Brian Harper

Work headed to Appalachian Center for Craft

May 16, 2013

Hi everyone -

Just a quick update – the other day I shipped off some new work to Appalachian Center for Craft for an exhibition they are having of works by the 2013 ACC Summer Faculty.  I'll be teaching a 3 day workshop there on using multiples as a mechanism for generating form and content.  I'll be covering everything from 3D printing to clay extrusion, so it should be pretty fun.  In any event, the two new works aren't even up on my website yet (well, one of them is the index page image, but I'm a little behind in getting more work posted in its entirety here)

And here's one of the new works .. 

That's it for now!

Brian

Video about The Open Crowd Project

April 24, 2013

The video that the IU Southeast Public Relations department made about my Open Crowd Project came out a little while ago.  Here it is:

It's a well made video, even if I hate to hear myself talking!  During that project, they also wrote an article for Inside IU – an IU wide online newsletter.  Here's a link to that article: http://inside.iu.edu/features/stories/2013-03-20-story-3d-iuse.shtml

Additionally, the article was published in the IU Southeast magazine .. and yes, I'm the centerfold! haha. First and only time I'll ever be a centerfold I'm sure.  Here's an image of the article.

That's it for now..

Brian

South Africa, NCECA, and Edinboro U

April 14, 2013

Hi again,

STILL trying to get caught up with things after a whirlwind few weeks.  After finally getting back home from Cape Town (after a 60 hour traveling nightmare compliments of Delta Airlines), I left 12 hours later to fly to Houston for the NCECA Conference.  Jet lag and traveling exhaustion made for some interesting conversations for the first day or two of NCECA, but otherwise it was a productive conference.  It seems like the days of just casually wandering from gallery to gallery are gone now as I was busy with some NCECA meetings and other commitments.  As some of you know, I was nominated to run for an NCECA Board position this year.  I didn't get elected, but I was happy to have the opportunity to get up in front of people at NCECA and talk about my beliefs in the free and open access to information .. something I think NCECA could improve on!  In any event, after getting back from NCECA, I left again just a couple of days later to drive work to Edinboro University in Pennsylvania for the Ceramics Invitational exhibition there.  I brought two works there, a smaller curling work and a larger one.  Here's an image of the poster in a hall outside the gallery …

Hope to get more images from the show soon, for now, that's it.  Back to work.

Brian 

South Africa.

March 30, 2013

South Africa.  Tiffany and I just got back from spending 10 days in Cape Town, South Africa to install and show her work in the Infecting the City Art Festival.  it was a super awesome festival – a great mix of visual work, performance, and sound works.  We shot video for the first few days, then she edited and masked the video to fit on the columns of the Slave Lodge in downtown Cape Town.  The logistics of installing the projector on a balcony of one of the most expensive hotels in Cape Town were a little "interesting", but overall, it was a really great experience.  

I did some photographing while there, so I'll be posting some of those images on this site soon.  For now, though, I thought I'd share a handful of my Instagram pics.  The rest are on my Instagram account - check it out if you're an Instagrammer!

Anyway, there are a bunch, so here are just a few.

That's it for now .. Setting a new goal for myself to post more here, so hopefully we'll see more posts!

Brian

Tickets purchased!

January 28, 2013

Wow, thanks to all those awesome people that supported our Kickstarter campaign, we were able to purchase our tickets to Cape Town, South Africa today!! 

It's such an amazing and humbling experience feeling the support of so many great people – friends, family, peers, and colleagues.  Thanks to them, we're able to partake in this opportunity.  We're both just speechless, really.

Honored and humbled.

Brian H.

Our Kickstarter is on its way. Woohoo!!

December 27, 2012

Our Kickstarter is on its way!!  As I write this, we are about a week into our campaign.  We're thrilled to already be at 44% of our needed funding, but we still have a long way to go.  So, if you know someone that might be interested in supporting this project (and getting some really cool rewards in the process), please feel free to pass this link on:

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/766776675/between-here-and-there-cape-town-south-africa

We are so honored and humbled to have your support .. it really means the world to us!

Thank you soooo much!!

Brian

New Photographs!

