POP! Once upon a time, I made sculpture...

Once upon a time, I was a sculptor. I just found this old letter about a big piece I did for Pierce Flooring in Bozeman made out of a sustainable flooring material!

The finished piece... POP!

Mike and crew at Big Timberworks cutting the Marmoleum like a giant salami on their biggest band saw.

The volunteer crew laminating slices together.

Suzanne Ford applys 1100 feet of electrical tape to the edges to make a clean, finished look.

Mason Griffin and Kate Howe spend the first of 15 hours straight on the genie lift installing.

Kate and friends tour the piece the night of the show.  I must say, I was really pleased to hear rave reviews from everyone I spoke to.  The piece will be a permanent installation at Pierce, a lovely surprise as it was commissioned just for the show.

POP! 2007, 3" x 380', marmoleum and electrical tape, commissioned by Pierce Flooring
Thank you to everyone who made this piece a reality!

Kate and Tom enjoy the piece from below, looking up through the double "vortex" at the center of the piece.  The line quality from this vantage is very "Seussian" (like Dr. Seuss), fun and a bit dizzying!

It took a giant bandsaw, 130 hours of labor for fabrication and installation, a crew of vounteers, 400 feet of Marmoleum, 1100 feet of electrical tape, 680 yards of monofilament, 260 feet of aircraft cable and fifteen hours straight on a genie with a man with really strong hands to get this thing to fly.

THANKS TO: Big Timberworks for cutting it, Mason Griffon for working tirelessly installing it with me, Lonnie Ball for being our man on the ground and shooting photos, and Suzanne Ford, Claudia Krevats, Ginger, Virginia, and Maggie Miller, as well as Debbie and Bonnie for fabricating with me for days in the warehouse. I could not have made this piece without you.

It took six of us almost eight hours straight to laminate the 100' strips together back to back, the strips were then seamed end to end with a special seaming iron.  While the project initially was designed to be 1300' long, we had to stop at 400' due to time constraints.

The finished piece.

All in all, it was a great show, with this piece becoming a permanent installation, and the sale of both paintings I had on display (one at the show to Pierce, and one which sold from my studio before the show).  I am honored and thrilled at my work being such a hot ticket suddenly!  Thanks to all for your encouragement and support.

Stay tuned for the first week in December when a massive new piece goes in at the Community Food Co-op in Bozeman, with materials for the piece being donated by Refuge.  Co-op pieces are donated by myself and the incredible building supply stores locally.  It is a huge effort, entirely volunteer!

Karin Chekidra

I was thinking all night about what it was like to pain the amazing Karin, so I dug up two pieces I did of her. They both took about two and a half hours, she is so easy to paint, looking at her, the color mixes itself. I always felt as I was painting her that her energy was making the painting and I was just watching. What a beautiful muse. I miss working with her, I know her adventure is just getting grander!

You can also find her in some of my mentor's work, Mark Strickland.







Karin just sent me this last picture of my studio... the painting of the new mama nursing was one of my favorites but was completely destroyed in the fire, along with more than 40 other pieces.

Choose your own adventure

Arne Backstrom flies through the air.

As I was writing the post about my adventure up Snowking with Pepi, I saw a tweet go by on my TweetDeck about Arne Backstrom. The report on his accident came out, and I took a moment to go and read it.

Reading the report led me to thinking more of the hope he had in going to Peru. He was on a month long ski mountaineering trip, and this climb was an acclimatization peak after establishing base camp.

I thought about what it would be like to be the kind of person that could dream up a trip like that, have the passion and the will and the skill to go out into the mountains and live from a remote tent for a month, skiing unclimbed peaks, loving the mountains, blissing on the sky and the snow and the friendships and the solitude. Asking yourself to push hard to do something, to try something, to keep climbing, to wonder if the line will go, to make decisions.

I didn't know Arne, but I do know what its like to loose someone unexpectedly. Even when it is expected, death is a strange thing to grapple with for those who are left alive.

