30 Nov 07

This week has gone so fast, like much of my time here, but on the other had Monday seems as it was a month ago. It probably has something to do with the week being so busy. I spent Monday through Wednesday mounting photographs, painting pedestals, measuring walls, and remeasuring--all the kinda stuff needed to get ready for a show. Wednesday morning and afternoon we installed our work. I left that day needing to remount my larger images, (42 x 55 cm) in between two panes of glass, both 70 x 100 cm and then have them hung. Hanging glass like this isn't the nice hammer in a nail and wire up the back to hang on the wall. I had to wrap rope around either side of the frames, so it would run vertically up to tied up to a pipe about a meter and a half above. This is no easy task to complete just a few hours before the opening. Luckily I had plenty of help, and got it done in no time. Don't get me wrong, I had my images hung once on Wednesday but according to Professor, they didn't look enough like 'objects' my argument was that they are documentation of the actual event that was the art, but I was overridden and had to do the glass and rope...aka the European Style of hanging. The piece does look really great and I am happy that I did go with the glass, but I just wish that suggestion would have come earlier than 6pm the night before the opening.

Overall the opening went really well, champaign and everything! We have to take everything down next Wednesday, it's a very short show, but still very happy to have the opportunity. Pictures are up on Flickr. Gotta go sign my contract for the award piece!

All the best,
AM

23 Nov 07

Happy Thanksgiving, everyone! Sorry it's a day late. Yesterday was pretty much studio as usual for us Americans in Croatia. Although when my Croatian friends saw me, they did greet me with "Happy Thanksgiving" and asked about how the holiday originated. We did make reservations at one of the few Chinese restaurants in Zagreb, for 15 guests, the four Americans, six Croatian, two Hong Kong, one Slovenian, one Slovakian, and one Czech. Since I couldn't be at home, this was certainly the best way to spend it, with very good friends from many different places.

It's incredible how fast my calendar is filling up these last few weeks I have in Zagreb, we are preparing for the show to open on Thursday, then I will have a piece in group show at the Student Center, I need to visit some lecture classes to gather recordings for one of my final pieces, go to the foundry that is casting my work at some point...the list seems endless. I am planning to shorten my stay in Zagreb so I will take the long way back to Munich via Poland to see Auschwitz, Krakow, and a friend in Opole. I still might plan a weekend trip to Mostar, Bosnia, as long as the weather stays somewhat mild. However, I may have to plan the trip before I leave, I found out today a piece of mine has been accepted in a group show opening on Dec 13 and closes on 16. I should be around to take down my work so I can bring it home. It's also easier to travel with only one lighter bag rather than all of my luggage.

Looking forward to a lazy kinda weekend, the extent of my work will be editing the video I shot this morning, and finding a digital photo lab to print out 5 x 7s from the Tkalciceva installation. No hockey this weekend, apparently there is some figure skating exhibition. Other than that, I will plan to hang out, and catch up on some reading, half way through Kafka on the Shore by Marukami, hopefully will finish that on Sunday.

--AM

20 Nov 07

Over the weekend Zagreb had its first snow of the season, I had a lovely view from my dorm window. There are a bunch of trees lined in front that caught the snow just perfectly, pics are on the new flickr (see previous post). The snow was short lived, its forecast to get back near 16 C (60 F) by the weekend. I'm also just getting over another head cold, this time complete with sinus headache and ear ache. Considering this, I haven't been to hockey training since last Monday, but hope to be feeling well enough to go by the end of this week.

This week everyone is preparing for our show that opens next Thursday. I'm just about ready just need to print images from the installation I did last week in the main square, not that that will be a quick task. I still need to determine the size of one sequence of a pot, so that they will hang on the given wall space evenly, I think they'll end up being around 18 x 22" or 20 x 30" depending on which wall I use and how low low the resolution will become when I enlarge them in Photoshop. Then I also have 84 8 x10" photos, one of each of the pots, every two hours of the installation (9a-9p). I've been told that I can print them in the lab at the Academy, but just need to let them know when so they can get fresh toner :)

Tomorrow I will sign the contract with the company concerning production of my piece. Professor seems to think that the pieces will go into production very soon, within the next two weeks, so we can be on hand when they are made. Now that most of my "in studio" work is complete, I have time to get to the afternoon figure drawing class, which actually proves to be quite enjoyable. Some of the drawings I hope to be able to roll up into a piece of PVC, cap it off, so I can bring them home, along with the poster size photographs. Just because I say I've finished my "in studio" work doesn't mean that I am not still doing work. I go in to the Academy by 9 am everyday put together the previous day's baggie, work on a little plaster carving, generally enjoy the studio environment, go to drawing in the afternoon. I am still needing to complete a video projection piece, that I am planning to shoot Friday, and a sound-based piece. There are still some formalities that I have to go through to do the sound piece, I'm just waiting to ge the go ahead.

