DIY: What you can do with PVC pipe (a lot)

First of all, for those who don't know what PVC pipe is --

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PVC pipe, US Plastic Corp

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PVC is an acronym for polyvinyl chloride, suspected to be detrimental to one's health.  Be sure to look at the health and safety section of this Wikipedia article.  Some of the ideas below involve heating to deform the pipe.  Do so with caution: make sure there's plenty of ventilation and limit your exposure.  Note that artists have been working with hazardous materials for a long time.  For some horror stories, take a look at Poisoned By Painting : The problem of toxic art-supplies.

You can find a number of projects on the web.  Below is one from Formufit, where you can download components for building mockups in SketchUp (also downloadable at the site).

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Standard PVC dining chair, Formufit

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Kent Jenkins built a functioning pipe organ with PVC. Instructions and several videos at available are the WonderHowTo site.

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Kent Jenkins, PVC pipe organ, WonderHowTo

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There are artists who use PVC as a basis for sculpture:

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Kang Duck-Bong, Juxtapoz Magazine

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Mark Booth, Series-300, Cargocollective

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Adam Withrow, WonderHowTo

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I'm not sure about all the heat Adam uses to shape the pipe, but his advice to "follow the cues your project gives you" is spot-on.

-- Marge

Online art magazines revisited

A while back I came across a reference to Juxtapoz magazine which describes itself as the "Online version of the leading monthly contemporary and underground art bible..."  Being of the curious sort, I surfed on over and took a look.  It has an interesting array of topics available -- Videos, Illustration, Erotica, Street Art, Tattoo, Graffiti, and Music -- to name some.  I'd show you some samples of what I found but the popup ads for vodka were too insistent to read any of the content.  Apparently the original Juxtapoz, which was started by a group of artists, has been "acquired" by Complex Media, an extensive network of vodka-dominated sites geared for 20-something males. Moving on....

There are many magazines related to art online.  For a list to use for exploring, try this link.  The ones that looked most useful to me are the following.

The Art Newspaper where you will find information on recent shows. One piece shown this year at the Sydney Biennale was an interactive one, described thus:

Philip Beesley’s “Sibyl”, 2012, is a magical multi-media installation which responds to visitors’ touch with flapping feathers, lighting bulbs, and inflating balloons. Inspired by the Greek concept of “hylozoism”, the belief that all matter has life, the work consists of a system of interconnected mechanisms recalling a human neural system

Artist Beesley explains his concept of hylozoism and it is demonstrated in the video below.  It seems to me most interesting that he is using his art as a precursor to architectural innovation.

Absolute Arts appears to be mostly a site for selling artwork, but there are some features useful to artists, as well.  (Face it: galleries are a necessary evil for the artist who would like to eat and have a warm place to live.  They take a large percentage of the sale price.)  Artist portfolios are hosted and the art patron/collector can find news on latest art trends.  Here's a piece by Cheryl Hrudka titled "5276 Self Portrait" (2012).

Art News presents all kinds of information about art; the main categories are new, investigations, features, trends, profiles, market, looking at art, reviews, and books.  Here's the headline for one of the articles:

Charting a New Course

By William D. Cohan Posted 09/06/12

Under the leadership of its founder’s son, Vienna’s Leopold Museum is attempting to identify potential war loot in its collection 

 I'm closing with a quote that has been coming to mind a lot lately:

Research means going out into the unknown with the hope of finding something new to bring home. If you know in advance what you are going to do or even find there, then it is not research at all; then it is only a kind of honorable occupation. 

--Albert Szent-Gyorgyi

-- Marge