To York and back

I'm back from my long past due trip to York, to see my best friend from art college, ace industrial designer John Kurcheski (a.k.a. Kurk)!  It only took me twelve years to get out there and see him again!  Entire wars and collapses of nations have happened in a shorter time period than that. Anyway, it was awesome to see John again.  I got to meet up with his family too, all of whom had always treated me like a son / brother while John and I shared a dorm at college.  Getting to know Kurk and his family was one of the real highlights of my time at school.  Kurk pretty much killed the rest of the industrial design students at school by winning Best of Quarter awards with ridiculously excessive frequency.     


I caught up with Kurk's brother Brandon, who himself is an industrial designer and is currently doing a lot of work on his house.  Brandon has a keen sense about packaging and product display design, something that I recognized about him back in school.  I met Brandon's wife Wiley for the first time.  I enjoyed Wiley's relating to me about the strongly creative, constructive approach that she takes in teaching her kindergarten class.  My kindergarten sucked, I wonder if Wiley would mind if I took her class.  Seriously though, Wiley's lively approach in her teaching will give many kids a good first impression of school, which is invaluable.   John's girlfriend, Gina, is a proud Kansas girl who has a zest for life, and who can probably do about 500 push-ups (which is 498 more than I can do).  


One of the highlights of the trip was Kurk and I finding his dad way up on an embankment behind his house, doing who knows what while standing on ground that was at a reassuring 45 degree angle and covered with prickly bushes.  Later, Kurk and I became well acquainted with the prickly bushes while searching for wood to feed a bonfire.  I almost landed face first in a creek after slipping on a rock.  Fortunately, the thorn covered vines snagged my skin and prevented me from hitting the ground.  Kurk always excelled at getting me into big trouble.  


The main attraction of the trip however was to visit an art exhibit at the T.R. Kaltreider Studio / Gallery, where Kurk has his industrial design workshop, and was displaying some of his work, along with Tyler Kaltreider and some other guest artists.  Tyler has a great surrealistic style to his artwork, which I don't see too much of in these times (at least not as much as I would like).  Kurk was exhibiting a wide variety of artwork, ranging from sculpture to paintings, and a great replica of a dinosaur fossil.  Kurk had even made a couple of mobiles, in the style of Alexander Calder, of which I've been very fond.   I would have liked to have bought one of the mobiles, if I had some spending money right now.  


Also on this trip, we watched "Jackass 2.5" on television, which probably showed nothing more asinine than our looking for firewood on a thorn ridden 45 degree slope in total darkness.   My face looks like I was shot up with BB's.  Well, not really, but believe me, I was lucky.  


On Sunday night, John's mom and grandmother made a delicious pasta dinner for family and friends, and then I drove home in the rain. 


Here is Kurk in his workshop studio!

Here is the super awesome fossil replica created by Kurk:

Here is a prop from Kurk, inspired by the "Bioshock" video game:

A view of Tyler Kaltreider's work:

Kurk is an experienced sculptor and mold maker, and will be teaching a related class starting this week at the YorkArts center.  Kurk is also the creator of the Ball Claw holder, used for handy storage and display of basketballs, footballs, etc., and which is available in stores.  The Ball Claw website can be reached here!