Megan and Murray

Drill Search Winner

I've heard about Panasonic's legendary drills for years. Since they're only available at contractor tool stores, most people don't know about them. I've talked to at least two tool repair technicians who claim they are the holy grail of drill engineering. When all the right people say the same thing it seems hard to consider anything else.

What made the Panasonic EYC142B kit, which includes a drill/driver, impact driver and flashlight (and available much cheaper than the official site says), beat the competition was a great balance of long lasting power (top of the line 3.0 amp, 14 volt Li-Ion batteries), features (well positioned LED light with switch, sturdy retractable belt clip) and extreme low weight (3.5 and 3.1 lb.). We're constantly using these on ladders and in hard to reach places--having a solid belt hook and low weight helps tremendously.

Time for a New Drill

We've been using the same drill for 10 years, and it's finally starting to show its age. I've started to look into getting a replacement and am surprised by all the new models, features and options that have turned an otherwise go-to-the-store-and-come-back-with-something purchase into something that requires more research.

The biggest surprise is a new category of drill-like tools called impact drivers. They don't have a chuck and are designed exclusively for driving screws. Their advantage is a unique motors geared specifically to their task and a unbelievably small size/weight. Anyone who has had to lug a giant drill driver around all day will recognize their value.

Although having two tools for the same thing that one tool previously did might seem like a step in the wrong direction, this actually makes sense. Like having multiple shoes, less wear is put on each. Additionally, I could use two drills simultaneously (one with a drill bit, the other with a screw bit) or have an extra driver for someone else, cutting assembly time.

I think a strong case can be made for considering following this trend of purchasing a new drill AND a new impact driver--and now is the time to decide that because if you buy them together you can use the same batteries and charger which drastically lowers the total price. In fact, there are many deals out there where you basically get both a drill and a impact driver for the same price as one.

My favorite drill and driver brands are Festool, Panasonic and Makita. Festool is comically expensive but will be the only cordless drill that is passed on through the generations (although batteries will have to be replaced). Panasonic, although not a name typically known for tools, is the drill/driver gold standard among contractors and has legendary battery life. Makita, although inferior to Festool and Panasonic for certain, delivers a solid product at half the cost.

I should note that I don't consider Bosch or DeWalt because they are designed for people with larger hands, Hitachi because their products look silly, Millwaukee because they have battey issues (although make legendary corded tools) or Porter Cable because their drills are just too big (although I like and own many other PC products).

I'm just starting to wade into the water and will keep you posted.

The Difference Between Art Practice and Artful Living

When we lived in LA, what we loved about the city was that on a given day, we could see a great exhibition at a number of world-class museums; see new work at galleries in a handful of art districts; browse the numerous specialty art, architecture, design-related bookstores; hear a visiting artist speak at any of the umpteen area universities; go to an arthouse theater, or a silent film theater, or a foreign film theater. That gargantuan city has seemingly endless opportunities to expand your horizon as an art and culture lover.

But practically, it's a hard place to make art. Studio space is scarce, pricey and often limited in size. The cost of living is high. And there's something about limit-less opportunities that makes it easy to neglect your own work in favor of doing something more appealing. To spend your money on tickets to RedCat instead of artmaking materials.

Now that we've set up studio in Providence, we're starting to hear the same complaints from artists who have fled "The City" [this seems to be what East Coasters say in reference to NYC] in favor of this artist-friendly town. Providence has in spades what more notable culture centers don't: abundant, cheap industrial studio space; low(ish) cost of living; and — most importantly, I think — fewer distractions.

At the same time, we're not geographically isolated from the rest of culture. Murray and I have established an art-viewing routine here that involves going to Boston at least weekly and to New York almost monthly. We travel in this country and abroad often enough to get our fill of new ideas and the current dialogue in the art world at large. But on a daily basis, we have the luxury of time and space in the studio. Good coffee on our way there. Other artists, industriously working nearby.

For us, it amounts to a vibrant, daily practice. And that's a good trade-off.

