First Friday: June 2024 - Noe Valley Garden Tour solo exhibition & author conversation with ando
Inspiration & Updates from Brian Madden Studio
Life is about making the kid version of you proud.
— Ryan, Finance | Manhattan
Soft, pink rays of morning light crept over the low clouds hanging above San Francisco. It was 5:47am on Thursday, May 17. Spring was turning to summer, and dense fog rolled in, blanketing the cool gray city of love.
Photographer Jason Hsu and I huddled inside a rain cloud, conspiring in hushed tones, awaiting the right moment to capture Sonic Monument to the Morning Dew, as the day got brighter by the minute.
When the fog rolled on and the time came for Jason to start documenting the sculpture and the lush garden around it, I felt a sense of peace wash over me, knowing I had made the kid in me proud. Sonic Monument to the Morning Dew was alive.
Read on for more about bringing big projects to life. This month, I’ll share:
WHAT I’M SHOWING: Noe Valley Garden Tour Solo Exhibition
WHAT I’M READING: Strangers and Robots author Q&A with ando
WHAT I’M SEEING: Arches & Canyonlands National Parks - Moab, Utah
WHAT I’M HEARING: Sonic Inspiration from SF and Beyond
You’re getting First Friday because you’ve supported my artwork, visited the studio, or otherwise signed up to stay in touch. Thanks for being a part of this community!
WHAT I’M SHOWING: Noe Valley Garden Tour Solo Exhibition
Thanks to everyone who joined me for the Friends of Noe Valley Garden tour this past May! I hope you enjoyed exploring the beautiful gardens and seeing the art. Last month, I shared context on the tour, and this month I’d like to share the pieces that I unveiled at the exhibition in the English Country Garden.
This collection is an ode to community, optimism, and the collective inspiration fueling my creativity, with ties to my influences like Ruth Asawa, Hilma Af Klint, Joan Miró, and Constantin Brâncuși. I’ll share more info on each piece below, accompanied by Jason’s beautiful photography.
Sonic Monument to the Morning Dew
Inspired by mirrored garden gazing balls made popular in Victorian England, this otherworldly silhouette reflects the dynamic beauty of San Francisco and the Bay Area around it. Drawing formal references to the rhythmic visual lightness of Ruth Asawa’s woven wire hanging sculptures and the metered structure of Constantin Brâncuşi’s carved towers, this work documents the first line of The Grateful Dead’s pleading 1972 live cover of Bonnie Dobson’s 1961 iconic anti-war ballad, Morning Dew. Rendered at 9.5 feet tall in mirrored poplar and standing at 1 foot of height per second of recording, this is the largest ever piece in my growing Sonic Monuments collection. I share more about the project and the process here.
Bed of Mussels
Embedded into the base of the English Country Garden conservatory, this temporary site-specific installation combined my marble inlay mosaic sculpture practice with my love of hand illustration and rhythmic visual meditation. Starting as classroom doodles celebrating nature and the mesmerizing asymmetrical shells of the bivalve mollusks, these natural symbols have evolved to represent a sense of perpetual returning for me. This symbolism also has ties to spiritual journaling by the pioneering visual artist Hilma Af Klint (1862-1944), widely considered to be among the first abstract artists in Western Art History and a predecessor to Wassily Kandinsky and Piet Mondrian. You can check out more photos of the piece here.
A Tangible Hub
A Tangible Hub is a conversation piece that invites groups to connect, ponder, and play together. The structure’s deliberately varied seating heights actively encourage the free flow of ideas from diverse perspectives. Inspired by the artwork of Joan Miró, Alexander Calder, and John Baldessari, The Hub represents my ongoing commitment to functional art and shared experiences. It was a beautiful adventure reintroducing a piece that I designed and created as an industrial design student at Rochester Institute of Technology in 2010. I share more process about its creation here.
It was a true joy to team up with the savant and the gardener behind the English Country Garden to host a stop on the Friends of Noe Valley Garden Tour. Since it was a temporary site-specific installation, I’m excited to share that these works are now on display in my studio. If you are interested in learning more about the beautiful garden they spent time in, or would like to learn more about the artwork, please reach out to info@brianbmadden.com
WHAT I’M READING: Strangers and Robots author Q&A with ando
As I was installing the work at the Noe Valley Garden Tour, my friend ando was publishing a project he’d been working on for over a year. He’d asked hundreds of New Yorkers across the 5 boroughs a simple question: “what is the meaning of life?,” before illustrating their responses with AI in the style of their favorite artist.
His new book, Strangers and Robots, is a beautiful, thought-provoking experiment, not only in its earnest curiosity about how others see the world, but also in its playful exploration of how robots see it, too. As a human artist, I found it fascinating, devouring draft after draft, wondering what the future would bring. Still wondering as I write, actually.
This month, I’m excited to share a conversation with ando. It’s my first time speaking with an author of the books I’ve been reviewing for this newsletter, and he just happens to be a First Friday reader, too.
