Adventures in Extreme Making: The White Rose

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For reasons I can’t fully articulate, I often think about an obscure film by the artist Bruce Conner called “The White Rose.” Conner’s film documents the moving of a huge and mysterious painting by the artist Jay DeFeo. The painting is so large that the moving company had to cut a hole in the wall of DeFeo’s second second floor apartment to get it out.

Perhaps the appeal of this film is the problem solving or the obsessiveness of DeFeo. Or maybe it’s the shots of the much more gritty San Francisco streets I remember from childhood visits to see my grandfather.

The painting now lives at the Whitney in New York. Here’ how the Whitney tells the story of the painting:

Jay DeFeo began this monumental work simply as an “idea that had a center to it.” Initially, the painting measured approximately 9 x 7 feet and was called Deathrose, but in 1959, the artist transferred the work onto a larger canvas with the help of friends. She continued to work on The Rose for the next seven years, applying thick paint, then chiseling it away, inserting wooden dowels to help support the heavier areas of impasto. Now nearly eleven feet tall and weighing almost a ton, the work’s dense, multi-layered surface became, in DeFeo’s words, “a marriage between painting and sculpture.”

First exhibited in 1969, The Rose was taken to the San Francisco Art Institute, where it was covered with plaster for support and protection, and finally stored behind the wall of a conference room. Legend grew about the painting, but it remained sealed until 1995, when Whitney curator Lisa Phillips had it excavated and restored by a team of conservators, who created a backing strong enough to support the heavy paint. DeFeo resisted offering an explanation or interpretation of the work, although she did acknowledge that despite the work’s enormous size and rough surfaces, there was a connection to “the way actual rose petals are formed and how they relate to each other in the flower.”

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Conner’s film documents moments familiar to any “maker” such as the “how the hell do we do this moment?”

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And the “I can’t believe we’re doing something this crazy moment.”

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Lastly, Conner shows the “I’m having a hard time calling this finished” conundrum via a shot of DeFeo dangling her feet off the fire escape. She began the panting in 1957 and the move took place in 1965 when she was evicted from her Bohemian hangout at 2322 Fillmore Street. As Conner put it, she needed an “uncontrolled event to make it stop.” I think anyone who does anything creative can relate to the problem of letting go and calling something done.

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Thankfully, “The White Rose” has a place of honor in a darkened room at the Whitney. You can watch Conner’s film with its haunting Miles Davis soundtrack here.

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Toggler Snaptoggle® Heavy-Duty Toggle Bolts

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How did I get through 50 years in this veil of tears without knowledge of the Toggler Snaptoggle® Heavy-Duty 3/16″ Toggle Bolt? In those years of suffering, how many times have I punched a series of holes in a wall in a hopeless attempt to find a stud? And how many times have I unsuccessfully tried to use a conventional metal toggle bolt? Those years of confusion have ended thanks to Eric of Garden Fork TV who alerted me to this miracle of the hardware aisle.

Some background. The dudes that built our house in 1920 determined the stud spacing with a roll of dice after a round of bathtub gin. Good luck trying to find a stud through the thick lath and plaster. Your odds are on par with the bland hacks of Nashville managing to deliver a decent Country tune. But I digress.

Why does one need a Toggler Snaptoggle® Heavy-Duty 3/16″ Toggle Bolt? Let’s say, hypothetically of course, that you’ve made an impulsive trip to Costco to purchase a flat screen TV so large that you have to strap it to the top of the car. Urban homesteady types would never do this as we prefer to spend our evenings spinning wool while reading Cicero to each other, of course. But let’s just say (again, hypothetically), that you want to mount that flat screen TV to the wall so that the cats can’t knock it over. This is where the Toggler Snaptoggle® bolts come in.

