Tuesday, December 8, 2020

A Room of One's Own..

 As Covid times have forced us all to become more habitually myopic, it offers a perspective that we may not otherwise experience. For me, it became clear that I needed a space to work creatively that was away from everyone else's space. A space that was not a huge dirty metal shop. A studio.               My studio.  


side view of finished studio

Christian built a man-cave inside a shipping container a few years ago, which is indeed his space, decorated and festooned with all that he loves. He also now has a small dedicated painting studio, which once was the K-shack, (our tiny guest house).  I noticed that these spaces where not only  important for creative output but also for solitary mental space. A room of one's own affords the luxury of contemplation and inspiration, which communal space usually does not. 

When we built our current house, we made it small and open, which is great for our family living. We have very few rooms in the house that actually are sealed by a door. Most rooms are open at the top, or are connected without doors. The whole house feels like a communal multi-use space. Not really a place to be alone. Luckily, we are builders of things, and creating new spaces happens to be something I really love to do...

Slowly things started to move around the land, mainly shipping containers. My old crappy container got emptied and the contents re-arranged. We moved it into its new place. Small footings got poured. Scrap metal was welded together to become beams for the foundation. Dirt and household recycling was used as infill for the floor. 

I torch cut the container wall out and added a new floor. I framed and insulated the whole layout with ample insulation, both batt and rigid. I recycled the window and repaired the frame.


And on it went, for many many months, building on a shoestring budget, with mostly re-purposed materials left over from other builds. Building like this also takes much longer as each step has materials that need site specific modification. Worth it, as the cost goes way down. Who knew that wood and especially plywood would increase in cost by 6 times during Covid? That stark fact made it necessary to use masonite for the container ceiling, and sheetrock for everything else. 

welding the structural support beams 

It was also slow progress due to the fact that I'm facilitating and helping teach 4th grade to my son. Online school is a very time consuming new-normal for me now.

After "school" I try to work in the shop, catching up on my architectural metal work and in the small leftover moments work on my studio. If the days could just have a few more hours.

Christian helped on all facets of the build, making it so much easier to feel like it was progressing at all. He kept me on track and stayed positive when I was overwhelmed and felt defeated by the sheer amount of work that lay ahead. Month after month. Week after week. Eight months from start to move in.

 plywood sheets ready to cover both floors. I insulated the container sub floor with left over batt, rigid spray foam and old clothing scraps.

posing on the new floor inside after rough mudding..


front frame side, with rough sawn Board and Batton


During the Thanksgiving break I finished and installed a snazzy staircase with generous help from Christian, a welcome architectural project in a beautiful condo in town. I had designed and fabricated the railings in this condo well over a decade ago and the new owner found me to help build the new stairs. 

During the break I also finished most of the details for the studio and started the move-in. Which is also a major move-out of various places; containers, long forgotten spaces filled with old art supplies, mystery boxes from a life past. 

I am moving my entire Flybrary book collection into the studio, after doing a serious Playa de-dusting. It's really an extensive and magnificent library of books, and it was one of the inspirations in getting my own space.



As the construction progressed, something ignited psychologically within and I started meticulously curating the space. For some unknown reason I decided to make the space look like a late 19th century Swedish  room. I used wallpaper and ornate trim, to create iconic Swedish wall panels and lots and lots of off-white paint. 

I built a 4" thick bomber insulated door and forged a custom latch-set, and some forged handles and other forged details around the frame of the door. I burned the plywood to accentuate the grain.

I used Board and Batton, matching most exterior Swedish style houses. I used old and some new metal siding for the container.

I had to add a whole other roof on top of the container roof. It had sagged after I cut the entire side panel out, and was listing in the wrong direction for weather, plus it was really rusty.

I put trim everywhere, top and bottom.

I forged lantern hangers for the outside. 

The time I spent on the details are a bit perplexing...but I think that's what makes the difference actually. It's the kind of stuff I notice in other buildings. The details will tell the story in the end.


My main inspiration for the interior was artist Carl Larsson's exquisite watercolors of his own home, detailed with wallpaper designs, period furniture and timeless Scandinavian touches. 