Better get back to complying and sorting 400 images into just 84.
All my best,
AM

New photo account

Flickr sent me a nice little message the other day informing me that I have uploaded over 200 images. At this point they will only post the most recent 200 images or I can pay for "Pro account." I'm a cheap skate and just opened a new account. New photos can be found at the following link:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/20926999@N05/

This is where I'll be posting during my remaining time in Europe.

All the best,
AM

ps: a pic of my winning piece is posted in the new flickr account : )

14 Nov 07

Today proved to be one of the most productive and incredible days in Zagreb. This morning I woke up early to pack up all 12 of my greenware (unfired) clay pots for installation in along Tkalciceva and Krvavi Most in the Main Square. Kyle and Ox were both kind enough to help me with transporting and placing the pots. I managed to find two wheelbarrows that worked perfectly to move everything up Ilica (the main street) about a kilometer and a half. This little event, mind you, occured right around 8.15a, at the height of Zagreb's morning rush. The perplexed and puzzled looks we got from this spectacle of two wheelbarrows filled with clay pots and someone taking pictures of all of this were priceless. I had to laugh as one person flat out stopped, leaned over, and looked right into the wheelbarrow then looked up at me with a face of utter confusion. I was tempted to put a sign on my back saying in Croatian, "Don't worry, I'm an art student." Everything was in place right one time at 9a., then every two hours I returned to take some images. The installation couldn't have gone any better!

When I returned to the Academy from the installation, professor Drinkovic informed my 23 cm model was one of the five chosen to be part of a new small scale bronze sculpture collection and given as a gift to some high profile people in Croatia! The foundry that is producing the pieces will take silicon mold from the clay model, to make seven wax positives that I will have to approve and sign, then will be cast in bronze. One will go into this new collection, and the others will go into the private collections of several other people. Oh, and as a nice little prize, I receive 5,000 kuna or 1,000 USD! Chances are I will be able to be in the foundry when they are poured. I hope I will be able to make an extra to come home with me!

Since today was such and wonderful and exhausting day, I'm tempted to sleep in (meaning wake up at 7.30 rather than 6.30), but chances aren't I won't, I still have a show to get ready for, and several other pieces that are in progress.

--AM

13 Nov 07

It's funny how for so many days nothing really happens then in just two days, everything gets turned upside down. Well, that sounds a little melodramatic, but life just got a lot more hectic in a few days.

I did go to hockey practice Saturday night with the Croatian Women's National Team. It was so great to go and automatically be part of a team, even though I can't exactly understand what is being said, everyone is incredibly welcoming and has loaned me all the equipment I need. I never realized how much I missed playing until this weekend, but this will be a short lived experience, since I know I won't have time in the spring to play. Maybe I'll go back to coaching the kid's learn-to-play hockey classes again when I get home. I practiced again last night, 11p-midnight, the rink people let us keep the ice for an extra 15 minutes since no one was on afterwards. Needless to say the past few days I've been waking up with a sore back, but being back on the ice is certainly worth the slight pain and lack of sleep! There is another 11p practice tonight but I decided not to go since I've got a lot of work to do tomorrow, and the rest of the next few weeks...art always comes first!

After being here for about two months we finally got all the paper work together to obtain the obligatory residency permit that one must have if staying in Zagreb longer than three months. This little piece of paper required: photocopies of passport, international birth certificate, criminal record check, proof of enrollment, proof of residence, proof of secured funds, and two passport photos. Oh, and all the documents must be in Croatian, so I had to take all of my documents to a translator, then notarized, and finally to the police station to submit everything. Five of us went to the station on Monday and only two of us left with the process ALMOST completed. After standing in line for an hour, my documents were cleared and I had to wait another four hours for an interview, during which the person asked all of the mundane, "you're not lying, are you?" questions, like: what is your mother's name? Father's? Place of birth? The interviewer went over my papers again, to find a little error in the one form from the Academy stating my enrollment dates as August - December 2006. That one last little digit caused a huge mess. So I have to return this week with a new letter with the correct year, then I will be given a receipt stating that I have gone through this process and I am waiting for the official permit to come. Which by the way, should be ready for pick up two days before I leave for home.

This morning we had a meeting with the Dean to go over details about the exhibition of work we are supposed to have. Initially, it was scheduled for the last week that we are all still in Zagreb. However, we were informed that there is a show scheduled for that week and if we wait unitl afterwards the work we show would have to stay since we would leave before the show closes. In light of this, our show was moved ahead three weeks, the opening is now Nov. 28. This puts significant pressure on the deadlines that I had previously set, and pushes at least two of my huge pieces forward quite a bit. Plus, we are to have a catalogue, which must go to the printers by the beginning of next week, so we are scrambling to get images, titles, dimensions, etc., of work that isn't quite completed. I must admit that I am probably the only one of the six of us in the show that will have at least two pieces done within the deadline that doens't have to compromise anything that I have planned.