Base camp Plaza Argentina, Polish routes Aconcagua

I feel for his sister, his family, the people he skied with, his climbing partners. I had a friend tell me that he could imagine what Arne might have been thinking, the thoughts flashing across his mind when he lost his ski.

This isn't a post about whether he made a good decision to ski the line he skied, or whether taking risk to ski in wild terrain is responsible or not. I believe that question is only answerable by each one of us in each moment. We do the best we can to make smart, healthy choices that let us live our lives fully.

I'm writing because reading the part of the report about Arne and his friends intention to ski mountaineer led me to a mini epiphany. I thought to myself, man, I would love to do that. I would love to go somewhere, on some trip like that. I wish I could be a part of a team that had an idea like that. I was grateful to Arne for inspiring me to think that way. Not because of his death. But because of his life.

And then it hit me, that life isn't about waiting around for your big break. Not in art, not in business, not in skiing. Life is about creating the dream yourself.

The Spiral Jetty, a piece that began with a question; Do we need the white cube of the gallery to make art? Or can I make art anywhere? Robert Smithson sparked the Earthworks movement of the early 70s with this piece and many others.

I thought about painting, which I've been thinking a lot about lately. About how for me, really good work is the effortless amalgam of years of information gathering, sketching, and technical discipline, suddenly, a concept comes, a story or a color or a medium that inspires all kinds of doors to open, and most of the time for me, the best concepts, the best impetus for creation came because I asked a question.

I did a series once on women called Is, Is Not, Is Too. The idea came initially because I was too broke to hire "real" models. I couldn't afford to pay Karin Chekirda $65 (which was her kind price for the very broke at the time, I'm sure she's leagues more expensive than that now.) an hour to sit for me, even if she is the most incredibly inspiring woman I've painted. I needed to practice figurative painting, and I needed willing nudes.

I started asking my friends to sit for me, and while they were nervous, they were willing, and over time, it became a study in something.

I realized that I was observing women interacting without the safety of their costume. Our clothes tell our story for us to some extent. When you walk around in life, you can say, "I'm successful." "I'm conservative" "I'm a free spirit" "I wish I was a free spirit" "I'm not sure who I am." You can even say, "I'm gay." "I may be gay but I'd never tell you" and all kinds of other things with your clothes.

I began to wonder if I took people in my life who were very different from each other, and removed their uniforms, how they would operate when put together, intimately, with no prior introduction, and no clues as to sexual orientation or economic status.

Is, Is Not, Is, Too #26 I asked that question in this series of 47 large paintings, "Laura, this is Shiela, you guys can take these robes into the bathrooms and change. Here's a glass of wine. What kind of music do you guys like?" They'd come out, I'd talk to them briefly about how to sit (things like don't put your weight too heavily on one arm because it will fall asleep and you'll be sitting for 20 minute intervals for three to five hours).

I'd ask them to remove their robes, and I'd watch their energy. None of these women had ever posed nude before, that was one of my most adamant requirements, I was looking at this as a social experiment. Some people became naked defiantly, some shyly, some openly, some questioningly, some with great vulnerability. It was my job to hold space for them, to make my warm studio a safe place for them to be without their armor or uniform and to collide their energies.

I took a gay woman in a committed relationship and posed her with a born again christian college student. I put a wild bi-curious flower child with a mom and an awkward just out of high school athlete. I watched these women take care of each other (for the most part) because they recognized that they were both in a place of fear, and that they had each other, and only each other for the next five hours.

I started to think tonight, thanks to Arne's idea to go ski the mountains of Peru for a month with his friends, that the adventure that I am trying to train toward is maybe the adventure of my own invention. I keep wondering how people come up with the great ideas that they get, to go climb this peak or that, to go wander through these mountains, or to go along this ridge line.

Perhaps the adventure that I am seeing is a question that I need to ask, like hiking Snowking was the result of wanting to hear some stories and history from Pepi.

