Jack Sanders' Design Build Adventure

Sarah Presson’s Eye Like Design has done it again.
She gave Butch Anthony’ Museum of Wonder a full web makeover,
with a impressive portfolio of intertwanglisms, an online store,
AM radio, and most exciting – got Butch working a B A log
(Butch Anthony Blog straight from him Iphone) … With Sarah’s help ,
Butch is now the 24 hour news channel of Seale, Alabama – keeping you up to date
on the latest news from the swamp , and get you excited about  this years March 31 DOONANNY.

http://www.museumofwonder.com/

http://www.museumofwonder.com/balog/

Great website Sarah and Butch.

Check out this photo my mother sent me from her adventure in Uganda.

Camp Design Build Adventure’s Winter Furniture Workshop was Dec 15-22 in Marfa, Texas. Hosted by our friends at El Cosmico, this workshop’s exercise was called “Cowboy Junkyard Chairs” and I was blown away by the amazing work of our participants – not to mention the support we got from our partners (Austin Farmhouse Delivery and West Texas Food Bank) and our friends in Marfa (Nick Terry, Peter Stanley, Sam Schonzeit, Molly Walker, Ross Cashiola, more).

The concept was simple: Enjoy Marfa, grab some materials from Cowboy Junk Yard, design and develop a chair concept using those materials and then design build design build design build for a few days, culminating with a gumbo party and silent auction in which the chair fabricator makes the opening bid – for essentially what they would be willing to pay the West Texas Food bank in exchange for their week of hard work.

We toured Marfa studios, shops, saw the Autobody exhibit at Ballroom, and got a special tour of Chinati focused on Judd’s furniture. We searched for arrowheads on a big Texas ranch and looked closely at corral construction and barbed wire fences too. And believe it or not, Dan Dyer cooked eggs and bacon every single day. (We used the bacon grease as a cutting oil.)

The participants – a musician, a law school grad, a photographer, and a future architecture grad student had never really cut, ground, or welded steel… but after a few days, they each had developed their own ‘design build confidence’ and could not be stopped.

I was really impressed with the designs and constructions – each a very different and exciting project and on the final night we had an Austin Farmhouse gumbo, Tito’s vodka campfire happy hour and sold all four of the projects to benefit the West Texas Food Bank.

Thank you Dan, Mahshad, Alex, and Katrina for your energy and hard work.
Thank you Austin Farmhouse Delivery, West Texas Food Bank, and El Cosmico for helping us explore the interesting model of service, fun, design, build, and Adventure…

It’s been moving so fast – hard to believe it has been almost 2 month since I had the
amazing opportunity to work with my buddy Butch Anthony again, this time in Portland , Oregon.
We worked with the students from the OCAC + PNCA MFA in Applied Craft and Design, and in only 10 days
and very little budget (maybe $1000.00) , converted an unused “unit” at the Donald E. Long Juvenile Justice Center into a “literacy center” …
Here are the images I took on the last day (before the books! )
Thank you J.P. Reuer, Barry Sanders, and the students at OCAC + PNCA -
This was a great experience.

http://www.facebook.com/pages/OCAC-PNCA-MFA-in-Applied-Craft-Design/204305439579942?v=info&sk=info

http://acd.pnca.edu/

What an awesome couple of days – especially the weather!  Yesterday the Masters Art students from OCAC + PNCA presented our “literacy center” design concepts to the Administration and the Students at the Long Juvenile Justice Center in Portland.

Today we are refining our ideas based on their feedback and hope to start building, fabricating, and painting as early as tomorrow. The project scope has broken into a few groups (1) outdoor table / seating / interior soft furniture, (2) Dioramas (you will see!), (3) Giant Paint and Text scheme, and (4) bookshelves.

I only got a few “before” photos in the Justice Center, but will continue to update as work continues through next Thursday, August 25.

While preparing for the first ever Camp Design Build Adventure in Marfa, Texas – I looked back to one of my favorite books, Devil’s Workshop: 25 Years of Jersey Devil Architecture (1997, Princeton Architectural Press) and was excited to re-read something I had underlined and starred almost 10 years ago … it talks about how Steve Badanes and other Devil’s saw the activities of early counter-culture artist-builders “using architecture to have a good life”.

That is what this week felt like.

We woke up every morning to the 6:45 train blowing through Marfa.  We drank coffee, stretched, biked, designed, built, ate at Food Shark, met and worked with numerous talented Marfa artists, sketched Judd’s boxes at sunset, made models, drew site sections, welded, cut, grinded, sang, danced, and left a really beautiful and functional shade structure at the site of “East Side Play!”.

What made this project most special was that 17 people from all over the United States, ranging in age from 17-60, joined us at El Cosmico for this first ever Camp Design Build Adventure.  And that numerous people from Marfa -  Sam Schonzeit, Melissa McDonnell, Ross Cashiola, Peter Stanley, Nick, Maryam, and Dersu contributed time, energy, talent, materials and more to help us do this.  I also was very lucky to have my friends Dan Dyer (Musician) and Wanda Dye (School of Architecture, UT Arlington) round out the faculty.  Not to mention the bad ass Isadora McKeon and Sarah Cork at Bunkhouse/El Cosmico.  This was a dream team!

The goal of the week was to have a Design, Build, Adventure … to stay safe, have fun, and ‘practice the way we want to practice’.

Camp Design Build Adventure will be happening again in July 2012 – and we are already considering the complimentary Winter Session with shorter days, fires, and Dutch Tubs.

Stay tuned to Design Build Adventure and El Cosmico for more information.

Jack

Camp Design Build Adventure – What to Bring:

Clothing (recommended):
big hat (shade)
work boots / or work shoes
light colored long sleeve cotton cowboy shirts
long work pants
bandanas
work gloves
Accessories:
lip balm
sunblock
sunglasses
safety glasses
ear protection
Tools (recommended):
tape measure
tool belt
fencing pliers
water bottle
sharpie
pencils
sketchbook
Also (if convenient):
cordless drills
corded drills
tools you like to use
bicycle

Camp Design Build Adventure

http://www.elcosmico.com/dbadventure.php

photo from Land Arts of the American West Field Reports

http://landarts.org/index.php/site/field_reports/cat/2010_field_reports/P10/

El Cosmico trailer, “Little Pinky” has been knitted by Magda Sayeg (Knitta, Please)

http://www.knittaplease.com/

Sunday, I was lucky to be at the “first ‘throw” at the new East Side Play.

Camp Design Build Adventure (July 11-17, 2011 @ EL COSMICO)

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