I got an email from someone claiming to represent a major motion picture who said she wanted to maybe rent one of my sculptures. At first I thought it was just another scam to try to get me to divulge personal bank account info or something like that. The one thing that made me think it might be legitimate was there were a lot of phone numbers at the bottom of the email. I thought it was worth replying to.

It turned out the offer was legitimate. I was in communication with the Buyer for the Surrogates Production. She told me that the Set Decorator (an official title) wanted the "rebel camp" to look kind of Burning-Man- like. The Buyer had not heard of Burning Man so she went on the web, found the Burning Man website, and found a picture or two of my sculpture, Cosmos. This was how she found me.

I had no idea what to charge as a rental fee. Fortunately I have two friends who have worked in and around the movie business. Jeff used to run a company that rented cameras and such to film production. He was the perfect guy to ask about rental pricing. My friend, Don, has done work for Disney for years so he was helpful with information about dealing with Disney.

I came up with a weekly price and they agreed. They paid me two weeks rental fee and a crating fee in advance, which was pretty cool. Disney sent a truck to take it to Massachusetts where the movie was being filmed. I wrote a manual for assembling the sculpture and also shot a video of it being assembled. Cosmos is a bit complicated to assemble so I wanted to give the set building crew good instructions so that they could put it together easily and not damage it.

I shipped Cosmos to Taunton, MA in June, 2008 and it was set up on the grounds of an abandoned mental hospital/school called the Dever State School. If you look up Dever State School you can see pictures of the site, without the movie set, of course.

They rented the sculpture for three weeks and then shipped it back to my shop in Prescott. Unfortunately, one of the parts was damaged in shipping. The Lead Man (another "official" title) was great. He filed a claim with the shipper and I got a check to cover repairs in just a few weeks.

All in all, renting out my sculpture was a great experience. The people I dealt with were very professional and were excellent communicators. I would definitely do it again.

I tried not to have expectations about the sculpture appearing in the movie. I know that the movie industry spends millions of dollars on things that never actually show up on the screen. I hoped that Cosmos would not get edited out. I entertained the idea that it might even appear prominently. I couldn't help being a bit disappointed that it was so easy to miss while watching the film. But it IS there! So that's a good thing.

Cosmos is available for sale. I am asking $26,000 for it. It is a little over 20 feet tall and it's base is 12 feet in diameter. It has several spinning elements that are wind driven. I just shot a 1-minute video of Cosmos spinning in high winds. Check it out.

Pyroklectic from Zebulon on Vimeo.

I am a member of the fire performance troupe, Pyroklectic. We performed on the Fourth of July in the Courthouse Square in Prescott, AZ. My wife, Nita, filmed us and I used the footage to create this two-minute video of the highlights of our show. I think I can accurately say that Prescott has not ever seen a performance like this before!

A Snapshot of Cosmic Steel

I shot a five minute video today at my steel fab shop/studio. On Friday I finished, with some help, putting together COSMOS, a large wind sculpture I made in 2004. It has been lying around my shop yard disassembled since it came back from being rented for a movie. I finally cleared a space and put it together. It was breezy today and it moved beautifully in the wind. I just had to shoot some photos and video. There are some other in-progress and completed worksin the video, too. I apologize for the clutter in my shop. I guess I work in creative chaos.
To see the video, go to my Cosmic Steel website

Queen Califia's Magical Circle

During my California trip in March, 2009, I visited an absolutely amazing art environment in Kit Carson Park in Escondido. It's called Queen Califia's Magical Circle. Opened to the public in 2003, this is the last major international work designed by sculptor and mosaic artist Niki de Saint Phalle.

The Magical Circle is about 90 feet in diameter and every inch is covered in mosaic. Materials include iridescent glass, pebbles, slices of agate, ceramic tiles, and semi-precious stones. The substructure consists of steel and polystyrene foam covered in fiberglass.