Qbox Gallery at Contemporary IstanbulNov 29-Dec 2

Istanbul, [source]

Megan and Murray McMillan, The Oldest Song We Know, 2007, video still, at Qbox Gallery

Qbox, the gallery that represents us in Greece, will be exhibiting at the upcoming Contemporary Istanbul, Nov 29-Dec 2. In addition to works from other artists in the roster, the gallery will be showing photographs and the video from our recent show, The Oldest Song We Know, which closed on Nov. 17.

There is a ton of great galleries participating in this year's fair, including ARC Projects in Bulgaria, Dam, Stuhltrager in New York, and Ego, one of our favorite galleries in Barcelona.

Stop by Qbox at Booth B201 and say hello to gallery director Myrtia Nikolakopoulou and curator Sotirios Bahtsetzis if you're in Istanbul for the fair this weekend.

New Internet Technology on the Horizon

[Thanks Oliver] Wow.

New Video Technology on the Horizon

Thanks: Create Digital Motion

In the next 10 years, the presentation methods for video will take unimaginable steps forward [another example: they are currently working on video projectors that fit into cell phones].

Bridge Construction Set

Yesterday I downloaded the Bridge Construction Set simulation game, free from Apple's web site, and haven't put it down since. You build a bridge and then test it with real physics. Bridges are constructed however you want and then tested to see if they fall into the river or if they support animated cars, which delightfully crash into the river if your design is too creative.

It's easy to use, although unfamiliar when you first view it. Here's what I wish I knew:
1) Use the "edit" mode to create a bridge and "simulate" mode to test it.
2) In edit mode, click a circle on the road to insert a link and then click where the end of that piece goes.
3) Command-click a circle to delete a link.
4) In simulate mode the red pieces need help.

Oh no! I didn't put enough cables in, my train's gonna fall in the river with splash sounds and everything.

Portfolio Site Update

We've been working on our portfolio update for a while now. It features new work, a new project organization and a "brief overview" (a quick way to see the top 15 images). Efficiency is key. Overly elaborate interfaces can dangerously shrink an audience's patience (here's an example).

We generally update this site twice a year to add new work and cycle older work to our Flickr and You Tube sites (the perfect place for older work--we even have our student work there). When we update we also reconsider the best way to format the site itself. We've had a online portfolio site for 6 years (since 2001); it has changed a lot since version 1. As our understanding of our work changes, the architecture of the portfolio site follows.

An older and consistent critique we heard about our portfolio site 2 years ago was that it was difficult to know what the art was: "was this a staged photo or a live performance?" To help with this, we started to organize our portfolio site by media: video in the video section, sculpture in the sculpture section and so on. However, for projects that contain several media, organizing by media only complicates matters further.

So for the last month we've been constructing a new organization for our portfolio site that preserves the multimedia nature of our projects while remaining clear about the media of project components. This new version is far from perfect, but it's our first draft to negotiate this balance.

Martin Puryear at MOMA

Martin Puryear, MOMA exhibition, 2007

Martin Puryear, C.F.A.O., 2006-07 [source]

Martin Puryear, Alien Huddle, 1993-95 [source]

A triumphant intersection of concept and craft, Martin Puryear's retrospective at MOMA includes work from the last 30 years and is on view through Jan 14, 2008. If you work with wood, now is a great time to visit New York.

First Look at the New Studio

It's a big space, 2800 sqft, and we're sharing it with two other artists (both teach at RISD). Like many studios in the Providence area, it's an old mill building that's now multi-use industrial with artist studios thrown into the mix. This space has been in the artist studio rotation for who-knows-how long, so we've got the happy task of peeling back the layers of inherited materials and tools and dust and cobwebs to make a space that's workable for this new crew of studio-mates. It's already set up well, with a shared wood-shop and a shared open space for building larger projects or showing work for studio visits.

Since I took these pictures, Murray and I have pieced together a smaller work space for the two of us and have started to move in the boxes of studio gear that we've been edging around at home since we got our stuff off the moving truck.

What you're not seeing here is a large loft space over the shop area, the kitchen area, and the individual studio spaces, as well as the view out the wall of windows, which captures a steep tree-covered sloping hill and the roof lines of the rest of this enormous complex.