I also just tried my first attempt at low-light photography in a sealed-off basement of a downtown building.  The only point of access is through a small manhole, and I took the photos by very dimly lighting the area with small flashlights and doing 30 second exposures.  It worked out ok, but these digital cameras make everything so confusing that the shots all came out a little blurry.  I turned off the auto focus in the camera settings because the camera wouldn’t take a picture without being able to focus on anything, but I forgot to turn it off on the lens so I could manually crank the focus.   It was also challenging not being able to really see anything through the viewfinder.  But I at least got a few useable shots.  I was disappointed that the basement was so small.  I thought that it would run the whole length of the building, but it turned out to be only three small rooms towards the back of the building.  Still, it was a very interesting spot in a building that has to be over 100 years old.  Hopefully some research will turn up some interesting facts, such as what it may have been used for and how long these rooms have been more or less cut off from above ground access.  A small staircase leading up to the ceiling showed that it was at one time accessible before being floored over and forgotten in the subterranean lair of Lawrence.

Here’s a few previews of photos that I may include in the series.  They’re not exactly what I’m envisioning doing for the project, but they are closely related.  If I thought it would be worth the effort, I would have gotten permission to go inside the abandoned Chinese restaurant to take pictures.  But I didn’t bother because it seems like I can’t even go one day without seeing an abandoned pile of crab rangoons and fried dumplings.  Nothing special about that.  Anyway, here’s the pics.

Duct tape can fix anything

The problem starts with Plenum Space’s notoriously awkward hanging system.  They make it clear that the walls cannot be punctured in any way to install artwork, and provide a rail up along the rafters that the work must be hung from.  I did this by stringing fishing line around the rail and through the hanging wire on the back of the work.  The problem with this setup is that it causes the top of the work to dangle about six inches away from the wall.  Unless you want to give people the impression that you’re a complete halfwit who couldn’t hang a decent show to save your life, you have to figure out a way of keeping the frame up against the wall without nailing into it.  I figured the easiest solution was to place a piece of tape over the fishing line behind the piece so that it pulled the hanging wire and the frame up against the wall.  As you can see from the photos of the show in earlier posts, it worked, and the show looked good.

A couple days after the opening I received an email from Hannah saying that when she took down the piece that was sold, the tape tore at the surface of the wall.  I apologized, surprised that tape would be able to damage a wall, and offered to patch up any damage caused by taking the work down.  She said that was fine if I could smooth out anything that needed it, and that the gallery had paint so I didn’t need to worry about that.

Then the day before I was to take my show down,  I get a call at 9 a.m. while I’m at work from the gallery owner.  There are actually three people who own the building that Plenum Space is in, but I’m not sure which one I talked to.  I didn’t catch his name because I was so taken aback by what a condescending and presumptive jackass he was.

A photo of the Plenum Space gallery owner

I take his call and he says “you know we’ve got a problem with that tape on the walls, right?”  I told him I was aware that it had already caused some damage, but that I would be careful in taking down the rest of the work and had already agreed to patch any spots that needed smoothing out.  “No” he said.  “I don’t want you working on my walls.  I’ve got a guy that does that.”  He proceeded to give me the number to a repair guy, and told me to call and describe the damage to him, get a quote over the phone on how much it would cost to fix the walls, and then call the jackass back to tell him the amount of that quote.  I was so baffled by this guy’s nerve and odd request that I said okay just to get him off the phone.

At first it didn’t make sense to me why he would want me to make the call.  It’s his building, not mine.  How can ANYONE make an accurate quote over the phone anyway?  I hadn’t even seen the damage myself yet, what am I supposed to tell the guy?  The whole thing stunk.  Then it dawned on me. He was well aware that I wasn’t responsible for fixing the walls, and his idea was to have me call the repairman so that I would be giving an implied agreement to pay for it.  That way if I complained about him keeping my money, he would have the defense that I was technically the one to order the work.  At least that’s my theory.  I suspect that he knew I had a valid argument to make in not being held responsible for the damage and was trying to be sneaky about covering his bases.  That’s probably the thing that bothers me the most about this whole ordeal is that this guy was trying to be sneaky about it.  I’d rather he have been unapologetically open in his dishonesty than try to cover his tracks like that. 

