5. Circles & Stacks Galore

Circles battle stars. That’s Right! All hip-star houses are hereby on notice; put up or shut up. That is, of course, besides Colonel Sanders three houses to the north with the circle-star… he’s cool. Way to bridge the divide.

The main three circles in the gable-end reminded my neighbors of the “circle of life.” To me, it is more symbolic of the Venn diagram illustrating the nexus of the social, environmental, and economic justice imperatives underlying global sustainability.

Stacks is a double entendre of smoke stacks and stacks of rocks. My Mom would appreciate the pun, even if she doesn’t come by to view the exhibition.

Six more descriptions of this exhaustive entry are yet to come. Are you ready for ADVENTURE!?!

4. Rust Garden

This piece represents the second most creative exploration of my entry. The purpose is to intentionally stain the concrete patio to create patterns over time. This piece was begun in earnest one year ago, but the individual components have been flipped and reorganized for GGEYHO. The different parts have been collected over time from junk piles and forlorn or clandestine locations.

An interesting aside has to do with a friend describing this piece to one of his clients who happens to study the corrosion resistance of automobile paints. Part of the work identifies the most corrosive environments, the insights of which could help accelerate this approach, as opposed to very slow progression over the years.

3. Rock Tour of Utah

This collection spans a lifetime, but also has elements of accelerated evolution associated with GGEYHO. On the display stumps of the hemisphere, three of five collections came about entirely after the announcement of the exhibition. Some specimens demonstrate the potential for aesthetic organization, while others have merely been placed for observation in seemingly random configurations. The geographic source of the rocks covers nearly half of the counties in Utah. See the following section for the identification and origin of the different displays.

Parking Strip: Wonderstone - Tooele County, Sandstone - Grand County, Assorted - Salt Lake County

Welcome to Danger: Quaternary Fluvium - Piute County

Centerpiece: Green Fuchsite - Box Elder County

Display Stump: Purple Fluorite - Juab County

Display Stump: Green Lichen Quartzite - Box Elder County

Display Stump: Orange Lichen Rhyolite - Juab County

Display Stump: Basalt with Pagoda Stack - Millard County

Display Stump: Sandstone and Geodes - Emery County

2. Welcome to Danger

This piece is my own response to the neighborhood's ubiquitous "Beware of Dog" signs. I'm particularly proud of the generic evocation of danger. You don't know what's gonna getcha. Even though it is posted no trespassing, patrons of GGEYHO are welcome to view the entirity of sights visible from the public right of way. As my verbal description accounts, you may also indulge in the recesses of this exhibition by exploring the side and back portions of the yard.

The sign itself is one of a pair recovered from an undisclosed location, and the post was harvested from my folks yard. When I returned from a camping trip back in my teens, I found that they had placed the juniper trunk in my room to incorporate into my burgeoning collection. The rocks around the base are from a special location to me, identified in the subsequent entry.

1. Introduction

This blog serves as a counterpart to the necessarily concise written and verbal descriptions of this project available at the Salt Lake Art Center Website and the call in number (~30 word and ~90 second, respectively). Both of those descriptions make it readily apparent that there is much more to convey about this massive creative undertaking. This first post helps establish a context of what has been done before and what has come about since the advent of GGEYHO.

This house was built in 1900 and I moved in 108 years later. Fast forward to Fall 2010. Using a tiller borrowed from Wasatch Community Gardens - Tool Lending Library my ex-girlfriend and I ripped the remaining lawn. I made a harvest bouquet of corn stalks sunflower stalks, and grass fronds, and then set it in the middle, and that was the way it remained until early Spring 2011.

Upon notice of GGEYHO, I had already hatched the terrace hemisphere in my mental image of the space, and I knew this was the extra impetus for me to go all out. First came planting the strip and south bed (north of driveway was from 2010). The majority of plants in the front were transplanted this spring. One main source is my neighbors to the west. The other major source was the Department of Natural Resources xeric garden, which was plowed to make way for the North Temple Trax line. Some friends actually volunteered to help trench for the terrace border, and then I placed the logs throughout the night.

After that point I really launched into the pieces entered for this exhibition. Stay tuned for ten more blog posts that provide insights, or inside jokes, about the pieces in the written description.

~1900: Approximate Original

~2008: Approximate Purchase