14 Days of LEGO: Day 11

Welcome LEGO and Telephone Room Gallery fans!

On Day 11, we'd like to direct you to the genius of one Michael Hickox. These LEGO recreations of classic arcade games reminded us here at the Telephone Room of some our earliest, fondest gaming experiences....specifically, our utter inability to play them with any skill whatsoever.

Take a look!



If you haven't had enough, here's the second installment:



Only three entries left, and that means three days until the opening. Hope to see you there!

14 Days of LEGO: Day 10

We are in the home stretch in the Telephone Room Gallery's 14 Days of LEGO blogging spectacular!

You can tell because we are resorting, just this once, to linking to a collection of amazing LEGO links assembled by someone else.



Any one of these items could be its own daily dose. Especially LEGO Han Solo. Consider this economy-sizing your LEGO fix.



We've made it to Day 10. If you'd like to go all the way back to where we began, click here to go back to Day 1. Only four days until our LEGO Show Opening!

14 Days of LEGO: Day 9

Your daily dose of LEGO continues on Day 9, better late than never...

Cake and Neave (formerly The Little Artists) use "an existing diverse range of artistic symbols and materials" in their work. And on this blog, you know what THAT means....

14 Days of Lego: Day 8

The Telephone Room honors LEGO, Ted Kennedy, and SPAM.

14 Days of LEGO: Day 7

Since we've had seven straight days of LEGO in all its glory and wonderment, we thought it was time to go back to where it all began: Denmark. No, really.


Today we pull back the curtains and show you what really goes into the making of this magical little brick.

Remember, Day 7 means the LEGO show is only a week away!

14 Days of LEGO: Day 6

Here on Day 6, we'd like to take a moment to appreciate the fans of The Telephone Room Gallery who have sent in their own favorite LEGO finds. In their honor, we're doing a two-for-one special today, featuring our favorite clips from our fans' favorite clips!

The LEGO Boat



Watch and learn why boats should be made from wood and steel. Skip ahead to 5:13 for something really special!


8-Bit Trip



This is just cool. Well, 8-Bit cool. LEGO 8-Bit cool.

They also liked this on Gizmodo. Notice that this only came out a few days ago. The whole world knows the Lego Show is coming!

Keep those posts coming, dear readers, and remember that the LEGO Show opens at The Telephone Room Gallery in only 8 days!

14 Days of LEGO: Day 5

Since yesterday was a day of rest, we'd best get back to work with the Telephone Room's 14 Days of LEGO!

Today we're featuring the artist Jan Vormann, whose Dispatchwork project has rebuilt cities across the Middle East and Europe with our favorite colorful little building block.


Here's an interesting interview with Vormann that provides some insight into his use of LEGO. Enjoy!

14 Days of LEGO: Day 4

Happy Sunday! Give us this day our daily LEGO.

14 Days of Lego: Day 3

On Day 3, we are featuring a fun post from the NYTimes Abstract City Blog. Christoph Niemann's "I LEGO N.Y." left two-thirds of our gallery wanting to go back there, and one-third wanting to make the trip for the first time.

If you'd like to see more of his work, you can go to Niemann's website.

Getting tired yet? We hope not. 11 more days until the opening for the LEGO Show!

14 Days of LEGO: Day 2

After starting out with our amps cranked to "11," you may be wondering what's next in The Telephone Room's 14 Days of LEGO.

Since we began Day 1 with a classic LEGO single, it only makes sense to showcase some album art on Day 2.

Once again, in LEGO.

The Telephone Room is proud to present to you this link, which will take you to a whole page full of classic album covers, recreated in our favorite medium.

14 Days of LEGO: Day 1

Next up at the Telephone Room Gallery, we're premiering a show dedicated to our favorite childhood (and let's face it, adulthood) plaything: the LEGO. Our LEGO SHOW is opening on September 2, and to raise awareness we're planning 14 days of LEGO on the TRG blog. Check back to the blog every 24 hours for a daily dose of LEGO goodness.

We're starting off with a classic, something that reveals the true power of LEGO.

Yes, it's Queen's 1975 magnum opus, Bohemian Rhapsody. In LEGO.

Bluebird by Charles Bukowski

there's a bluebird in my heart that
wants to get out
but I'm too tough for him,
I say, stay in there, I'm not going
to let anybody see
you.

there's a bluebird in my heart that
wants to get out
but I pour whiskey on him and inhale
cigarette smoke
and the whores and the bartenders
and the grocery clerks
never know that
he's
in there.

there's a bluebird in my heart that
wants to get out
but I'm too tough for him,
I say,
stay down, do you want to mess
me up?
you want to screw up the
works?
you want to blow my book sales in
Europe?

there's a bluebird in my heart that
wants to get out
but I'm too clever, I only let him out
at night sometimes
when everybody's asleep.
I say, I know that you're there,
so don't be
sad.
then I put him back,
but he's singing a little
in there, I haven't quite let him
die
and we sleep together like
that
with our
secret pact
and it's nice enough to
make a man
weep, but I don't
weep, do
you?

Listen to Charles Bukowski reading The Bluebird: www.youtube.com/watch?v=mmWZOsVtqR0

The Bluebird by Jessica Bender is an homage in art to Bukowski and is titled after the poem, which is a favorite of Jessica's. The Bluebird by Jessica Bender is on view from August 5 - 31, 2009 in the Telephone Room Gallery. Viewable by appointment almost anytime—please email us.

The Volcano Gods notice us

Alec Clayton writes nice things about Jessica Bender's art in The Weekly Volcano today.