You see, the contract I signed was very explicit in saying that piercing the walls in any way was prohibited.  It also had a catchall that reads something like “the artist is responsible for any damages from installing or uninstalling the show.”  In this case, this catchall is a problem because ordinarily tape will not cause damage to a wall.  The walls of the gallery are not normal sheetrock walls, and as I  found out through email conversations with Hannah, it was known beforehand that the walls are easily damaged by adhesives.  In fact, one message revealed that last year there had been a similar problem with someone who had used double-sided scotch tape.  Yes, scotch tape was strong enough to take the paint off the walls, and here I had my big heavy pieces stuck to the wall with industrial strength duct tape. 

However, I was at no point warned about this, and nothing in the contract indicated that the gallery walls are made of anything other than ordinary sheetrock.  If I had been told this information I surely wouldn’t have risked putting tape on the wall and figured out some other way of installing the show.  Or better yet the gallery could be forward thinking enough to include a NO ADHESIVES clause in the contract if they know the walls are that sensitive, but that might be asking a lot, hmm?

So anyway, further damage of the wall was unavoidable when I took the work down.  I don’t know what their walls are made out of, but they’re nothing like anything I’ve ever seen before.  There was no good method for taking the tape off.  No matter how slowly I peeled it brought along chunks of paint and wall material with it.  The wall appeared to be made out of some kind of chipboard or paper material.  I’m not sure what it was, but it was definitely the first time I’d seen tape cause significant damage to a wall.

Despite the fact that I was never made aware of the fact that these were unusually sensitive walls, the gallery owner kept my $150 in sales to pay for the repairs.  If it was an amount of money worth fighting for I’m confident I would win in small claims court, but it’s really not worth fighting for.  I had to learn the hard way that the Plenum Space gallery is owned by at least one unethical and dishonest person, so if you’re an artist looking for a place to show, go somewhere else.  Or if you do show there: for the love of God, don’t stick ANYTHING to the wall!

Advertising doesn’t seem hard at all to me.  I can go through all the formal processes they were laying out in my head and cut the chase.  Just come up with something wacky and keep tweaking it till it makes sense.  I don’t know, working on ads would either be insanely fun for me, or a terrible drag, it’s hard to say. 

Anyway, the whole point of this is we were asked to write a story based on one of four words.  I chose the word “concentration” and came up with the following story.  After I finished it I gave it a look over and decided it wasn’t half bad for a first draft short story based off of a single word.  So here it is:

The buzzing sound of tires on hot asphalt faded to the back of Jackson’s mind.  All external noises were now blended into a white hum that was drowned out by the steady, rhythmic sound of his breathing and the pounding of each valve in his heart.  It was the only thing he was able to focus on that could distract his attention from the fire creeping up his legs.  Each turn of the bike pedals was accompanied by a searing pain that ran the length of his leg.  It had begun as a tingling sensation near his ankles.  Now, nearly an hour later, it felt as if his quadriceps were separating themselves from his skeleton and his calves had turned to quivering lumps of gelatin.  But still, he kept pedaling, and the tires continued to sing the same soft song at a constant pitch as he rounded the long curve.

            His mind drifted back to the starting line.  What was it like all the way back there at the beginning?  Had he truly been prepared for the type of pain he was now facing?  Wasn’t it nice to sit at the start with the anticipation of riding your first 150-mile race?  It was surely nicer than the ugly reality of almost being finished with it.  He knew he was within the last two miles of the race, almost there, but then the pain began to creep back into his consciousness, making each push like a self-inflicted knife wound. 

            “Try to focus on the breathing again” Jackson thought to himself.  His tongue and lips tried to form the words, but only noiselessly flapped in exhaustion.  It was no use.  His breathing only reminded him of the rhythmic pain pulsating in his legs, but he was able to overcome it by imagining calm, golden sunbeams shining through a window in the afternoon. 

            His bike was nearing the end of the long curve which he knew led to the final stretch. 

            “How far back are the other riders?” he thought.  “Is there anyone else in front of me?”  He couldn’t remember and quickly pushed those worries out of his mind, returning to the small grid of light created by the window the sunlight in his mind shined through.  It created a small rectangle composed of six smaller illuminated rectangles that, if watched long enough, could be seen creeping across the hardwood floor away from him as the day passed.  Jackson found some type of comfort in these things, such as trying to watch the moon move through the night sky.        No matter how hard you stared at that bright disk in the blackness it was almost impossible to detect any motion, but by checking against a point of reference such as a roof eave or a tree, the moon always was definitely moving.  Slowly and steadily, it traced an arc across the night sky just as it has for eons. 

