Jacob Hashimotos installation at the Museum of Contemporary Art Pacific Design Center is a lot like the weather: all around us and bigger than everyone.

Made up of thousands of small paper-and-wood sculptures that resemble miniature kites, Hashimotos sprawling piece also puts visitors in mind of massive gatherings, whether theyre made up of people crowded into stadiums or represented by numbers too big to wrap your head around like the national debt or the amount of Twitter followers celebrities have. The rapidly changing relationship between individuals and groups takes powerful shape.

Gas Giant begins right inside the front door, meanders into a first-floor gallery and then picks up momentum as it drifts up a wide stairway to the towering second-floor gallery, where it blossoms to fill the enormous space with an explosion of beautifully composed forms. If Rose Bowl floats went to heaven, this is what they would look like.

PHOTOS: The most fascinating arts stories of 2013

Yet theres nothing otherworldly about Hashimotos down-to-earth work. To wander among its components, all suspended from the ceiling on what must be miles of black thread, is to feel as if you are inside a 3-D painting. Its parts function like the dots in a Pointillist painting, sometimes clustering into groups and at others clashing with those around them.

Rather than overwhelming visitors with awesomeness, labor-intensity and size, Hashimoto puts his light touch to good use. Gas Giant may be massive, but its as gentle as a summer breeze and as intimate as a whisper, its simple shapes, basic colors and attractive patterns user-friendly.

The long hours of labor required to cut the paper, affix each sheet to toothpick-thin frames and string them into 50-foot strands is obvious. So is the careful planning that went into the composition. But both are far less important than the works overall effect: the uplift it generates in visitors of all stripes.

A sort of secular ascension transpires as your eyes follow Hashimotos forms skyward. The motion is slow and sensual because the journey is as important as the destination. (Gas Giant Studies, a beautiful exhibition of his drawings bears this out. Its on view through April 5 at Martha Otero Gallery in West Hollywood.)

In the age of Big Data, its inspiring to see art that keeps the big picture front and center. Giant Gas makes you feel as if you are part of something bigger than all of us, and just the tip of the iceberg.

MOCA Pacific Design Center, 8687 Melrose Ave., West Hollywood, (310) 657-0800, through June 8. Closed Mondays. Admission free. http://www.moca.org

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Review: Jacob Hashimoto's 'Gas Giant' takes powerful shape

Acoustic panels or other ceiling treatments can be replaced easily by a drywall ceiling, giving your room a more streamlined look.

Materials and Tools:

drywall lift straightedge ladders power drill utility knife hammer five-in-one painter's tool mud masher scrubber nail puller mud tray drywall knife carpenter's pencil gloves mask safety glasses sheets of drywall drywall mud drywall tape drywall screws

Steps:

1. Remove the old ceiling tiles and pull out any old nails. Scrape off any bumps of old adhesive using a utility knife and hammer. Make sure to wear safety goggles.

2. Remove any ceiling-mounted light fixtures. Turn the power off first, and check the fixture with a voltage detector to make sure it's off.

3. Use the straightedge to mark rows on the drywall for the screws. Fit the first piece of drywall in the drywall lift and hoist it into place. Start in the corner and work your way out.

4. Attach the drywall using drywall screws and a power drill. Space the screws about six to eight inches apart. If it's a shiplap ceiling (smooth wood panels), the screws can be attached anywhere. Otherwise, they would have to go into the center of the ceiling joists. Continue until all the drywall is installed.

6. Load up a tray with mud, whip it with the drywall knife until it's nice and soft. Start filling in the screw holes first.

7. Next start on the seams. Place a thick layer of mud on a seam, then center a piece of drywall tape along the seam. Cover the tape with a little more mud and smooth it out with your drywall knife.

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How to Install a Drywall Ceiling : Decorating : Home ...

Gastrosophy, a new art exhibit exploring the art of good eating, is making high art more palatable.

Food isnt a new thing to anybody. Talking about food and making it art isnt a new aesthetic theory, said Olivia Chow, curator of Gastrosophy.

