Giant Robot Store and GR2 News
Last week me and a few boys from my company,Revolution Talent Management, headed up to Sichuan last week to build houses for the quake victims. This was something I’ve wanted to do since the earthquake and I finally got my chance. Habitat for Humanity is an organization started back in 1976 with an aim of helping build homes for the impoverished around the world. As we all know more than 70,000 lost their lives in the quake and millions became homeless. Habitat aims to build over 700 homes for families who lost their homes to the quake. We went to the area known as Xiao Yu Dong two hours outside of Chengdu.Our first stop was to see the Xiao Yu Dong bridge. This bridge was the only way out of the Xiao Yu Dong area. When the quake hit, this bridge went down. Luckily no one was on it but it’s collapse also closed off the only route into Xiao Yu Dong by car making it impossible to drive in ambulances. So the injured had to be carried one by one throught the fast running waist high river to get them to the other side and off to hospitals in Chengdu. That’s real heroism.We then went to visit the temporary housing shelters where most of the homeless have been put up by the government. Although conditions are good and clean. Each family only gets a 20sqm(200sqft) room. So many are eager to rebuild and move out.An outdoor dining room. Although these temporary structures are probably not the best to live in, I found them architecturally interesting and beautiful.Some have even built their own temporary houses out of scrap wood and materials just so they have a place to store their belongings. It’s interesting to note that although conditions are simple, eveyone has a tv and sattelite dishes. These were provided by the govenrment so they could watch the Olympics.We then went to a farmers house to have lunch. HIs new Habitat house was being built just next door but in the meantime he built his own temporary house because the govenrment provided ones just couldn’t hold all his stuff! His wife prepared an amazing feast for us made up of food fresh from their farm. In fact I actually saw the veggies being picked and brought straight to the kitchen and the chicken pens were right next to our table. Probably the best and healthiest meal I’ve had in a long time. Organic’s got nothing on this. After lunch we headed over to our building site to get to work. The houses are actually quite simple. They were designed for Habitat by the Sichuan University Architecture department. They are timber framed houses made of light but sturdy materials. The advantage of a wood frame is that it is much more resiliant to the typical concrete slab construction that was used before. In concrete construction, all the structural connections are fixed making it a rigid structure so when the earthquake hit...
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Met David Jien at Art Center of Pasadena while I was getting my vehicle worked on. Imagine, you drop off your car, and they give you a ride anywhere you want. I chose Art Center to see work. This dude draws like none other. Is pencil work in style right now? I think it is. His work rocks.
Yeah imagine these characters are being reincarnated...
The black one is a bronze and weighs a ton!
Met David Jien at Art Center of Pasadena while I was getting my vehicle worked on. Imagine, you drop off your car, and they give you a ride anywhere you want. I chose Art Center to see work. This dude draws like none other. Is pencil work in style right now? I think it is. His work rocks. Yeah imagine these characters are being reincarnated… The black one is a bronze and weighs a ton!
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Michael Perry sent some of these over. You can't go wrong with a self published zine that's newsprint. It's just graphics and cool. It's not pricey to make relative to offset printing options, but the weird thing about newsprint is that if you make something on newsprint, everyone wants it free. It's like a free cinema advertisement / newsletter. If there was a way to make newsprint zines actually...
Michael Perry sent some of these over. You can’t go wrong with a self published zine that’s newsprint. It’s just graphics and cool. It’s not pricey to make relative to offset printing options, but the weird thing about newsprint is that if you make something on newsprint, everyone wants it free. It’s like a free cinema advertisement / newsletter. If there was a way to make newsprint zines actually cost even just a nominal fee, it would be a great way to go. Michael Perry’s The Patterns Found in Space is part of his Giant Robot NY show that’s upcoming. If you go, you can get one of these zines there.
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