Right now, the adventures that I can invent are very much in the line of adventures I've heard about other people doing. Just like being in art school and copying the masters, you learn line and color and discipline and composition by making your hand do what theirs did. And then as you grow, as you step outside and being finding your own voice, their influence is there for you to stand on, sometimes its loudly in your work, and sometimes its a nod or an homage, and sometimes, its the gentle breath behind work that is very much your own.

With this in mind, I'm going to begin to look for my own question and see what path unfolds because of it. Thank you, Arne, for the inspiration to choose my own adventure.

Wherein all my dreams come true... except housing!

Wow, what a week its been! I was walking around Aspen this afternoon in a bubble of bliss, just completely humbled and grateful and rawther blown away by everything coming to fruition. What a year of hard work! By SO many people! And it all led up to this.

Okay. On Friday, I drove to Salt Lake City, and my friend Kurt caught a ride with Mike and Laura and met me out there. We explored the Spiral Jetty, a beautiful earthwork by Robert Smithson (1970). It's one of my favorite pieces of art, and I was excited to share it with Kurt. It was funny to see his reaction, folks who don't spend a lot of time in the art world are sometimes baffled by works like this, and we had an interesting discussion about this piece, and art in general, in seeing beauty in things you wouldn't think are beautiful... it was an interesting afternoon, and I have lots of pics of the jetty and the surrounding ruins, which I think are amazing. There were a few dead pelicans, and the salt had begun to encrust them, speaking of unusually beautiful things...

After the Jetty, we walked out on the ruins, the water has receded really far, so the Jetty is completely exposed and black again, last time I was there, it was white and surrounded by ruby red water. Its been fun to see it in several permutations, and interesting to think about the preservation conversations, as the body of the Jetty is eroding away into the lake bed. I hope they don't try to add stuff to it and preserve it, Smithson was particularly interested in entropy, and I think it would destroy the piece to try to preserve it. Let the lake claim it again, eventually, there will be just little points of the basalt sticking up in a spiral, and then nothing, it will still be there, but under the sand.

After the Spiral jetty, we drove back towards the tiny town of Corrinne, Utah, where we went and visited the ATK test launch site! Just follow the signs for "Rocket Display", and you can see the incredibly scary propulsion vehicles that this massive defense conglomerate makes! They also make the boosters for the Shuttle for NASA.

For more information on just how scary ATK is, visit their website here! And, if you'd like to go feel the ground tremble, visit Corrinne, Utah on August 25, when they will be test firing the new Shuttle Booster!

We decided to drive out to Ogden and see what Outside Magazines Top 10 Town was like, and then made our way up to Snowbowl, a truly beautiful mountain tucked in the Wasatch. Driving up the canyon, we passed all kinds of little houses, they reminded me of Sierra Madre, CA, tiny little artsy hippie houses all along the river. The drive flattened out at this huge reservoir, where the houses became decidedly more McMansion, suburban sprawl all over the lush valley, and then we wended our way up to Snowbasin, which was recently redone for the Salt Lake winter Olympics.

The lodges were beautiful! The high speed quads were incredible! The main lift was about 10 feet off the deck of the children's ski school building. We checked out the maps, and Snowbasin has some amazing lift served mountain biking, which we are going to have to go and explore. In order to get that done, looks like I'm gonna have to learn how to RIDE MY BIKE for heaven's sake!! Rachel Bauer, can I trade you massage for "how not to be a total pussy on your mountain bike" lessons?

The next day, we wandered around Historic Temple Square in downtown Salt Lake in the rain, it was a beautiful day, and great to get out and have some exercise. I'd never seen the fountains and buildings, and I have to say, I am fascinated by the Mormon culture, the incredible industry of this group of people is truly astonishing.

That afternoon, we drove off through Park City (and neglected to stop and visit with the worlds most wonderful bootfitter, Mr. Brent Amsbury, who may never forgive me... and, ironically enough, my feet decided to punish me severely for that neglect the VERY next time I put ski boots on... see, that's what I get...)