            The moon never got tired, and Jackson needed that kind of determination to finish this race.  The final stretch was a long, low grade hill that demoralized the rider with each foot travelled up it.  Jackson had some idea of what he was in for from his training runs on the course, but he hadn’t pushed himself as hard in training as he had during the race.  Or maybe he had pushed himself too hard in training and not given his leg muscles ample time to recover.  Jackson knew he had a bad habit of pushing himself too hard through the pain, and had probably caused his joints and ligaments to suffer damage that hurt him in the long run, but now was not the time to give up that habit.  The finish line was in sight!

            The red banner across the crest of the hill marked the finish to this grueling journey, but like seeing the light at the end of a tunnel, the view of the finish makes the distance to the goal seem deceptively short.  Jackson lowered his head and pumped harder in an effort to sustain the speed he had been travelling at before the hill, which turned out to be a mistake.  The pain in his thighs was so severe it almost caused him to fall sideways.  Plus he accidentally looked at his legs and allowed his mind to focus on the knotted balls of muscle on his extremities.  He raised his head slightly and evened his pace, focusing his vision on the ground directly in front of his tire.

            The asphalt passing before his eyes reminded him of time-lapsed photos of stars blurring across the sky.  The stars themselves didn’t move.  That motion was caused by the rotation of the Earth.  The pavement wasn’t moving, it appeared to move because of the rotation of his wheels.  The surface of the tire, like the surface of the Earth, spun and spun and spun.  Jackson rarely considered the fact that the planet was spinning him through space.  How was his body moving in relation to space as he moved across the surface of this rotating object? 

            “No, don’t answer that” he thought.  “Just focus on what is in front of you.  There are no other riders, there is only you now.  This will not last forever, the race will be over.  You have no legs.  You have no arms or body.  You feel weightless.  Just watch as the ground passes beneath you.  You don’t have to keep those wheels spinning as long as the Earth has rotated on its axis.  You will make it.  You will make it.”

            Jackson’s mind faded into this mantra as he entered the final 100 meters.  He thought about after the race.  He thought about going home.  You will make it.  He thought about his room in the back of the house, his fortress of solitude.  He thought about how when this was all over he would enter his room and lay on the bed until he was ready to get up.  You will make it.

            He would lay there for a whole day if he wanted to, maybe even two days, but he wouldn’t have to use his legs at all.  There he would lay in a state of bliss, with the knowledge that he had finished the race, that he had made it.  You will make it.

            He would be able to lay there and watch the sun beam shine through the window around eleven o’clock.  It would begin on the wall by the head of the bed, cast as a rectangle composed of six smaller rectangles.  By one o’clock it would have shifted to the foot of the bed, partially on the floor and partially on the white bed sheets.  By late afternoon it would begin creeping up the wall, and take on a darker golden-yellow hue that nicely complemented the steel blue paint.  You will make it.

            And after the sunbeam disappeared towards the top of the wall, he would be able to see the stars, and maybe the moon if it was the right time of year, pass by the window panes in their silent journey across the sky.  Yes, you will make it.

            Jackson thought about all of this as he continued to focus on the road in front of him, and all of a sudden there was a yellow flash.  A bright yellow stripe passed through his field of vision and went underneath the surface of his tires.  The finish line.  He had made it. 

            Raising his head, he saw a small crowd had gathered and was clapping.  He still couldn’t hear outside noises very well, but made his best attempt at a smile.  Off to the side were three or four other riders who had finished and lay on the ground next to their bikes, not moving at all.  He let the tension drain from his legs and the rest of his body, and as he continued to coast down the shallow backside of the hill he let the air flow easily into his lungs.  He was not first, but he didn’t care.  He was finished and now free to bask in his own satisfaction.  He wheeled off to the side of the road and collapsed in the shade of a tall oak, letting his body melt into the cool soil below it and staring up through the dancing leaves while the light shone through them. 

http://ereview.org/2010/04/07/rise-of-the-urborgs-matt-kuhlman/

It was cool to see people’s reactions to some of the unshown work.  Perhaps one of the most popular pieces was my mythical 8 foot long linoleum print depicting a transition from the city-chaos of New York to the tranquil fields of Lecompton.  One of the panels from that series sold, but no worries, it’s an edition of 4. 