To use them you drill a 1/2″ hole and insert the metal toggle thing in the wall. You then slide the plastic cap into the hole and rock the plastic straps back and forth until they snap off. Insert the bolt and you’re done. The Toggler folks claim that the bolt will hold up to 238 pounds in drywall and a whopping 802 pounds should you have a concrete block wall. It’s easier to show the Snaptoggle® experience rather than write about it. Here’s Eric’s handy video:

Snaptoggle® bolts work way better than the more conventional metal toggle bolts I had used previously that look like this:

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My hypothetical installation of a hypothetical huge-ass flat screen, thanks to the Snaptoggle® Heavy-Duty 3/16″ Toggle Bolts, went really smoothly (hypothetically). That is until I opened the medicine cabinet I installed in the bathroom 10 years ago, located immediately behind the hypothetical huge-ass flat screen:

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At least the medicine cabinet is now more firmly attached to the wall now that it’s counter-weighted by the hypothetical flat screen in the adjoining room!

Update: In Facebook, David Feuer points out that another advantage over the Snaptoggle® is that you can remove the bolt without the metal thingy falling down in the wall. Thanks David!

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Learn How To Bake Sourdough Bread with Dana Morgan February 18th

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Want to learn how to bake your own tasty sourdough loaves? Take a class with the Los Angeles Bread Baker’s amazing instructor Dana Morgan on February 18th at the community oven in Westchester. Not to be missed!

This small class will teach you the basics of Tartine-style sourdough bread baking. Come learn about making and maintaining sourdough starter and how to mix, divide, shape and time the fermentation of amazing artisan bread inspired by Chad Robertson at Tartine Bakery in San Francisco. Prepare your sourdough in class and bake it at home the next day. Ingredients for your bread will be provided.

Head over to the Los Angeles Bread Baker’s Meetup to sign up.

Saturday Tweets: DIY WiFi Antennas, Cardboard Drones and Giant Crabs

The #FewerFeatures Movement

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When the control panel on our dishwasher failed last month I found myself asking why our appliances and gadgets have so many useless features. Those features bring with them a greater chance that the device will break down and make them harder and more expensive to repair.

Take a look at our dishwasher’s control panel above. Never, in the years we’ve had this beast, have we ever used any of the wash cycle options except for “Normal.” What the hell is “Glass Xpress” or “Adaptive Wash” anyways? Via the power of Adobe Photoshop (itself a mirrored funhouse of features), I’ve redesigned the Whirlpool Quiet Partner III. Et, voila, #FewerFeatures:

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Here’s our complex and Eurotrashy, combo-washer/dryer:

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For the #FewerFeatures version, I’ve simplified the wash cycles to cold, warm and hot. I took out a few of the dryer’s options too (the dryer doesn’t work well anyways and we seldom use it). And I removed what I call the “feature signaling” verbiage stenciled on the lower left and right of the control panel that reads “TrueBalance Anti-Vibration System™” and “Smart Diagnosis™” (look closely and you’ll even see a drawing of a flip phone next to a plus sign!). Why?

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Speaking of flip phones, this isn’t entirely fair, but I couldn’t resist a #FewerFeatures version of the iPhone.

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No, my still functional Western Electric 500 does not play movies, music, function as a timer or keep track of my steps, but it sure is a lot more handsome and less distracting:

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Incidentally, rumor has it that a lot of high-powered Silicon Valley execs use flip phones, a.k.a. “dumb phones” precisely because they have #FewerFeatures.

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Some companies have long been hip to #FewerFeatures and actually sell less features for a premium. Take a look at the beautiful Leica M10. Leica places an emphasis on high quality optics and ease of use. The M10 will set you back $6,500.

Update: In Twitter, Adrien Berridge @berridAC points out that the ultimate #FewerFeatures Leica is the M-D-a digital camera with no screen! I updated the photo so show this remarkable and pricey camera. Thank you Adrien!

I suspect that devices with too many features come from companies where the marketing department has too much say in the design. We’re going to change this! Tell us about your #FewerFeatures journey. Bust out the Photoshop, use the hashtag in social media and let’s simplify our tools!

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