Memories

I'm really sorry to all. I can't go on spouting excuses of why I haven't been posting blogs, but I have been terrifically busy here in the crazy, snowy Cranbrook. I wanted to post a blog about what we really spent time doing in the Netherlands, then I promise that I will move on to new blogs as early as today. Thanks for emailing me and telling me you are interested in the blog, sometimes I wonder if anyone is ever looking. Regardless, I'll try to keep posting.

We fly into the Netherlands and we have to get on a train to Amsterdam. Everyone is excited and loud and tourist. Well, I shouldn't say everyone, but its hard to control yourself when you are excited to be in a new place, seeing new things.

Fresh off the train, I see this wheel with wings above a door way to a building. In a scroll underneath it, it reads "SNEL EN ZEKER" which bablefish tells me it means "rapidly and certain". I like it.

We wander around looking for inexpensive food. Its really windy out and we are actually kind of short on time because out first studio visit is scheduled for the afternoon of the day we got in. Here we take cover from the wind to discuss the impossibility of the whole group eating at the same place and how we should probably split up. I like the patterning the brick sidewalk makes as it maneuvers around the corners of the brick walled church

As we trek around looking for the studio we are expected at, Kosta and Andrew find this awesome volvo that is covered in some kind of wood grain decal.

We finally make to KesselsKramer (if you go to their site, hit reload a few times, it might totally blow your mind, or totally piss you off). They are located in an old gutted chapel in Amsterdam. They've turn the interior into some horrible fort thing. I'm convinced that it would be impossible to get any work done in this environment and it is solely build for client walkthroughs so they say things like "Wow, your creative department looks really creative!" The first photo is of their green room. Their conference table in this room is a picnic table. Their reasoning behind this is to make you feel uncomfortable while you are brainstorming so you don't spend all day hashing out the same ideas in a big comfy chair. So basically, if you can't pull the ideas together, get the hell out of there before you get a splinter in your ass.

We head back to hostile for a bit. This is the view either way of the alley outside our hostile. Then we go hit up some record stores and book stores and check out the city.

Our Artist-in-Residence for our department, Elliott Earls, is involved in a workshop and debate on video art and VJ culture. Unfortunately, his gear was stolen at the airport when he got to the Netherlands, so he wasn't capable of showing his process at the workshop. The photos I took during the debate are relatively uninteresting because it took place in a lecture hall and the lights were dimmed so video work could be referenced with ease. The photo taken here was in an installation at the gallery where everything took place.

At some point Sasha, Kosta, and I hop on a boat to a small island to check out some clothing store that was said to have the nicest kicks. The store was pretty cool, it was like the Amsterdam equivalent to alife in NYC. I caught a picture of Sasha taking Kosta's new glamor shot photos.

The island was beautiful. It was like a smaller cleaner version of Amsterdam. The canals were smaller, the car were smaller.....people were regular sized, but it was really nice.

The next day we take a train to a design studio in the Hague called Lust. Their website runs on a script that compiles a screen shot of everyone's desktop in the design studio. It runs live too, so if you reload the page, it takes a new screen shot. I remember hearing that in the design world, its cooler to have your website outdated because it meant that you were so busy working you didn't have time to update the self promo stuff. I guess I just think its really funny to set up your website so it is always showing what you are currently working on. Almost like, "See, we really are too busy to update!"

After we check out their studio, they invite us out for drinks. Dan, on the left, is interning for Lust and he is actually from the Detroit area. He went to school at CCS and then booked it out there right after he graduated. Funny thing is, he's friends with Christian, my friend from Detroit. Dan was supposed to play a song Christian and I recorded a while back. It would have freaked me to out walk into a design firm in the Netherlands and hear music that I made when I got in there. I'm kind of happy Dan dropped the ball on that. Something weird was going on at the bar we were at, a high school style band came in playing some crazy shit. It was a pretty funny spectacle.

The next day, back in Amsterdam, we go visit Richard Niessen of the Golden Masters and Typographic Masonry. His current studio is part of an Artist Grant he recently won in the Netherlands.

His cat loved me. She hoped up on my shoulders and kept trying to groom my hair and beard, then if anyone came near, she would act like a guard. I wanted to bring her back with me. I love affectionate cats.

I kept freaking out about the bike culture out there. Some people in my group might have thought I was a little insane. I didn't feel like disputing it. I liked the looks of the bikes pilled up in this gated alley. It reminded me of the visuals from the movie The Bicycle Thief. The a photo of another form of travel I was into in Amsterdam.

Sasha and I get football fever and spend a pretty penny on a couple of tickets to an Ajax vs. AZ Alkmaar game. It was amazing and totally worth every cent. Do this if you ever get the chance.

That wraps up the Netherlands trip. I took so many photos it was getting hard to edit it down. We also spent some time with Ryan and Catalijne who make up Strange Attractors. Their site also has some kind of script that is activated by the loading of the page, so reload that one a lot too. They are both graduates from the Cranbrook 2D deppartment. I'm working on a new post soon. It will be the "catch everyone up to speed" post.