"The Bluebird: Jessica Bender’s tribute to Charles Bukowski"
by Alec Clayton
August 13, 2009
www.weeklyvolcano.com/2009-08-13/visual-edge/4088

Dead Man in my House

Rosemary Ponnekanti wrote a very nice article about the Telephone Room Gallery and our Art + Ice + Beer event with Jeremy Mangan in The Tacoma News Tribune today:

"From small art gallery, big ideas"
Tuesday, August 11, 2009
Rosemary Ponnekanti
www.thenewstribune.com/news/local/story/840897.html

Also published in the Seattle Times, "Tiny Tacoma art gallery makes big splash":
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/thearts/2009708623_tinygallery23.html





Photos courtesy of the Tacoma News Tribune.

Celebrating Bukowski

Jessica Bender on The Bluebird, in her own words:

"The Bluebird is an installation inspired by and celebrating the life and work of Charles Bukowski, American poet and author, for his birthday August 16th.

The work is the culmination of a week-long residency at the Two Dot Spot in Two Dot, Montana. This remote town consists of a post office and a bar, which seemed the perfect setting to channel Bukowski energy, as he worked for the post office for some time and is known for his drinking habits. Bukowski made a series of paintings/drawings using whatever was on hand. Embracing this principle, much of the work is made from materials available in Two Dot, including excavated antelope bones and moths.

As an homage, the installation includes pieces of Bukowski’s text, including the show title 'The Bluebird,' an influential poem for this work."








Jessica Bender, The Bluebird (work in progress), mixed media, 2009. Photos courtesy the Telephone Room Gallery.

Jessica's blogs: www.cabinet713.blogspot.com and www.jessicaabender.blogspot.com
blog about Two Dot, Montana that has a bit about Jessica's artist-in-residency there: www.twodotspot.blogspot.com
Charles Bukowski website: www.bukowski.net

The Bluebird by Jessica Bender is on view from August 5 - 31, 2009 in the Telephone Room Gallery. Viewable by appointment almost anytime—please email us.

Wild Kingdom

The Telephone Room Gallery chose the artist for the August 2009 City Arts Tacoma Curator's Eye. We chose Shannon Eakins who lived in Seattle and then Tacoma for the past 8 years or so, and recently moved to Las Vegas to pursue her MFA in sculpture. We miss her already.

Unfortunately, magazines have to edit their articles but we want to share with you the original article that we wrote...

Wild Kingdom
Shannon Eakins, Artist Selected by Martin Gengenbach, Ellen Ito and Heide Fernandez-Llamazares of the Telephone Room Gallery

Almost any city dweller has had an encounter with wildlife. The moment when you see a crow on the sidewalk, and you both stop short, eyes locked...is this a greeting? An acknowledgement? A silent challenge? What informs our interactions with wild animals? Do we want to tame them? Engage with them? Live among them undetected? Shannon Eakins' artwork reflects upon such moments of secret communication and explores our shared experiences with the Animal Kingdom.

While living in Tacoma for the past five years, Shannon has engaged with falcons, deer, and other animals of the Northwest. Her work doesn't simply depict animals-this is art that aims to be meaningful to animals and to beguile them: an exquisite, intricately embroidered falconry glove, an alluring installation of kinetic sculpture that mimics the sounds, sights and scents of deer mating rituals.

Shannon contemplates our shared urban environment and the animals that surround us but are not our pets. It is something we can all relate to: we've all had experiences with animals, either thrilling in the connection made ("and then it looked right at me") or not made ("and it didn't even see me").

"Dolphins may voluntarily swim with us (and have for decades, in the Bahamas), but what if I actually entice a whitetail deer into a gallery to participate in my installation, or what if that falcon actually comes when I call it? I want to see if animals can care about what I make. People seek something from wild animals even when they are not using them to fulfill a basic need. Could the same be said in reverse? I really want there to be a reason for this reciprocity and I want my work to explore that desire." --Shannon Eakins






I Made This for Us. 2008. Embroidered leather falconry glove, hood, and bronze whistle. Performance/documentation views. Dimensions variable. Photos courtesy of Shannon Eakins.

Shannon's blog: www.shannoneakins.blogspot.com

Eakins & Dombrosky: www.tacomafunmachine.blogspot.com and www.battlebornlv.blogspot.com

Shannon was a part of the Telephone Room Gallery's inaugural Hello! show (February 18 - April 30, 2009). The Telephone Room Gallery is always viewable by appointment at thetelephoneroom@gmail.com.

The Bluebird

The Bluebird by Jessica Bender is inspired by Charles Bukowski, and his poem My Telephone, for his birthday month.

More about Jessica Bender's art and Charles Bukowski:
www.cabinet713.blogspot.com
www.jessicaabender.blogspot.com
www.bukowski.net

The idea for Jessica Bender's show started with Bukowski's poem My Telephone, which made her think of the Telephone Room Gallery. Her installation piece is an homage to Bukowski involving bottles, bones, a pillow, and more. The Bluebird is another Bukowski poem that Jessica enjoys.

The Telephone Room Gallery will be hosting an open house for The Bluebird on Friday, August 7 from 5:00-9:00 pm. Please email us at thetelephoneroom@gmail.com for directions if you are interesting in visiting.

Jessica Bender, The Bluebird (work in progress), mixed media, 2009. Photos courtesy the Telephone Room Gallery.

The Bluebird by Jessica Bender is on view from August 5 - 31, 2009 in the Telephone Room Gallery. Viewable by appointment almost anytime—please email us.