Nothing Here?

links to current project blogs, websites, etc:

Fort Grunt: www.fortgrunt.com

The Aquarium: www.fgaquarium.com

Fort Grunt blog: fortgrunt.blogspot.com

Fort Grunt myspace: www.myspace.com/fortgrunt

bits of durham

this is the most southern thing i've found since i've been here.

thank you durham public access.

Old collection article

article from the wall street journal a few weeks ago...

Who's Going to Want Grandma's Hoard Of Antique Gnomes?

Since Kids Aren't Connecting With Collecting Today, Answer May Be Nobody

By JEFFREY ZASLOW
February 25, 2006; Page A1

In Graytown, Ohio, 51-year-old Doug Martin has amassed a collection of 5,000 pencils, most of them never used. Some date back to the 1800s.

He sometimes wonders what will become of his prized collection when he dies. Will his children stick them in a sharpener and write with them? "It hurts to think about it," he says.

Young people today have little interest in the stamp, coin or knickknack collections of their elders, so an aging America can't help but wonder: What's going to happen to all those boxes in the basement?

Well, here's an idea for Mr. Martin: "His children can glue his pencils together and make a coffin for him," says Harry Rinker, sharply.

A collectibles researcher in Vera Cruz, Pa., Mr. Rinker, 64, himself collects everything from jigsaw puzzles to antique toilet paper. But he thinks sentimental "accumulators" need a reality check. "Old-timers thought the next generation would love their stuff the way they did," he says. "Well guess what -- it's not happening." He advises: Enjoy your collections, die with them, and have no expectations about anything after that.

Collecting things, once a big part of childhood, is now pretty much passé with kids. Preoccupied with MP3 players and computer games, they are rarely found sitting at the kitchen table putting postage stamps into collectors' books or slipping old coins into plastic sleeves. These days, baseball cards and comic books are collected by adults. Of the estimated 37 million Americans who identified themselves as collectors in 2000, just 11% were under the age of 36, according to a study by marketing consultant Unity Marketing Inc. Most were over 50.

Some collectors say they wouldn't mind if their heirs just sold everything on eBay. The Internet keeps alive a market for many objects by making it easy for far-flung collectors to find one another. But people do fear that collections lovingly assembled will be mishandled or trashed by their offspring. That's why collectors groups are now organizing emergency efforts to keep things out of the wrong hands.

The International Sewing Machine Collectors' Society, based in London, gets in touch with families when it hears of a member's death, so the machines can end up with someone who will treasure them. They're often too late. One member recently died and his family sold his old sewing machines to a junk dealer for $200. The machines, some dating to the 1860s, were worth about $65,000, according to Graham Forsdyke, secretary for the 800-member society. He adds: "I don't know of a single collection that's been passed down after a death."

Young people today amass hundreds of songs on their iPods and, decades from now, may very well be collecting "vintage" cellphones or other electronic devices, says Linda Kruger, editor of Collectors News, based in Grundy Center, Iowa. Or it may just be so much junk. There's no way to predict the future value of such things, she adds.

In the meantime, most young people don't connect with their elders' collections. In Goodyear, Ariz., Zita Wessa, 72, says her grandchildren walk past her display cases of gnome figurines "and show no interest at all." Her 45-year-old son, Scott, says he'd be happy to inherit one of the giant cabinets she stores them in, but the gnomes "don't do much for me. If she begged me to take them, I would, because I love my mother. But I don't know what I'd do with them." (His mom says she paid $5,600 over the years for her 160 gnomes, but their current value is uncertain.)

William Adrian, 72, of Plainfield, Ill., collects miniature guns. He says his three children "wouldn't give you a twenty-dollar bill for any of it."

"Collecting is about memory, and young people today have a different memory base," explains Mr. Rinker, who is well known in antiquing circles for his books and personal appearances. He lives in a 14,000-square-foot former elementary school in Vera Cruz, Pa. He uses the classrooms as storage spaces for his 250 different collections. He says he doesn't care what becomes of it all once he's gone, and if his children opt to use his rolls of century-old toilet paper, "that might be the finest honor they can give me."

Mr. Martin, the pencil collector, is unlikely to have his collection stay in the family after he dies. His daughter, Elizabeth Jefferson, 24, says if she inherits the pencils -- which her dad values at $4,500 -- she'd donate them to other collectors or to a museum.

If new generations of collectors don't materialize, the value of items will plummet. That's why marble clubs, to generate enthusiasm, send free marbles to schools. The U.S. Mint has a Web site with cartoons and computer games to entertain kids about the thrills of coin-collecting. Indeed, children have shown considerable interest in the state quarters program.

In West Chester, Pa., Judy Knauer, founder of the 700-member National Toothpick Holder Collectors' Society, gives away toothpick holders to young people. She tells them, "Here's your start." But few get hooked.

Some collecting groups have created unstated policies. The 650-member National Milk Glass Collectors Society -- a group devoted to opaque glass -- holds an annual auction. When the rare young person shows up to bid on an item, older collectors lower their hands. "We back off and let the young person buy it. We want them to add to their collections," says Bart Gardner, the group's past president.