I was gifted antique furniture from my mother-in-law, which with some innovative repair ended up being perfect for the feel of the space. And the pieces are rich with old family memories. The old piano moved in. The Re-store provided a lofty old looking cabinet. I repaired and decorated an old broken chandelier, and found a trestle style work table on Craigs list, straight out of Larsson's paintings. I even painted the used old space heater to match the feel. It's in the details...

 
                 And there it is. I can barely believe it. My own space to sew, draw, paint, and just be.                                 A room of my own!

 




 












Thursday, September 17, 2020

CAPSULE (part 2)


The Burn in progress, May of 2021.

Capsule has been up in Arroyo Seco for about a month now, providing a space and a depository for heartfelt notes about this crazy time we are living through together. Many people have left their notes online as well, which in turn have been illustrated by the amazing artist Anthony Carlson and posted on the facebook and instagram pages. 

Capsule is gently lit at night, creating a sweet space to sit and contemplate and an invitation to participate.

At some point in the future we will get to gather again, and at that time we will burn Capsule and watch it transform. The notes will act as kindling for a larger interior fire which in turn will activate the mechanism to open the hands, exposing a new shape and the inner core of the piece.


For Millenia, people have gathered in groups around fires and thrown representations of hopes, dreams, intentions and fears into the fire. The immediate transformation brought on by fire is a powerful representation of a channel to another realm, another place. It changes things.

Yes, fire changes things. As the wildfires rage in the Western States, we are seeing a massively destructive outcome, partially if not entirely due to human negligence and global hubris. We are facing a time when nature is unfolding the consequences of decades of unbridled resource ravaging. These climate related events are now the "new normal". We are now in a spiraling climate crisis we had been forewarned about. It's just the beginning. Reversing this may be close to impossible now, but we still have the chance to stop it from getting worse. And all science points to the bare fact that it will get worse.

It's simple, yet so intricately complicated; we are all connected to this climate crisis in some way. Change is imperative. Change of habits, the way we consume, the way we use resources, the way we live together. The pandemic and the severe climate events can push us to see in new ways, with equity, with a fierce sense of our humanity. We ARE all in this mess together. 

Let's not fear this change, and let's not lose hope. We are a very adaptable species. I want to quote from the informative book "The Future We Choose, Surviving the Climate Crisis" by Christiana Figueres and Tom Rivett-Carnac,  "Don't mistake the waves for the current".

We may be in a political typhoon right now, with an agenda that is retroactive in its approach to reality, but I believe in the millions of people who want change, who face the collective current with open eyes and creative solutions. I believe we are the majority. 

As an artist, I hope Capsule can serve to hold some shared hopes, intentions, fears and dreams. Check out the Capsule website if you wish to participate remotely.

Click to see how to participate.

And, I am really looking forward to this burn!









Thursday, June 25, 2020

Capsule Taos!

Welcome to Capsule! Christian and I got the green light to build a large scale sculpture for our local community through Seco Live and The Paseo. It's a first on many levels- it's a collaboration between the two of us on all levels of the piece, it's a new sculpture promoted and backed by our favorite local arts and culture organizations, and it's a sculpture addressing our current moment in time. Exciting accolades!

Capsule is an organically inspired mechanical sculpture which responds interactively to our community during this unprecedented time in history.
The community is invited to capture their thoughts on paper and insert the notes directly into the sculpture.
When Capsule burns, the combusting notes will kinetically set the sculpture into motion, causing it to open, exposing its inner core, and revealing a new dynamic shape.
Capsule harnesses the transformative power of fire, not only to literally open itself, but also to send our collective hopes and dreams into the ether.



Behind this effort is a very talented group of people, including the Arroyo Seco Live crew, The Paseo Project, as well as Gizmo Productions, glass artists Alex Abajian, artist and writer Erin Elder, and an impressive web design team. 
Just check out the Capsule web site!

We are encouraging YOU to help literally ignite the project by writing your thoughts down and placing them within the sculpture. For now go to the CapsuleTaos website to participate.