The third picture with the light beams was another newer and never before seen work.  Personally, it’s one of my favorites, but I think people preferred the canvas work I completed over the winter.  Anyhow, the show is still up until April 23, and is available by appointment.  Contact Hannah Mott at 816-929-5930 or at plenumspacekc@gmail.com to make an appointment.

Also, blurb has a new ‘widget’ feature that allows me to embed a preview of my book nyc 2008, so here it is.

http://www.blurb.com/books/949753

Here’s the ADD podcast for my show this Friday!  ADD is done by Jason Barr, an old friend of mine from KU, and features local Lawrence artists and art related people.  If you like it, continue to check it out.  He usually has about one feature a week, and he includes some great samples in the interview.

The gallery is in an unassuming looking building just across the street from Grinders and Pi gallery.  There’s usually an open garage door with a ceramics and pottery display open in the lower level of the building, and right next to that is a red door that leads upstairs to my show.  If you get to the Slap and Tickle gallery, you’ve passed Plenum Space.  I’ll try to have a sign on the sidewalk or something to make it easy to find, but not being familiar with the neighborhood is no reason to not make it to the show.  Where’s your sense of adventure?  Leave the GPS unit at home!  Go out and explore!

There will be some exciting never before seen work at the show.  The eight-foot-long linoleum print “Country to City” will be on display for the first time ever!  “Country to City” a panoramic image composed of eight 1-square-foot linoleum blocks that transitions from a country pasture to the increasingly jumbled and un-organic city scene.  It was a carving I began while in New York, so I began with the city block first and then worked backward, coincidentally finishing with the country end of the image after returning to Lecompton.  Because of is unweildy size, I have never properly documented the piece, so it is not on my site anywhere.   Come and give it a look!

Also on display will be four of the cityscape panels, which have never been shown.  Those, however, are featured in my online portfolio.  The newest piece I’ve made, featured in my last entry, will be there, along with some previously displayed work. 

I almost forgot that there will be one other never before seen piece making its debut at this show.  The intaglio print titled “Buildings 1″ on my site has been revisited, reworked, and transformed into the new piece “Light Beam”.  I’m not going to give you a description for free, but the addition of some gouache and colored pencil has brought that print to its final state.  Gotta come see it to find out what it’s all about!

Well, back to the grind.  See you in April!

That should be big enough that I don’t need to post detail shots.

This was all pretty experimental.  I had this vision of stained canvas, where it’s colored but you can still see the weave.  It wasn’t easy to do, but watercolor ended up working pretty well.  You kind of have to scrub the paint into the fabric.  Then I pasted cut out rice paper shapes over the watercolor design and took to the pen and ink.  The skills were a little shaky first, but once I shook the rust off it all fell into place.  Everything in this piece is freehand, which is also why it took a while to complete.

Anyway, it was probably a bad idea to make this because I enjoyed it so much.  Getting back to what I really enjoy doing made school seem like that much more of a drag.  I just need to keep reminding myself that I’m going to school so I can have more time and opportunities to make my work.  I’ll survive, but that doesn’t mean it’s going to be easy for me.  Gotta keep your eyes on the prize.

I’m also in the process of planning a show at Plenum Space gallery in Kansas City for first Friday in April.  Journalism school has consumed virtually every waking moment of my free time this fall, and I’m excited to get back to thinking about art over break.  I might even get a chance to do some drawing if I’m lucky. 

Next semester will probably just as if not more brutal, but starting next summer I might get back into producing new work again.  I miss being able to make my work, but in the long run I hope that what I’m learning in journalism will benefit my artwork and the art world in general.  Artists have a tendency to be lousy at promotions, and I’m hoping to change that.

I’m trying to find a way of reconciling my previous work with my work in journalism right now, and currently my idea for a thesis project is to construct a website specifically dedicated as a news and information resource on printmaking.  Any thoughts or suggestions are welcome, just send an email.

Also, I can be found on Twitter now under the name @mattkuhlman.  Twitter seems silly to me, but also the direction that personal communications are heading.  Resistance is futile, not to mention counter-productive.  Feel free to follow me, I try to keep my tweets somewhat interesting.  No updates about what kind of sandwich I had for lunch. 

Have a happy beginning to 2010!  Has it already been 10 years?  Geez…

-mk