Makkeweks Final Inspection

Earlier this week I met with the City of Oakland for the final inspection of our Makkeweks sculpture prior to installation. Installation is delayed until mid-2017 pending completion of Snow Park but the foundry completed the fabrication of the bronze castings and the sculpture’s interior, stainless steel armature in anticipation of temporarily storing the monster […]

Scuppernong Commons

Wowhaus were Artplace Environmenal Artists-in-Residence at the McColl Center for Art and Innovation in Charlotte, North Carolina in late winter of 2015. While in residence we realized an ambitious public project called Scuppernong Commons. The project is sited within Brightwalk, a mixed-income, mixed-use residential development that is a model of sustainable revitalization and economic development […]

Making Molds of Makkeweks

Garrett McLean makes molds of Makkeweks at Berkeley’s Artworks Foundry I hadn’t realized how attached I had become to the Makkeweks until we took her apart and loaded her up on a flatbed for delivery to Berkeley. The studio seemed suddenly huge and empty, and the sculpture looked kind of sad and nervous on the […]

Spinnradl: Final Assembly and Installation

In many ways, Spinnradl has been our most challenging and rewarding project to date. All of our projects as Wowhaus involve a degree of collaboration, but Spinnradl has been the most collaborative on several levels. All of our projects involve a degree of community engagement, artisanry and technical innovation, but Spinnradl sets a new bar […]

Spinnradl Update

2 custom music boxes with 20″ D drums, made in Switzerland by Reuge (phote: Reuge) Next week I travel to Cincinnati to supervise the assembly and installation of our Spinnradl sculptures, which were commissioned last year by Artworks Cincinnati.  It’s very exciting to see all of the pieces falling into place. I can hardly believe […]

Makkeweks Progress Gallery

Sculpting the eyes of the monster has been the biggest challenge, so I saved that task for last. The eyes carry the expression and are the only crisp-edged, anatomically-specific feature of the sculpture, so they are where a viewer’s eyes would naturally be drawn. The monster’s eyes need to reinforce the gesture of the body […]

Makkeweks, Ifukube, and the Return of the Ray

I’ve flipped the creature and continue to rough out its topsides with my homemade saw Carving is like controlled erosion. A shape emerges in response to the real and imagined forces that dictate how and where material is added and removed. My primary job as I sculpt the Makkeweks sea monster is to manage these […]