In Palo Alto, Calif., Tom Wyman, 78, has about 900 antique slide rules. Mr. Wyman belongs to the 430-member Oughtred Society, named for William Oughtred, who in the 1620s invented an early form of the slide rule. The group hosts lectures to entice youngsters to embrace slide-rule collecting. But Mr. Wyman says such "missionary work" is a hard sell. "It's quite a challenge to give a talk that keeps everybody awake -- both the 80-year-old collectors and the 12-year-olds in the audience."

Mr. Wyman's son, Tom, 41, who doesn't know how to use a slide rule, admires his dad's devotion to preserving the instrument. Still, he appreciates that his father has promised to eventually dispose of the collection. "He has told me, 'I won't saddle you with this,' " says the younger Mr. Wyman. Some of the slide rules are worth just pennies, while others could sell for $2,000.

George Beilke, 61, of Tulsa, Okla., has amassed 35,000 used instant-lottery tickets. His daughter, Sarah, 23, says that when she tells friends about the collection, "they look at me like I'm crazy. It's guilt by association." During her childhood, her dad tried to get her involved. He gave her tickets and assumed she was diligently putting them between the sheet protectors he provided. But she just hid them in her room.

Ms. Beilke is set to inherit the collection and says she'll donate it to the 200-member Global Lottery Collector's Society. She may hold on to a handful of tickets as keepsakes. "It would keep the bond between us," says her dad. "I just hope she puts them in the sheet protectors."

Some collectors now accept that younger people don't want their stuff. Philadelphia Daily News columnist Stu Bykofsky, 64, has collected the last editions of 79 daily newspapers that closed down since 1963. His adult children don't want the old newspapers, which fill a closet. "The only kind of paper my family wants is greenbacks and stock certificates," he says.

He hasn't been able to find a university to take his collection, either. And now he's under the gun to get rid of it. He is about to marry his third wife, who is 27 years old, and in the prenuptial agreement, there's a clause that he must dispose of the collection by Dec. 31. She wants to store her shoes in that closet.

"At least I can wear my shoes," says his fiancée, Jennifer Graham. "He never reads those papers, and besides, he likes how I look in my shoes."

Berlin exhibition, Accumulation #2

After four days in Berlin (which were mind-blowing, I'll detail those in another post) I met Ancz from KunstOffice and began to install the show. I had heard about this from a colleague from undergrad, Amze Emmons, who knew of them, and somehow we were about to work it out for when I was going to be there. So, the work was installed on Wednesday, the opening was on Friday, from which I left from immediately to fly back home.

The space itself was quite nice- right on the old border between east and west, on the edge of the Mitte area. Ancz and Peter, who opened and run the space, were able to get it from the people who own it very cheaply- the space was previously unused and run-down, so they were happy to let them clean up and use the space, which fir their criteria of having wall space and large windows, so the work could always be seen. They leave the lights on at night (see the bottom two photos) for this reason.

The installation itself went smoothly, though I was glad I had made (and brought) as much as I did. The walls had niches in them that made some pieces, like the case of red and yellow blobs, unworkable- I was okay with cutting some down, particularly the ones that were more all-over patterns like the New Orleand houses, but some couldn't be cut to fit, so they were left out. So with Ancz's help I figured out which ones should butt up against others, which would work best seen from the windows, etc. It took about fours hours, to sort, trim and hang everything, which didn't seem too bad but was kind of stressful- I would have liked to have done it alone, it was a little weird to have an audience to the decision making. Sort of like my thesis show at Indiana, having various people help me out, but I was also busy trying to direct them, but also having to make on-the-spot decisions about things I didn't count on happening.

The opening went okay, a small amount of people were able to make it, which wasn't bad, as their openings are usually on Saturdays and run late, and I had to leave at 7pm.

Dordrecht residency, week four

The final week, which to be honest took a long time to get there, was also good and productive- I felt I had plenty of work, so I could start working back into older things that I wasn't happy with, experimenting more and loosening up. Looking at it now I don't think I pushed it as far as I could, but work I can definitely build on- I am particularly interesting in working bigger, to having the large brush strokes and graphic elements, but overlaying this imagery in large compositions.

From here I was able to throw out some work and roll everything up into two tubes, with an improvised duct-tape handle and head out to Berlin to meet Michael and put up the show...

Dordrecht residency, week three

By the third week, I can say I was feeling a little less anxious, not too worried about getting enough work together to show, though I felt I needed to get as much done as I could, so as not to leave me short-handed. As I hadn't been to the space yet I couldn't predict how the show would go together, so I kept the idea of the paintings being pieces of film to be edited on sight as a theme. Some of the drawings were still coming from the sketchs worked up in Venice, while others came from things I was seeing in Holland, including trips to Antwerp, Brussels, Tilberg and Hoge Volve National Park. Obviously other images were coming from television, particular images from the flooding of New Orleans, which tied into concerns about accumulations and piles while feeding some new ideas in current (January 2006) work about ideas of homes and containers.