Tomorrow I will complete one of those two huge pieces. I am carrying out my installation / documentation piece in the main square, with the earthen pots. The only work that is really involved is placing each of the pots in their places and hanging out all day to take photos every two hours of each of the pots. So, I've decided rather than taking the tram back and forth from the square to the academy, I'll just bounce between coffee shops and catch up on Proust, and a few other books I've been reading. Once I get this one done, the next day I will begin immediately on the video projection that I plan to fully complete just in time for the show. So, I will be insanely busy for the next few weeks...but really, I wouldn't have it anyother way.

--AM

8 Nov 07

Hmm, no really good stories this time, just updates from the past several days. This hasn't exactly been the best week, but I do have to take the bad with the good.

Okay, I do have one amusing story. We were told that we can take our linens to be changed on the first and second, and the 15th and 16th of each month. Considering Nov. 1 and 2 were holdays I figured that since the dorm offices were closed that the exchange days would just roll to the next two business days. So I fold my sheets and towels neatly, hang out at the dorm until 9am (I normally leave by 8 am) go to the office, try in my best Croatian to ask for new linens. The guy shakes his head an me and mutters God only knows what in Croatian. Thoroughly irrated at this excahnge student he pulls me over to a calander and points out the days that I can exchange. I apologized profusely, and then he finally gave me new ones. Again, my logic has been proven faulty. I did go back to the dorm and warn my colleagues to wait until the 15th.

So after this little exchange (what a way to start the day, let alone a Monday) I get to the studio and apparently the work on the room wasn't finished and the desks were pushed back in to the center of the room. Not really a big deal, we just had to make little paths for people to get to their respective areas. I'm not sure if the work has been completed but my studio mates pushed their stuff back to their spaces and I followed suit.

I am pleased that I should have be installing one of my site-specific pieces next week, as long as the weather cooporates. Also, my the formalities of my sound-based piece are being worked out, so that piece should go into editing and post production within the next two weeks. It's good to have some of these pieces coming to a close, I\m starting to feel like I have been doing work! I did get a piece finished in time to submit for a small sculpture competition, no word on the results yet.

I talked with Iva this week, she told me that her teammates have found hockey equipment for me and skates. So, I shall go to my first practice on Saturday evening! I am really looking forward to this, I haven't played for some time so we'll see how it goes. I think the IUP contingent said they will come and be the rowdy section during the games, haha!

New photos are being uploaded to Flickr every few days. Gotta get back to my studio, I think a vase might be ready to be popped from the mold.

--AM

2 Nov 07

The ALU welcome party is indeed as crazy as everyone said it would be. Hopefully this will frame a bit of the experiece: At 2pm the band was just finishing setting up the stage and doing sound checks. People began to wander in and out of the Metal Working room turned party hall, to walk out with glasses of vino and pivo. I'm still working in the studio on a plaster carving and decide to take a peek for myself, I walk in and they've got two Tuborg beer taps...they do take their parties seriously!! So, what better way to enjoy an afternoon working than with a pivo! That didn't last long, soon after the Irish band began to play, and to much to my surprise they played some Flogging Molly! The party apparently went on until 10pm, but I left long before, since I had all intentions of going back to the studio the next day!

I am happy to report that I have begun significant work on one of my bigger pieces that I am planning. It finally feels as though I am getting somewhere! Related pics are posted on myspace and Flickr.

During that afternoon, I heard rumours of the Academy closing at noon the next day, I kinda forgot about it. Then, Wednesday morning at least five people reminded me that I had to vacate at noon, so it was true. So at noon, I packed up whatever I could manage to do in the dorm and found Croatia's version of wal-mart, but, hopefully without the despicable labor practices. I was happy to find Honey Nut Cherrios and the weather is cold enough that I can buy regular milk and put it in what I like to call the mini-fridge, which it really a shopping bag rigged outside my window. So every morning I can have nicely chilled milk over my Cherrios.

After seeeing a film at the Festival last week, "The Living and the Dead," as silly as it sounds, I really began to understand what is so easy to forget, that this area was in a war 15 years ago. Typically I would think 15 years is a span of time when things would settle down and the traces of a war would be, for the most part, eroded away. It wasn't until I was surrounded with some 1,000 people watching the film about six Croatian soliders in Bosina in 1993, with a paralleled subplot of 10 Yugoslav soliders during WWII, and I was able to witness how they reacted to the jokes (and the movie in general) made by the characters that I began to realize that the war wasn't that long ago and a bitter senitment is still in the air. I then realized that many people (or at least the Croatian filmmaker) views the war as the Balkan version of Vietnam or Iraq, a war that might be "over" but the catalyst for the war will resonate for many years to come. Then, Sunday, when I was walking through the seemingly endless flea market, beyond the typical cheap goods shipped in from Asia there were stands with random used electronics, household fare, jewelry, etc, I started to wonder the provenance of such items being sold. If there's a possibility that the stuff is from where I think it came did, I'm not so sure that's a market I want to be an active participant in.

All of this aside, I am by no means rethinking my decision to come here, rather, all the more pleased that I did, since I would have never had this experience or new perspective if i hadn't.