What I really hope is that the work in here could create new relationships for viewers to relate to their food and the time they spend with it.

Encouraging the viewer to think beyond flavour and examine how our relationship with food forms our identity the social and cultural aspects of food Gastrosophy brought together seven local artists who share their experiences and feelings towards food through mediums as varied as the ingredients that make up some of our favourite dishes.

Its all about the sensory experience, said Chow. [The mediums explore] how to activate the sensory.

Opening night at Jackson Power Electric Ltd., 9754 60 Ave., featured performance art with Chelsea Boos with Practical Magick; Of Kitchen Wizardry and a special performance where a family shared their culture by making wontons live at the opening reception.

Other installations included a chandelier sculpture by Mackenzy Albright and Rachelle Bowen, entitled Shake and Bake and an immersive room installation designed for sensory overload created by Robert Harpin called #foodporn.

Gastrosophy is the third in a series of curated exhibits created in partnership with The Works International Visual Arts Society and Jackson Power Electric Ltd. as a creative way of connecting local artists in need of gallery space and a community-minded company looking to put under-utilized office space to good use.

Im a big supporter of the arts, and not just the visual arts, but theatre, performing arts and music, said Laura Jackson, president of Jackson Power Electric Ltd. Its a part of our life, so I wanted to support it.

The series has found an unusual home at Jackson Power Electric Ltd.s location, where Jackson had unused office space on top of their warehouse.

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Exhibit at Edmonton gallery Gastrosophy explores the cultural and social implications of food

Nail-up Tin Ceiling Installation
Nail-up tin ceiling installation video showing how to use a RotoZip spiral saw for cutting out can lights, utilizing a guillotine cutter for straight cuts an...

By: American Tin Ceiling Company

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Nail-up Tin Ceiling Installation - Video

Tin Ceiling Installation (24" pattern)
This animation shows how to work with a 24" pattern and filler with a tin ceiling. For more information, visit: http://americantinceilings.com/?utm_source=yo...

By: American Tin Ceiling Company

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Tin Ceiling Installation (24" pattern) - Video

Sunday is the final day to catch a Brooklyn art exhibit where two artists have been living inside a giant hamster wheel since February 28. NY1's Steven Kastenbaum visited the exhibit and filed the following report.

Imagine living every minute of every day not being able to make a move unless you coordinate it with someone 20 feet above you. That's what artists Ward Shelly and Alex Schweder have been doing for more than a week, living inside a giant wheel made out of wood and suspended from the ceiling. Their art installation is called In Orbit.

The way we work the piece is by shifting our weight within it. If we want to move from say the bed to the desk, we have to get up and walk and turn the wheel so that the desk comes in level. We're always standing in the same place, said artist Alex Schweder.

The wheel is 20 feet in diameter and it's suspended five feet off the ground. It has everything you could possibly need to live for ten days - a bed, a desk, a chair, two kitchens, it even has a toilet.

The kitchen and toilet can tilt so they remain level as the wheel turns.

We've brought enough food, we have enough water and all of the activities that you go through in your normal day are here, said Schweder.

Alex and Ward call their work social relationship architecture. While they've been living in the wheel they say they've gotten away from the mindset of being an individual and learned more about working collaboratively toward a goal.

Living this way requires a lot of cooperation and patience. But they've had some practice at being part of an art installation before.

We've made a kind of trilogy of works, the first being a piece called Stability where we lived on a balance beam. The next was Counterweight Roommate where we had a building in between us and we were tied off at the waste to a rope. And we would use each other as a counterweight to move from floor to floor, said Schweder.

A steady stream of people have come by to see this work in motion.

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Artists Explore Coordination by Living in Giant Hamster Wheel

BEIRUT: Strips of black vinyl tape meticulously placed on white panels create a dizzying optical illusion. The floor seems to undulate beneath viewers gaze as they assess the proportions of the Ottoman-era entrance hall. A site-specific installation by Scottish artist Jim Lambie, The Strokes (Black & White) has temporarily transformed the former Abdallah Bustros Palace, now home to The Metropolitan Art Society, into a psychedelic wonderland.