Follow the day to day progress on instagram at #capsuletaos


We are currently deep into the build and hope to unveil it in Arroyo Seco in July.


Alex delivering the beautiful handblown glass tines he made.




Friday, May 22, 2020

In the Eyes of Others.



                      This was a small polaroid left inside of the Flybrary. One of my all time favorites.

This time last year I was starting the Flybrary build. It was an intense build, working every day up until the day of the load-in to get it done. After returning home I posted a few pics of the project I managed to take. I should remember that I need a designated photographer for my projects(!) and that all the good intentions of thinking I could document my own colossal project are pure silliness (even with a new Nikon camera). Over the months I have enjoyed seeing the various photographs of the Flybrary on social media and decided to make a compilation of some, which will serve as my much needed documentation!
Here is the #theFlybraryBM2019, #ChristinaSporrong in the eyes of others, mostly those who posted on Instagram.



and some images from the interior~



I really like this one-




One year past the start date of the sculpture the world has changed a fair bit. Who would have guessed that a global pandemic would swoop down on earth, wreaking havoc in its wake?

Yet, some things remain steady. Christian and I have received the go-ahead to build a collaborative sculpture, and we are just starting it now. I will write more on that next time- it is quite exciting, as we can create something that feels relevant today.

So back into the shop I go, and I will be looking for a talented photographer to document the next project! 

Cheers and Mask on!



Thursday, April 2, 2020

The Eye of the Storm

Well it's truly a different World from my last blogpost!
I feel the need to document this time at least with one post. 


(from the comic book Asterix and Obelix- Asterix and the Chariot Race)

We are in the beginnings of the Covid-19 pandemic here in Taos, and we have been self-isolating at home for three weeks already.  I have been homeschooling for two weeks now, slowly figuring out the new routine, which does keep changing as I get more resource material. This basically means that Kodiak has gone from about two hours total of screen time per week to 15-20 hours per week. I am trying to curb it, but most of his various lessons are online now. 

Homeschooling does have huge advantages too- I am enjoying seeing how my kid learns and being a part of his enthusiastic discoveries. I have taken pleasure in teaching him proper cursive, and he is using that for journaling. He is now also learning Swedish with Rosetta Stone, which I think will be helpful for a future life in Sweden. The one-on-one learning suits him well. 
Homeschooling takes up all my mornings until about 1pm. After lunch, there are those many home projects that we tackle, including building a deck portale, repairing never ending broken stuff, re organizing within the house, and mending clothes. 
And then there is cooking food, based on a strict no-waste policy. As we only go food shopping once a week, all the meals need to go a bit further, and all the ingredients need to be thought of in order of spoilage. This is much like cooking in restaurants, with a skillset I still cherish.  That solid decade of my early life working in restaurants is paying off now.

For my birthday, Christian set up a drawing table in my home-office space. I now have a designated area to do my so-called "small ink drawings", and other illustrative works. For those who don't know, I did go to school for editorial illustration. Clearly I veered into the more physical, intense and dirty world of metalworking, and blacksmithing.  I think I use drawing as respite from all the hard core sensory stimulation of shop work. 

Some older ink drawings:


a few of my newer ones:


a more recent one:(titled "it's been a hard year")


I miss metalworking! When I do get into the shop, I love it. It's not as often as I wish, but I can really appreciate it. Yesterday I got to forge for a bit, and made a bunch of hooks for the new portale. 








My last job was a long railing and a smaller rail. Little did I know that this would be the end of paying work for a while. All my UNM Welding classes have been canceled and my Women's Welding Workshop had to finish early as well. I hope to see and work with them again soon. Christian had a festival booking in Croatia this Summer, but that went away too. 




The eye of the storm is the mostly calm part of a Tropical Cyclone or Hurricane. Christian and I have worked over the years to set ourselves up to survive as artists. That basically means that our income is sporadic and we don't know what wages we may earn in a given year.  To be comfortable with this uncertainty is sometimes challenging, and a few common sense rules apply. Have no debt is the biggest one. We have worked hard to have no debt, owning all our stuff, including our fleet of old rag-tag vehicles. Over the years I have grown less and less interested in participating in any American consumer dream, not that I ever was one to buy into that, but I think the proof is in the pudding now. We are currently living in the eye of the storm, and I am grateful to be there. 