December 19, 2012

Hi Everyone, I know, I know, it's been a looong time since I updated my "news" page.  Seems like I start each of these news posts with the same disclaimer.  There's been too much going on!  So much, in fact, that I haven't had a lot of extra time to update my "news" section on my site!  In any event, there HAS been a ton of stuff going on .. 

For now, I just wanted to shoot out an announcement that I have a new section on my site called "New Photographs".  As many of you know, I was a photographer before getting into ceramics (way back – more than 15 years ago now).  I've always enjoyed making images, but lately, I've been working on some photographs again.  Upon returning from China and Thailand last summer, I spent a big amount of time pouring through the 7,000+ images I shot there.  I've edited those down to about 75 or so and posted some of those in "New Photographs" section of this site.  Here are a few of my favorites ..

There are lots more, so if you have a minute to check it out, they're posted at http://www.brianharperstudio.com/china-thailand-2012/  

That's it for now.  More SOON!

Brian

Fall 2012 – The Open Crowd Project

October 09, 2012

Hi everyone -

The late summer/early fall has been spent working on a new project I started called The Open Crowd Project.  This is a project to 3D scan and print representations of people in an effort to build a 3D printed "crowd" of people.  On The Open Crowd Project website, there are instructions on how to send in images of yourself – participants send in their images and I stitch them together, print them, and add them to the crowd.  The learning curve has been STEEP, but it's been a really excited project so far.

Please help spread the word about the project.  People have already sent in images from as far away as Seattle and Rochester, but I would like to get people participating from around the world.  Here's most of the group (so far) …

There are LOTS of images on The Open Crowd Project website, so go there and check it out!  And send in images of yourself!

So much else going on right now, grants, shows, awesome students, etc.  I think this is maybe the busiest time of my life.  Sometimes its overwhelming as it all piles up, but I can't remember a time when I've been involved with so many amazing things.  

Speaking of that, I better get back to work!

Brian 

Summer 2012 – China/Thailand

July 28, 2012

China for four weeks, Thailand for two weeks .. yes, it was really great!  Too much to explain here.  I haven't had the chance to pour through the thousands of photographs yet, but if you're on Instagram, you can see some of the pics from my phone there (@bharperstudio).  There are a whole bunch there, like this one:

And this one: 

And this one: 

And there are LOTS more.  Anyway, its hard to sum up the experience in one blog post.  I probably should have worked to keep my blog going when we were there (my other blogs on Blogger were shut down in China, but I never checked to see if this one was shut down as well).  As you know, Facebook and Twitter don't work there, but for some reason, Instagram worked, albeit slowly, but that's why I continued to post there.  

One of the interesting aspects of the trip to China and Thailand (at least for me) was the sheer amount of energy surrounding you in daily life there.  I'm certain its much different in the countryside, but for the most part, we were travelling in large cities – some of the largest cities in the world.  The amount of visual (and actual) energy around you seemingly all the time is pretty astounding.  Upon returning to the States, the world seemed to be moving so slowly – traffic, people, everything seemed to move at half speed compared to life in a big Chinese city.  

So, I hope to post more images here of the trip.  For now, I hope I've broken the blogging ice here as my posting regularity is not what I hoped for when I first set this blog up.  

Anyway, stay tuned!

Brian 

Spring 2012 update

March 28, 2012

Hi everyone -

I'm headed to Seattle in a couple of hours for the NCECA conference, but I just thought I'd take a moment and write a quick update on what's been happening at the studio during the spring.  Things have been busy at school at again as I've worked with my students over the last month or so teaching them how to build a small train kiln.  Ian Shelly and I finished the welding last weekend, so the kiln is about done – just a few minor little things need to be done.  Now, all we need is wood .. maybe the students will fill our wood rack with nice split wood while I'm in Seattle!?

Anyway, here are a few pics from the build ..

I also finished this piece after MUCH work, and some trials and tribulations ..

There are a few more images of this work in the gallery section of my website, so check them out when you get a chance.  With this work, I've worked to develop a new approach to assemble the work.  The new approach is stronger, but more finicky and time consuming, however I think I'll be able to transport them better for exhibitions.

I've also been working on some work that is moving in a more geometrical direction.  I'm not completely sure where this exploration is going yet, but I'm excited to see what happens ..

That's it for now, better get on my way to SEATTLE!

Brian