We drove through Dinosaur National Monument, where Mike and Laura had camped the night before (here is one of the amazing photos of that area that Mike took), and we stopped in Vernal to check out a legendary bike shop.

Heading on towards Aspen, we cracked open a first edition first printing of Tarzan: Lord of the Jungle, and kept ourselves amused by Sir Edgar Rice Burrough's adventure stories imagined in 1928. We headed into an enormous thunder cell, and, a bit worried about Mike and Laura (who were snuggled on high ground in a good tent somewhere out there), and hydroplaned our way into town.

The next day, I went for a hike up Aspen Mountain with Kurt, and it struck me again just how much MORE this place is than I always think it is. Its steeper, further, longer, and higher than I remember every time I come. The hike up Aspen Mountain is a couple of miles, should be relatively easy, but once again, the altitude kicks my butt, and the in-shapetitude of my hiking partner sets my own recreational fitness level off in spectacular style!

The hike was beautiful, we managed to do it in between rain bouts, found a pile of hula hoops at the top, and while gazing out at the majesty of the maroon bells, hula'd our way to happiness. Little known talent of Mr. Fehrenbach: he has a mean way with the hula! Why isn't THAT on his resume?? I thought about my friend Leah, this beautiful, blissful girl I go to Health Works with, and re dedicated myself to trading her rock climbing lessons for hula lessons. She is "that girl": you know the one, the one that can dance at a festival with about three hula hoops going all at once? Yup.

That morning, I had had my first interview for a massage job at The Aspen Club and Spa, I was very nervous for some reason, but excited. I wasn't sure where I was going to work when I move at the end of August, and the pressure of getting a job, and getting the right job, and getting a job that pays enough... getting a job in town was important to me, because I don't want to have to ride the bus or drive a car.

This year is an opportunity to live my life on foot and reduce my carbon impact on the planet, and I really wanted to do everything I could to get in town and stay there. I have been fortunate enough to get hired on Aspen Mountain for the winter (WOOO HOOO!), and now... drum roll, please, I've managed to get hired at The Aspen Club AND at the St. Regis Remede spa as a massage therapist.

I am now officially gainfully employed with THREE awesome dream jobs in town in Aspen all walking distance from each other.

Full Stop.

After my interviews, I was lucky enough to hook up with Weems for breakfast (Which he unexpectedly had to buy because I was unexpectedly more broke than I thought... this must change. Too bad it costs money to take a class on managing money.)

Weems and I had a blissful morning in the sunshine talking family and skiing and life, and then we took his loverly dog Merlin for a walk about town. Talking through the decision to move to Aspen ahead of the kids with Weems was amazing, he has such gentle insight, and it felt good to hear that he thinks its a strong decision (showing leverage in the reality corner!). I felt calmer with the decision after that, and even better after getting back and talking through it more with Tom and the boys. Looks like we are all on the same page, and all looking forward to this as a positive change that we are taking at the right pace.

All that's left is to find an apartment I can afford that's as close to the Gondola as possible, finish school, take the national exam, and make the move!

The finished Mural

Alright, time to start catching up! Here is the finished mural at Highlands. It was AWESOME to paint again, I miss it SO much! I'm excited to begin work on a series of nudes for the Massage schools after I deliver some promised small works! YEA! Painting again!

A beautiful hike, and the begining of the mural!

I'm here! Aspen is just as absolutely beautiful as i remember it being. The weather is amazing, its been warm, sunny and bluebird skies since I got here. The first day, we went for a short hike up the Ute Trail to take a look at the valley, and that night we went slacklining in a local park. SO FUN! I'm totally addicted. I really suck at it. We did it for about a half an hour or so, and I could only get about five or six steps down the line. We ran into some kids, so we worked them into our rotation and let them give it a try, they were pretty good at it!