The walled circle has gigantic mosaic snakes around the perimeter. You enter the sculpture garden via a walled maze of black, white, and mirrored tiles. You exit the maze into a courtyard containing several totem-pole like sculptures. In the very center of the circle is a giant bird that you can walk under. In the space under the giant bird is a golden egg. On top of the bird stands Queen Califia, holding a small bird in her hand.

Niki named the installation after a legendary black Amazon queen who ruled over the mythical island of California. The roots of this legend date back to a Spanish novel written in 1510. Some people think that California (the U.S. state) was named after this legend.

Before she got into mosaic, Niki made a splash in the international art world with her "shooting paintings." She would embed full paint cans in plaster sculptures, put a blank canvas behind them and shoot the sculptures with a gun, splattering the paint on the canvas.

When visiting Barcelona, she was profoundly influenced by the work of Antoni Gaudi's Guell Park. This experience launched her into the world of mosaic.

Her largest work, the Tarot Garden, took 20 years to build and was completed in 1998. The Tarot Garden is in Italy but, in the U.S., the San Diego area has several of her works on display. Queen Califia's Magical Circle is the largest and most spectacular of her artworks in the United States. See more photos.

East Jesus Expands

A little over two years ago Charlie Russell moved out to a corner of Slab City to create a habitable, extensible art installation that he calls East Jesus. Shortly after he arrived, I visited him for about a month and helped a little with his growing project. I made a 15-minute video of this experience which I put online. I visited again in March of 2009 and the installation has expanded impressively.

Charlie is the "mayor" of East Jesus. He started by having an old shipping container delivered to the site. In 2007 I and a couple of friends helped start a sculpture garden using the junk that is lying around the place. As of my most recent trip, his installation now includes two travel trailers, several rooms built between the trailers and the shipping container, raised-bed gardens and the sculpture garden has been fenced and more sculptures added.

He has built a music room complete with a grand piano. The walls are covered with found-object art. He has begun a fantastic bottle wall using wine bottles and mortar. There is an LED light in the open end of each of the bottles so, at night, the wall looks spectacular.

Charlie's French friend, Segolene, was there when I arrived. She and Charlie both like to cook so we ate some delicious meals. It was quite a pleasant contrast to be sitting amidst the junk-turned-art right next to a military bombing range eating gourmet cuisine by the ambient light of the LED bottle wall.

A few days before I left, A Canadian musician, Natasha Duchene, arrived to record an album with Charlie as the recording engineer and guest musician. She writes music, sings, and plays the piano.

I added a few more sculptures to the garden on this trip as well as helping Charlie build some raised platforms to hang out on and watch the sun set. See a set of photos here.

The next installment of this blog will blow your mind. Check back in a week or so to read about, and see pictures of, an awesome mosaic environment.

Slab City Tank Art

I just completed a two-week trip to Southern California in search of interesting art installations. This is the first of a series reports on what I found on this trip. The first installment is about two large murals painted on some concrete tanks at the abandoned military base now known as Slab City.

The concrete tanks are about 100 feet in diameter and maybe 12 feet high. They probably were water tanks. A year and a half ago a guy started painting murals on them. One of the tanks looks like it is finished and the other one is in progress. I thought the artwork was spectacular.

The finished tank has a sexuality theme. The artwork is layered with the background layer consisting of the Kama Sutra positions. On top of that are dancing people with animal faces and also a ring of people holding hands. There are also a lot of small animals depicted in sexual positions.

The other tank is not done yet. So far it has dinosaurs in the background with various weapons being painted on top.

I met the artist and his idea is to create something outrageous. I believe he is succeeding. This has to be one of the only places in the country where someone can get away with creating such a major and controversial work of art. He seems quite unattached to the finished murals and welcomes graffiti artists to come out and add to the work. He refuses to be photographed and doesn't want anyone to know who made the art.

I'd love to go back in about a year and see what the tanks look like then. Click here to see more photos.