Early work.Â

This week we hauled 13 years of accumulated junk (old projects/materials/garbaggio) from our basement. In the process we pulled out the first thing I (Taylor) ever made from back in 2008 while at ITP.

It is 24 light switches that control the RGB (red, green, blue) value of a single pixel, the same way a computer encodes each pixel on your computer screen with bits. It was built using only resistors and switches to limit current going to a single RGB LED.

Around 8 years ago, it didn't survive the trip back from a show in Ireland and has been crumbling in our basement since.

For the first thing I ever made, I will say it worked out surprisingly better than it should have, considering I had never used, or even seen a laser cutter before. They had one at NYU, and I heard they could accurately cut some plastic for me. I drew some illustrator files, dropped off the material and a few days later picked up the parts to assemble on the floor of my bedroom...on a yoga mat. :)

I messed up the tolerance between the switch and the opening and had to dremel away both sides of each switch so they would fit.

I learned so much from the project. Apart from the obvious, construction stuff. In the original piece, I included a magnifying glass to "see the pixel better". A while later a professor asked "why did you put a joke in your project?" I thought about this a lot. And realized I probably did it because I was afraid of the thing that I was making. Afraid it sucked. Afraid that I was making art. And so I inserted a joke as a sort-of fall back, a way to take it less seriously. Realizing this was a huge step in a long and still ongoing process towards giving myself permission to explore and make stuff.

Maybe this sounds crazy, or maybe familiar. But every once in a while I'll see a student do something with their project that makes it less serious. And not in a good way, that is at all related to the work. I always make sure to point it out, just so they know, that whatever they're making is ok, and they have full permission to take it seriously.

Basement makeover.Â

Here's a peek at what our basement is starting to look like clean. We're so excited it is going to be usable again soon. We'll do a tour once we're done the cleanup.

Forever jumprope.Â

It's the season for rope jumping. Even just five minutes a day gets your juices going and lifts the mood. Hopefully this discount (good till Tuesday) is a good motivation...get one!