Fold your own paper engineer

Paper Matt comes complete with drafting desk, x-acto knife and blades, ruler, cutting mat and Lily the cat.

Download the pdf here.

Happy holidays
love
mattshlian.com

The Contents of Lawrence Weschler's Pockets

I am officially in rotation at the best gallery in New York City. It's pretty exclusive in here and viewings are for one person at a time. ....The Ren Weschler pocket gallery.
For real.

Also it looks like I will be in New York giving a talk / showing my work at NYU in February. I'll post dates soon-
m

First 50

The first 50 books arrived yesterday and and being shipped out today. Hooray!

There are a few books still available. Jump on it. Once the 100 are gone they will not be reprinted.


now available with international shipping via paypal.

IT'S HERE!!

This book took a full year longer to create but it was worth the wait!!!

64 pages, A5 size, perfect bound, full color, signed, limited edition (of 100) with extra die cut pages for you to fold up!!!
Fits perfectly well into any stocking and will be shipped to you on December 15th.

Your dreams have come true, john chwekun!


EDIT: 30 Have sold in the first day!!
-M

Chicago Humanities Festival

This past weekend Max and I traveled to Chicago to present our work at the Chicago Humanities Festival. I arrived Friday night and was quickly abducted by writer, director, weirdo-magnet Lawrence Weschler. It is one of my most thrilling accomplishments to have someone whose work I greatly admire return the admiration for my own work. Seeing is forgetting the name of the thing one sees and Mr. Wilson's Cabinet of Wonder are a cornerstone to any contemporary arts education. I traded some art for advanced copies of his two newest books, one on Hockney and the other a revised version on Irwin. Reading them together is going to be very very interesting. Ren also informed me about an exhibition at the Spertus Museum of the Oakes twins he had organized. When I saw the show I could see why he was so excited. If you are in Chicago, don't sleep on this exhibit!



Trevor Oakes explaining his techniques

Our talk went exceedingly well. Max and I sold out the auditorium with over 250 people in attendance to see us present our work. We arrived to the venue just in time to see the line wrap around inside the building.

They set us up in a fireside chat sort of arrangement on stage (which I loved). I presented first, I'm pretty sure my opening line was "I'm Shlian, he's Shtein and today you are getting a two for one deal."

The crowd was very responsive to the work, applauding at certain videos and laughing as Max told jokes. I was told that it was videotaped and will supply a link here if it becomes available in the future.

Furniture could not contain Max's enthusiasm. Here he explains the scale issues of photovoltaic harvesting.

People stayed to ask us questions and talk with us for over an hour after the talk. I brought some examples of my art and people swarmed to play with the work.

Later that night I got to meet and talk with other presenters, the oakes twins, photosynth guru (and super nice guy) Blaise Aguera y Arcas, and Norman Brosterman.

Thanks again to Ren Weschler and the whole team at CHF. You were all fantastic to work with and we loved being a part of the Festival.

Matt

DJ Papercut inks deal with Octagon

Octagon, video production specialists for events like the Olympics, have signed Dj Papercut in an exclusive contract to use tracks from upcoming album "Year of the Fist" in commercials and other video promotional materials. Fat shout outs to Kurt "the Austrian Nightmare" Graser and Michael Phelps.
My name is Matt Shlian, I produce and I fold too.

Fifth Grade Folding Maniacs!

Last week I conducted a workshop at the Detroit Institute of Art. Among those in attendance was Linda Shultz-Anderson, Art Teacher from the Academy of the Sacred Heart in Bloomfield Hills. She took my paper folding techniques back to her fifth grade class in the all-boys section in Kensington Hall. I just received these pictures from Mrs. Anderson.


the artists with their 4-floor installation


Apparently we've created folding maniacs who can't stop folding paper...according to Linda "Their classroom teachers are not so pleased - because the boys want to fold, fold, fold - and NOT do their classwork. I have created paper monsters!"

I could not be more pleased.
M

Interview 10-08

I recently was interviewed by world renowned hacker and DIY champion Bre Pettis. Check out his site for the interview.

What really goes on in the studio...

Matthew Shlian Invades Detroit Institute of Art

October 18th
I'm having a teachers workshop at the DIA. More info here.

Chicago Humanities Festival

If you live in or near Chicago come see Max and I at the Humanities Festival in early November. We will be speaking about our work, ideas and collaborations.

click for festival info

Woo ha!

new line of designs is out now

I've been working with the folks at up with paper to design a new line of foldable awesomeness. They are called the finishing touch, though I've been calling them rotationals. They are flat until the user twists them together and then they spring up to become a bow like embellishment on a gift. click the picture to link to the website!

Also siggraph was totally rad. I only got in one fight with an origami enthusiast (who told me since I cut and glue that I'm cheating). More of an update as I recover.
Matt

Mattshlian.com now with paypal

you can now order work directly off the site with paypal. no more shifty checks or well concealed money.

Siggraph2008

I have been asked to be an artist in residence at this years siggraph festival. I am beyond excited to be participating in the event. more news on the event soon- for now just type siggraph into your browsers and enter nerdfest USA.

3D design at Washtenaw Community College puts it to bed

My students blew me away this past semester at at WCC. These are images from their final installation at the college. I am going to miss this class. I can't believe I get paid to do this.

new animation

stereographic animation for A / Aleph

welcome to summer

that's whats happening

new work / kite flying

I gave a talk last week at Fort Wayne Indiana and after talking about paper folding and printmaking for an hour they asked me what I'm currently working on.
I'm making beats for the Olympics.
...more news on that as it unfolds-

But I do still fold paper and make drawings and prints,
some evidence:

this was made yesterday:




paper engineering 101 update:

As a final assignment in Paper Engineering I had asked students to design a kite from paper. I gave them some resources and had them research different kite designs. We defined a kite in out own way- it needed to get off the ground (fly) and not be a unicorn.

Our final class at u of m


Erin showing us how it's done


my overly-designed kite made from tyvek


the rain did not stop us


my kite in action



My other class is working with balloons. Hundreds of twist balloons. Our installation goes up this week and I'll be sure to upload some images very soon.
m

Number one!

My ego just got a little bit bigger.

I was told yesterday that when you type "paper engineer" or "paper engineering" into google image search my work comes up number one. In fact I'm number one and two...then Robert Sabuda! Take that, Sabuda!!!

Heres a screen capture as proof:




Also a few new pictures of work can be found here.

website update- new work

lily and I have been hard at work in the studio





see the rest of the set here

MICA and opening pictures

Just got back from a lecture / workshop at MICA. I had a blast seeing the school and meeting the folks in Baltimore. The student wok is amazing! What a great community for art making. They invited me back to work on an artist book with the students.


Poster


Print studio


the new building at MICA


A gallery in the sculpture studios- a reclaimed train station.

As promised, images from the 2 person show with Graem Whyte at the Ann Arbor Art center:


Mr handsome


gallery view


set of new work


front of gallery


graem in the window


front of the gallery


graems work


more of grames killer work