There is a super cool show going on at Milepost 5 starting this Friday 8/14 at Milepost 5.  Ive been given a room and the freedom to do whatever I want so of course I have used it as an opportunity to promote Chaboo2!  Its called Manor of Art featuring 100 rooms and 100 artists and 20 bands over 10 days (8/14-23).  Curated by Chaboo artist Chris Haberman, the show has some bigtime sponsors and promises to be pretty amazing.

Lisa Kuhnhausen has yet again come up with a neato installation.  I mostly like it because it involves red.  Just kidding… kind of.   You will have to come see for your self how she condensed Project Chaboo into 300square ft while getting my new concept for Chaboo2 across.

Each artist gets an entire room to do whatever they want.  Imagine that!  It really is pretty cool.  I took a sneak peak at some rooms.  ;)  See ya there Friday night.

My brothers friend’s family runs the architectural salvage company Aurora Mills.  The business is run out of an old mill in Aurora just like the name says.  Duh!  Super cool place.  One of those things where you pretty much just have to go there yourself to feel what its really like.

I love the nature of this old mill- how its been pieced together and added on to through the years.  It has the feel of some of the buildings in the Miyazaki animations.  The owners son, Seth Burns gave a few of us a super top secret insider tour.  Here he is with my friend Emily Steen of Built-Studios.

Seth showed me some casting molds hidden in storage.  These are molds made out of wood to make metal parts.  Simply amazing.  I never even knew these things existed.  Mold makers were the finest craftsmen of the era. No lasers or CNCs back then.

Besides the really cool antique parts theyve salvaged, they also have loads of salvaged lumber.  BIG beams from old barns and such.

If youve never been here and live in Oregon, its well worth a trip out there to check it out.  I got so many furniture ideas and inspiration from seeing the history there.  I will save them for some other day!

Its the time of year where I take off on my adventures with BambooDNA.  With the increasing responsibilities of my kids TomitaDesigns and Project Chaboo, Im scaling back this year.  Last year I was gone for two months, this year I will only miss 3 business days and squeeze in a rafting trip.

I will be at the Mile High Music Festival in Denver to build a “light” version of the bamboo skyscraper at Coachella this year.  It will be “only” 66ft tall.  We have a compact, experienced crew of 7 BambooDNAers to build this monster in only 3 days.  Can you say “working by generator”? Im interested to see how things go with so few people but all very experienced builders.  It brings back memories of building starry mandala at burning man in 2006 with basically only 7 people at the same time.

We can go to the concert for free but ill probably pass.  The crew is going rafting on Saturday!  Excited for Denver- stay tuned.

Chaboo 2 is starting to formulate.  Im trying to plan it ahead this time but of course, I know its going to be flying by the seat of my pants organic. Its going to be risky, edgy, revolutionary, experimental and bad ass.

Some random sneak preview thoughts:

>Take the focus off of me and more on the community.  this means people have to step it up and help each other rather than me helping everyone.  If people step up to the plate it will be a stronger project with greater diversity of ideas.

>Involve community in the development of the project- it will morph and grow as users dictate the flow.  Im goin with the flow baby.

>Promote the artists hard core.  Everyone will have a profile page where they can do whatever they want and perhaps ETSY like ability to sell stuff.

>Project pages will be separate and multiple users will be able to join in on a posted project and contribute content, comments, images, etc.  Process will be very public in terms of visibility but also functionally as well.  The new motto: community design.

>I want it to become a forum where artists can offer their services to help other artists.  For example, Plywerk and I are developing a plywerk chaboo so photographers can easily submit a chaboo.

>Laser folding chaboo- artists from around the world will be able to participate digitally.  Yup- super cool thanks to my friend Laser Joe

Went to a cool show last friday at NemoDesigns to see Aaron Piland’s (1/2 of APAK) work.

Lots of chabooers in the crowd: Lisa Kuhnhausen, Amy Ruppel, Mark Riera, Joe Mansfield, Ryan Thomson, Anna Campbell, Aaron and Ayumi Piland, and myself of course.  Liked the work of artist Ryan Bubnis who I met for the first time.  More on him later…

Had a little fun…