Brian: I admire your vulnerability in sharing your journey asking life's biggest question to strangers on the street throughout New York City. What did you learn about the process of putting yourself out there again and again, at risk of rejection or worse?
ando: The first learning was simply a reinforcement of a well-worn principle—like most things, talking to strangers gets easier with reps. My heart beat slower and palms sweat less on the 5th interview of any given day than the 1st. Much less on the 325th interview in the year than the 10th.
More personally, I took a step forward in my relationship with rejection. This is a lifelong journey and I'm far from pure equanimity. But I'm making progress! Through sales, I learned that a very high ratio of NO to YES can still produce good results and exceed your goals. Through dating, I learned that dozens of failed dates are SO worth the right one when it finally arrives. (Though admittedly, the sales rejections were easier on the ego because I wasn't the product)
In this particular quest with strangers, I learned that rejection can sometimes teach you more than assent. Several of the most deeply human and powerful interactions I had were rejections. A couple of them made it into the book. Many didn’t. But in each of those moments, I learned about elements of the human condition that hadn’t revealed themselves in the congenial interactions. And at the experiment level, I forgot my small microphone on the fourth day of interviews and learned that people were more open, intimate, and expansive when it felt simply like a conversation between two people. I realized that even though they consented, people were subtly rejecting the performance for a recording device.
Brian: Strangers and Robots felt like a modern urban Odyssey, full of surprises, setbacks, and beautiful moments of connection and insight as you traversed the 5 Boroughs. What surprised you the most about people you met while creating Strangers and Robots?
ando: I hadn't considered this framing before, but perhaps in the context of my own little life journey to date, Odyssey is an apt comparison. The experience was more beautiful and transformative than I ever imagined.
I was most surprised by the vulnerability of these strangers. Their unarmored openness. I was rejected occasionally, hence my learnings, but far less than I expected. On average, 3 of 4 strangers stopped and engaged with my question. Most in a sincere and heartfelt way.
In our conversations, I found a deep yearning for connection. As one of them told me, "The meaning of life is about belonging - to see and be seen. That's probably why people light up when you ask this question. It's a chance to share their story, to be seen. That's human."
I understood this to be core to the human condition, but I always thought of it more narrowly, within one's tribe. Asking strangers the meaning of life helped me see that it transcends tribe. And in my time on this pale blue dot, several of the moments I've felt most deeply connected have now emerged through fleeting encounters with strangers.
Brian: I know this book was a deeply heartfelt undertaking that also required a great deal of drive, coordination, and trust. What advice would you give to someone starting out on their own ambitious project or goal?
ando: Don't set the bar for your creative act too high. I'm a former doorknob salesman with no literary or artistic training. If I thought I needed to write the next Odyssey, I would never have begun.
I was deeply moved by Rick Rubin's description of the creative act: first recognizing and then nurturing the idea that lands softly on your shoulder.
I simply honored the idea that landed there. I gave it space to grow in concept and eventually began to give it shape in the world. And it evolved from there. The first few lines that went down in my journal barely resemble the final book on the shelves. The idea grew as I worked and I had great friends who helped me make it better. Surround yourself with people who make you (and your work) the best version of yourself. Brian, you were one of those people for me. And I'm eternally grateful for our friendship.
Brian: Thank you ando, the pleasure was mine. So impressed with the depth and thoughtfulness of the project and your strong follow-through to bring it to life so quickly, and I’m inspired by your creative collaboration with Reia Tong.
You can find out more about Strangers and Robots, and get your own copy here.
WHAT I’M SEEING: Arches & Canyonlands National Parks - Moab, Utah
Over Memorial Day weekend, Jen and I took a quick trip down to explore Arches and Canyonlands National Parks near Moab, where her brother and his girlfriend have been living. Their welcome gift was a drive into Arches for some stargazing. I was amazed by the iconic Balanced Rock and was lucky enough to capture it in the light of oncoming headlights shining across the valley. Check out this then and now story about this Entrada Sandstone formation by the National Park Service.
It was my first time in that part of the world, and was blown away by the immense scale of the rock formations, like Double Arch, as well as the intricate detail of the patterns created in the stone through eons of erosion. Check out A Story in Stone for more information about the geology around Moab.
I’m always inspired and energized by exploring new places, and while I don’t know exactly how it will affect the next wave of my work, I know that it will.
WHAT I’M HEARING: Sonic Inspiration from SF and Beyond
As spring turns to summer in San Francisco, the fog has a way of jostling out the blue sky. But the sun’s still shining. Just need to get out there and find it.
These songs were overheard in San Francisco, Oakland, and Volcano, California, and Moab, Utah, including song recs from the studio team in SF (thanks Jasper!) and Volcano, CA, during Bradley and Casey’s wedding (congrats lovebirds!), as well as a song by new friend, artist Prix Fixe!
The First Friday Playlist consists of songs I’ve heard, received, discovered, or rediscovered out in the world, songs overheard at coffee shops, restaurants, bars, galleries, or received from friends and family IRL & online.
Thanks for reading and listening! Next month, I’ll be checking in from Japan with stories from Denmark and the Netherlands. In the meantime, take care and talk soon,
Brian
brian@brianbmadden.com
“If I know what love is, it is because of you.”
~ Hermann Hesse