Even in a pandemic, even without work and income, even without adequate testing and contact tracing and a government that is completely failing its people, I see many things to be grateful for. Some things will change for a while, other will change forever. Change comes when needed. I can't help but be amazed by how fast things happened, and really in the end...what an extraordinary time it is to be alive. 

...to be continued.











Thursday, February 13, 2020

The Panama Pictures

I just had an amazing opportunity to go help my talented friends Grey (aka Filastine) and Nova on their sailboat and travel through the Panama Canal. Filastine and Nova bought an older steel fishing vessel turned sailboat, the Arka Kinari, which serves as an almost carbon free way to travel across our planet, as well as the stage for their multi media environmentally-charged show. If you don't already know their music check out their newest album Drapetomania here, and you can see more of their work here.



So I headed down South to meet the Arka just after its Atlantic crossing, and joined them in the Guna Yala region of Panama. There they performed a show for the indigenous peoples of the region, the Guna, who are facing mass relocation from their sinking islands. The climate crisis is very palpable here. Due to the rising sea levels most of their wells are flooded and they do not have enough drinking water. 




Grey and Nova played a show in stormy weather conditions, and the next morning we raised anchors and set sail for Cristobal, the Atlantic entrance for the Canal. 



The seas were very choppy and I held on for dear life. Our talented Captain, Ben Blankenship, was not in the least phased by the swells, maintaining composure and calm as he kept drawing on his tobacco pipe while on the wheel. It must be the name, the Blankenships have sailor blood. I, on the other hand, am not an experienced sailor, this was all new for me, and luckily I quite loved being on the ocean, swells or not. 

We arrived at night and set anchor by the entrance to the canal, in the company of another hundred or so ships all waiting for the protocols to start the voyage across the isthmus. Most of the ships were enormous container ships and oil tankers.

While anchored for a few days I got to work. Fixing all kinds of small things on the Arka that had broken, were about to break, or needed some attention. Turns out ships are always decaying; inevitable being that they are steel and wood vessels in corrosive salt water. It was very hot and humid and sometimes tricky to work in very small ship crevasses, but I loved the challenge, and I dare say I had fun too.




Finally we got the go-ahead to pass through the Canal, with our Panamanian pilot onboard. We left in the afternoon, and ended up mooring to a buoy in the  precarious manmade lake Gatún. The whole Canal is a bit unstable, relying heavily on pumping out excess water, mowing back the jungle, and keeping up the aging concrete. There's a great passage in Alan Weisman's book "The World Without Us" on just how quickly and violently the landmass would rejoin without the constant preventative maintenance done by humans.

They moored us to another sailboat and squeezed in a container ship behind us inside the locks. All together we went through six locks, three up and three down. It took us two days to get through the Panama Canal, with an amazing overnight in the crocodile filled lake Gatún. 

While in the lake, we had some down time to celebrate the passage as well as entertain haircuts before entering the Pacific side. Here I am grooming our fearless Captain Ben, while Nova attends to Grey.

Between being a hairdresser and resident welder on board, I enjoyed excellent sustainably sourced food thanks to Portuguese Chef Pedro, a truly talented cook and food activist. I learned sailor knots from my dear friend Claire and sweet French sailor Yann. I enjoyed laughs and tea time with Sarah and Claire, both representing England. Shop talk and music was exchanged with punk- electrician Aaron from Switzerland, with more musical accompaniment from Grey and Nova. Nova, I will miss our fancy coffees in the galley! It was truly an international crossing.


And here we are on the Pacific side of the world. The container ship above is not even that big...
Below, my parting shot, one early morning in Panama City, on my way back to Winter in Taos. I am excited to rejoin the crew of the Arka at some point and continue helping keep the boat afloat and looking good.


Until we sail together again! Á Bientôt Arka Kinari!