Yesterday, we went for a big hike up to Cathedral Lake. We were going to go up to the peak, but we got a late start due to watching the tour. Whoops! Anyhow, we hiked up, and GOSH it was a good thing that I've been training, because if I thought I was hiking fast before, I WAS WRONG! It was buggy. Kurt took OFF up the trail, and I was determined to pace him. Yeah. Good luck with that! I was definitely faster than I've ever been before, but it seriously kicked my ass, which was, of course, FANTASTIC!

The lake was beautiful, and we hiked up the opposite side of Electric ridge, off the trail and over these sort of tongues of scree. We hiked up to the grassy saddle, and saw the incredible site of Peral pass on the other side. We hiked up to the highest point, scrambling up this beautiful purple rock with orange lichen all over it, and came very close to an enormous raptor of some sort!

I have great photos of all of this, but I am working off a friend's computer, and can't download my camera onto it. One thing I can't wait to share with you are the photos of our descent, which was an adventure and a half and a major blast.

We hiked down this super steep scree field, and i got to learn how to use both my poles in my uphill hand to stabilize myself on the steep slope, like poling in a gondola. It was a very helpful tip that Kurt learned from the guide he climbed Mt. Rainer with.

We got over to this little sliver of snow that was left on the hill, and decided to glissade down it! It was super steep, and kind of ridiculous, and we were both totally psyched to give it a try. Skiing in our tennis shoes, yes we did! I have photos of our tracks coming down this thing, its insane.

We hiked over a huge boulder field where all the boulders had come crashing down a long time ago, covering the old mining road, and crossed over the stream to meet back up with the true hiking trail. All in all, it was a beautiful, beautiful day, with gorgeous weather, and I got great photos for Doug's mural, which I started today.

Here are some photos of the underpainting! I'll try to keep posting as I work on it! Tomorrow is a possible rock climbing day, and more painting if the underpainting has set up enough.

Super Art Fight!

Super Art Fight!, originally uploaded by KateHowe.

Bodhi and I watched Jamie Noguchi's Super Art Fight and then had one of our own. Bodhi remembered EVERY round, and we had to draw the same. It was SUPER fun!! Most of the words were written by Bodhi, 4 1/2.

Visit the Angry Zen Master Here!

Goodbye Spiff's Continuom!

The unfortunate thing about making fragile site specific installations is that they inevitably get destroyed when you take them down. It was sad to see this one go. Unfortunately, even though all of the materials, the genie and my time were donated, the budget at the Co-op is not going to allow us to continue installing pieces in that space.

So, until I have time to go find a gallery, we're done with sculpture for a little while. Unfortunate and sad! I have a sketchbook FULL of pieces I can't wait to realize. But my path is different right now. HOPEFULLY one day, summers will be for art, and winters for skiing. But for now, I leave on Wednesday for the Teetons!

Thank you Steve Hill for helping me tear it down, and thanks a TON Lori. Your total lack of respect for art really came through. Just kidding. You guys are awesome. Thanks again.

Spiff's Continuum is flying at the Flying C!

Spiff's Continuum is finally up and flying at the Community Food Co-op in Bozeman!

Consisting of two 20' x 20' diamonds woven out of 1/8" mahogany, the material acted like a giant wooden blanket. I am SO excited about this material, that I can't wait to do a full series in woven wood! Tom and I have designs for eight more pieces already!

Thanks to Refuge for the paint, Empire for the wood, and ABC Rentals for the Genie donation. And thanks to the Co-op for an Artist's consideration as well. Now my studio is warm! Thanks to Mason Griffin (again), Shannon Griffin, Tom Wight, Lori Campbell, and Liat Miriam for their help getting this thing off the ground (Literally!) Thanks to Kelly for allowing me to exhibit in this exhilarating space.

This has been an amazing experience, producing pieces for the co-op, and this one will run through June. At that point, we are going to decide if we want to continue producing pieces for the space or not. If you are in Bozeman, drop in and check it out!

