Here's a photo I took of my piece in the show, installed in prime real estate between really great works by Ariel Orozco and David McDiarmid.

It still feels like a dream to be in this show exhibiting alongside so many of my favourites including Martin Creed, Claes Oldenburg and Yoko Ono. Also on the list of great artists with me in the exhibition is the 2010 Turner Prize nominated artist Ryan Gander.
I didn't know much about Ryan Gander before this year when he had a solo show at ACCA, (the Australian Centre for Contemporary Art), but luckily for me the awesome people at ACCA must've known I would love Ganders work as amazingly they invited me to host a workshop day in response to it.
The workshop was for young kids and families and happened about three weeks ago, here's the flyer.
Learning about Ryan Gander's work was a real joy. The main piece in his exhibition was titled Ampersand, which consists of 66 items moving around a large conveyor belt inside a large room, the viewer can't enter the room and can only see the items scroll past in front of them one at a time behind a small window.
Accompanying the work is a book that Gander wrote explaining the significance of each of the 66 items. I read the book front to back and then made a sculpture of it, and then later when I was lucky enough to meet Ryan Gander I took my sculpture along in the hopes that he might sign it.
Here's a photo of Ryan Gander and I talking, (ha, I know it looks like I'm just staring into space but that's just my listening face).
Ryan was super friendly, I thought our interaction would just be a quick hello but he was really generous with his time and we started talking about the Art As A Verb exhibition that we're both in, then the ACCA workshops I'd be doing in response to his work and then we just talked about art in general for ages.
And yeah, at some point during the conversation Ryan said some really nice things about my sculpture and here he is taking a photo of it.
And here he is signing it and saying something funny while I nervously scratch my head.And yeah, at some point during the conversation Ryan said some really nice things about my sculpture and here he is taking a photo of it.
And hey presto, how cool is that, here's my copy of Ryan Ganders book alongside my signed ceramic sculpture of it.

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Mama always said life is like a box of chACCAlates. |
The other fun thing about the ACCA workshop is that after enjoying Ryan Ganders Ampersand, the kids could also watch their own sculptures go around my ampersand. Or, if you will, my m&mpersand.
The best thing about the name m&mpersand is that it even has an ampersand in it, (you probably already know this but just incase; an 'ampersand is an '&' symbol).
I also made a mini m&mpersand for sculptures of m&m minis.
Long term readers of this blog might remember that the last time I made a sculpture of an m&m was at the beginning of last year during an Eminem concert. Here I am back in Feb 2014 painting an m&m on the floor of Rod Laver Arena;
And here's my sculpture of an m&m with Eminem.

Well since then I've made lots more m&m's. Here's a kiln fired ceramic sculpture of a bowl and inside of it is 60 kiln fired ceramic sculptures of m&m's, (ten of each colour).
To get into the spirit of the day here I am painting a m on a red tshirt for me to wear and a yellow t-shirt for my best friend to wear while helping me out on the day.
Here's a little video filmed in my studio the night before the workshop of me attempting to explain my m&mpersand.
And yeah, after that I just crossed my fingers and hoped the kids would have fun. Fortunately for me the kids were amazing! Here's some shots of them getting into it.
Rather than just make a sculpture of an m&m, some of the kids preferred to just make a sculpture and then stick some m&m's into it. Here's an m&m person;
Here's an m&m crime scene;
Here's an m&m pushed into a lump of clay.
And here's a series of four big blue m&m's, (I made the one on the left while trying demonstrate for the three kids who made the others).
Rather than just paint it on, a couple of the kids used clay to do 'm' on the m&m, which I really liked.
Actually speaking of the 'm' on an m&m, maybe my favourite moment from the day was when one boy, (he might've been 5 or maybe he was 7, I'm no good at judging how old kids are), he asked me whether any of the m&m's had a different letter on them. I told him that most m&m's have m's but some of the rare ones have w's.
The boy then proceeded to tip his m&m packet onto the table and sort them out into groups of m's and w's, while his Dad laughed and gave me a wink.
Ha, but anyway so it was just a really fun day. Exhausting though, kids really wear you out (which I'm sure is news to no-one) and I got a very small insight into how hard primary school teachers must work, (and just parents in general).
But it was all very rewarding and definitely the best part of the workshop was seeing how excited the kids got watching their sculptures go round the m&mpersand.
This girl was a bit of a star, she was like a little production line pumping out the m&m's.
Here's some of her work.
And here's two brothers who came up to me and demanded I tell them whose m&m was better. And of course I told them the reason why both their sculptures were very good for very different reasons, (even though between you and me, I much preferred the older brothers m&m's.)
As well as kids and parents there was also a few people my age getting into it. Here's Georgie, who was also really helpful on the day, waiting for her sculpture.

Also a massive thanks to all the families who came and shared the afternoon with us, and thank you as well to Ryan Gander for creating the great art that inspired the day.
And what do you get if you cross an M with an acca? You get a cheeseburger and a fitty cent cone.
And speaking of fitty cent, this leads me nicely into the last thing I'll mention today, which is that back on that day when I was lucky enough to meet Ryan Gander I actually ran into him a second time as we were both heading outside together to get some fresh air. While we were talking we were asked if we wanted our photo taken, and so I suggested we pose smiling and giving a thumbs up, as seen here;
Ryan then said "let's do another but this time let's look a bit tougher", and we laughed and I said "Oh yeah, I forgot who I was having my photo taken with, aren't you the guy who made that classic rap album, "Get Rich or Die Ryan'?"
But so yeah, in conclusion, a couple of weeks ago Ryan Gander's ACCA exhibition sadly came to a close, (and has been replaced with an exhibition by TV Moore that's well worth checking out), and I can barely believe it but now Art As A Verb at Artspace, featuring work by both Ryan Gander and myself, is in it's final hours as well. I guess, like ampersand through the hourglass, so are the days of our lives.
Thanks heaps for reading, hope you're going good and I hope to see you soon. Speaking of which I'll actually be back at Artspace next month as incredibly I was accepted to have a stall at the VOLUME art book fair from Sep 11-13, it should be heaps of fun so if you're in Sydney please come say hi! (Click on this sentence for more info on that.)
In the meantime though if you can't get to Artspace by the end of today then I guess the only place you'll find me and Ryan Gander is in da club, bottle full of bub, partying like it's our birthday.