Crowd Funding the Rygo

Posted on February 23, 2012 by michael

I was contacted by a young gentleman named JF Brandon as he is attempting to raise money in order to produce a three dimensional print of a sculpture. He was wondering if the technology was of interest to me to reproduce my sculptures. I am going to wait to see how his current project sculpture turns out before I decide. Check out his funding page  to see more about his project.

I agreed to help spread the word of his project, and I had never heard of Crowd Funding before. There are several of these types of crowd funding sites, such as Kick Starter, but JF is using one called IndieGoGo. These type of crowd funding sites are meant only for culturally based projects. If a musician wants to independently release a CD of music, or a writer wants to publish a book, they can use these websites to raise capital to get their projects launched. Instead of hiring a venture capitalist company, artists are using the Internet to find investors for their projects. The budgets are usually not more than $10,000.00, so crowd funding sites are perfect to satisfy the market for small budget projects.

JF has partnered with LA based sculptor, Bathsheba Grossman and they want to produce what they are touting as North America’s largest 3D printed stone sculpture. Ms. Grossman has created a pleasant abstract form, titled “Rygo” that would be extremely difficult to carve from a block of stone, as there are many interior negative spaces unreachable with tools. While they claim the Rygo will be carved from solid stone, the process of printing uses stone dust that is glued together, layer by layer, with resin. The way I see it, the sculpture is manufactured and isn’t really solid stone. Bathsheba is advertising the print will be made of concrete.

However, the process is intriguing and if it flies, I am interested in seeing what the finished sculpture will look and feel like. At that time, I can decide whether pursuing this form of technology for my sculpture is viable and marketable.

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Designed for Work, Designed for Play

Posted on February 19, 2012 by michael

michael binkley toyota pick-up truck

After 18 years, our old Toyota 4×4 pickup truck finally gave up the ghost. It came as no surprise – Michelle and I have been anticipating its demise for a few years now, but we just kept pushing our luck with her. The old girl sure did not owe us anything.

For work, the design was excellent. Over the years, I’ve self quarried rainforest marble from the west coast of Vancouver Island, hauled basalt and granite from the Whistler area, serpentine from the Coquihalla Valley, glacierite from the interior of British Columbia, limestone from a dealer in the Fraser Valley and exotic Alaska marble from a dealer in WA, USA. When we were renovating our front garden at the turn of the millennium, the truck carried 55 full loads of andicite from the Squamish Highway to our front yard for all the dry sack retaining walls. We, of course had to scavenge, load and unload each of those.

For play, the design was excellent. The truck made numerous trips over the Rocky Mountains to visit my folks in the Alberta Foothills. I remember one Christmas when Michelle, my sister and I made a freezing trip loaded with luggage, ski equipment and gifts in the night to avoid highway traffic. During a break from my time at wheel, I squeezed into a roll of foam in the box for a sub-zero nap – despite the permanent canopy cover. It ferried our dogs (the truck has seen the lives of five of them) to their daily walk at the local off-leash park. It has carried our hiking and camping gear to destinations in summer and skis to resorts in winter – in each season, the four wheel drive proved very useful.

So when the timing chain made a big clunk as it broke in the middle of traffic, I was frustrated, but not too upset. The old girl had enough, and while it was a little sad to have her part, she was a real trouper to us. It seems odd to pay homage to a truck, but I felt it appropriate to recognize something that many of us take for granted.

 

 

 

 

 

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Michael Binkley’s Valentine for Michelle Binkley

Posted on February 14, 2012 by michael

In 2010, I celebrated my 30th anniversary Studio Show exhibition, and to mark the occasion, Michelle suggested that I re-introduce my two dimensional work to the mix. I decided to do only small scale, framed pen & ink and charcoal drawings of nudes and they were well received by the visitors to the gallery. There are still images available, and you can see them on my website.

One of these drawings in particular caught Michelle’s attention, and she longed to have it executed as a large painting. So that’s what I did for her for Valentine’s Day this year. I thought it would be interesting if I recorded the progression of the painting from start to finish. I photographed the painting every few hours while I was working on it, and combined the photos to make a time lapse movie:

The tone of some of the stages are off, as the light in the studio changed from day to evening, but it gives a good sense of how I worked the canvas and developed the painting from conté sketch to final version.

The painting is called “Hold”, acryilc on canvas and is 48” x 60”.

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myVancouver Interviews Michael Binkley on Telus TV

Posted on February 12, 2012 by michael

In December, 2011, Mia Jagpal, producer and host of Telus’ myVancouver community program came to the gallery to interview me. As it is a television service provider, the CRTC requires that Telus provide community programming on their OptikTV service. Mia brought her cameraman, David Vandas and together they put together a full 18 minute HD program that includes a story about the Canadian Museum of Flight, a tea merchant and Stanley Park in Vancouver. Mia gave me permission to edit this version, which is just the segment on me:

Michael Binkley Interview on Telus TV, Feb. 2012 from Michy B. on Vimeo.

The full HD version will be available on Telus’ OptikTV for the month of February, 2012. My heartfelt thanks to Mia and David for a job well done!

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Granite Bowl Sink

Posted on February 8, 2012 by michy

I came home from work the other night, and voila! – there on the kitchen counter was Michael’s latest creation. I am so spoiled. He carved a large granite boulder into a sink for our guest bathroom renovation which should be done sometime this spring. We had discussed colour palette and “look and feel” of the bathroom. I said to Michael; “well really you SHOULD carve the sink before we source out a cabinet, colours textures, right?”.

And he did.

I’ll keep you in the loop and refer back to this post when the renovation is under way. All I know is that the very-basic-keep-within-a-certain-budget approach we started with is now shifted. After all, an original sculpture for a sink deserves much better than standard tiles and paint, doesn’t it?

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