Spiff's Continuum

Spiff's Continuum is flying! Well, part of it. Well, kind of. Okay, lets back up.

It has been an insane week. But things are going well. Refuge Building Supply donated 13 gallons of paint for this project, Empire Building Supply donated 30 sheets of mahogany door skin, and ABC Rental donated the use of the Genie lift for three days. Tom, Liat, Mason and Shannon have all donated their time and I wish I was sponsored by Red Bull, because I've had a CASE in the last three days.

It's about 10 degrees in the "studio" today, meaning the paint won't dry. We have one day to apply five coats of paint to each side of these suckers. Liat works in her down while I head to Home Depot to suck it up and get a propane heater.
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That's better! Two of these suckers got the room up to about 90 degrees in about 1/2 hour. Now we can work in our t-shirts!
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Liat begins priming as the room warms up. YES, that is a 100 Lb Tank of propane! Who builds sculpture in December in Montana? Next year we're doing the co-op piece in AUGUST!
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25 Sheets primed. This is the first time I've used American Pride paint, it is amazing! It has great texture, cleans up SO easily (which is good for me because you KNOW I am a messy, messy girl), and comes out beautifully.
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Shannon came over on her way home from Big Sky's Fall Fest where she skid with Andy "You're a Tigah" Docken all day. She came over just in time to apply the first coat of color, which just happened to be exactly the color of her favorite ski jacket!
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Hot Pink on one side, day glo yellow on the other side. I realized at about 3am that my mom bought me a pair of pants that looked just like this in 1983! Yeah!

These colors are QUITE a departure for me, but I am excited to see how they come out. I was reading Bill Waterson's Calvin and Hobbes collection and I was just AMAZED at his bold and unusual color choices. Its funny how in a comic we don't really notice color and composition, or if we do notice, when they are well done, they are just a seamless part of the storytelling. As I read through the collection I was just AMAZED at the color use, and actually took the book to Refuge to color match right off the comic strip. That's where we got the name, "Spiff's Continuum" in thanks to Calvin and his great imagination.
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With a nice new saw blade in place we hold our breath and hope the paint doesn't chip or get dirty while we rip the wood into 6" strips, which are then scrubbed clean and pop riveted together.
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Liat takes over for Brad on kid duty, with mood lighting in the bath tub. She's teaching Ethan how to knit! He's making his own Christmas Stocking. Cool!!
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Mason and Tom begin riveting as Lori and I weave the first big square. The original concept was to have one long continuous amorphous weave that flipped and curled. Unfortunately, Tom threw his back out HARD on the ice the other day, and was in an ENORMOUS amount of pain, and Mason had to go blow up the snow pack at Bridger at 5am (he's on the ski patrol), so we re-designed the piece right there on the spot. Now it's five big rectangles hung independently and curling.
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And now that its up, we realize that perhaps it will be just TWO of these big weaves, but it is imperative that the shapes talk to each other, and that they really behave dynamically. For about 10 minutes, I really hate the color, and the piece. I am working hard to stay positive. There are elements I am happy with, I like that you can see one color through the other, which was the premise for the original piece. By the time we load up the car, I'm okay with it again, and Tom and I talk about how to make the second half come out well. We are going back tonight to finish the install (sorry, Lori!). The one big bummer? We were SO careful with the pieces, continually cleaning them, and STILL the piece got scratched and dirty. Ah, well. I'm curious how it looks in the sunlight!

Its UP! Thank you Mason, Lonnie, Shannon, Debbie, Bonnie, Claudia, Suzanne, Ginger, Ginna, Maggie and Claudia!

Here it is! Its a terrible picture taken off my phone at 2am, but this is the gist of it. nearly 400ft. long, it is hanging from the ceiling at Pierce flooring. I could NOT have done it without the help of everyone listed above, collectively we put in over 130 hours into the fabrication and installation of this piece in the last three days.

Thanks for making it happen, everyone!

xoxo
Kate

PS, see you tonight at the show!