The gallerys latest exhibition, That Petrol Emotion, also features work by four other Glasgow-based artists Martin Boyce, Victoria Morton, Scott Myles and Michael Wilkinson. The group show has been organized and curated by The Modern Institute, which was founded in Glasgow in 1998 as a production and research gallery aiming to bring international artists to Scotland and promote local artists abroad.

Each artist has been assigned a gallery. Lambies installation pieces occupy the main hallway, the palaces largest space by far. Lambie works as a musician and DJ as well as a visual artist, and his work references music and sound, both overtly and implicitly. The striking vinyl floor covering, whose pattern has been tailored to pause and resume on either side of the decorative metal grating that flanks the hall, evokes oscillating sound waves.

Scattered at intervals across the space are five works from the artists Sonic Reducer series old LP covers encased in concrete blocks, their colorful spines protruding to form abstract patterns.

Found objects, an integral facet of Lambies practice, are used in much of the work on show. In Straight No Chaser, he has coated old potato sacks in shiny acrylic paint, hanging them atop one another to create a layered accumulation of rough oblongs.

A nominee for the 2005 Turner Prize, the artist has arranged the pieces in such a way that they come together to form a coherent whole. A steampunk-esque sculpture, consisting of mismatched mirrors suspended from the ceiling on a contraption resembling a many-jointed mechanical arm, captures ever-shifting reflections of the floor art.

Mirrors are also used in Metal Box, a 3-D wall-mounted work made of nine panels of polished aluminum. Each reflective square is adorned with metal corners that curl like petals. Intended to evoke the peeling edges of ad posters, the piece produces a dizzying effect akin to looking through a kaleidoscope.

The works of Michael Wilkinson also employ mirrors. The Merseyside-born artist is concerned with themes of revolution and movements for change, from the May 1968 demonstrations in Paris to the British punk scene and its gradual incorporation into the mainstream. Two works from his 97-piece series The Wall reference Pink Floyds album cover. Wilkinson has painted white bricks onto a series of square mirrors, removing one at a time in seemingly random patterns until, in the final work in the series, the whole mirror is revealed.

In the center of the room hangs an untitled work, a tangled mass of oily VHS tape that looms like a sci-fi sea monster. Wilkinson has produced a number of these installations, inspired by reams of tape he found hanging from trees in Afghanistan. The Taliban had gutted the tape and hung it, streamer-like, as a warning against the evils of pictures and music, creating a tension between aesthetics and ideology that fasciated the artist.

Victoria Mortons abstract paintings are inspired by land- and cityscapes in Scotland and Italy, where she spends half the year. Surprisingly modern among this thoroughly contemporary work, Mortons paintings are given an installation feel by the hand-made dresses she exhibits alongside them. Two of these hang limp from metal stands, conjuring up the human figures she effaces from her paintings.

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Glasgow today, in an Ottoman villa

DONAUWORTH, Germany, March 7 (UPI) -- The 12th and last Tiger UHT helicopter upgraded for use in Afghanistan has been delivered to the German Army by Airbus Helicopters.

The four-bladed, twin-engine chopper has a maximum speed of 181 miles per hour with a maximum range of about 500 miles and a ceiling of 13,000 feet.

Airbus Helicopters, formerly known as Eurocopter, upgraded the base platform to the ASGARD, or Afghanistan Stabilization German Army Rapid Deployment configuration, which includes installation of engine sand filters, additional ballistic protection, and enhanced communication equipment for multinational missions.

"The Tiger ASGARD program is the result of a successful and close cooperation between Airbus Helicopters and the German Armed Forces," said Wolfgang Schroder, the managing director of Airbus Helicopters in Germany. "Today's milestone underscores our ability to develop and implement upgrades that meet specific army requirements in highly-demanding environments such as Afghanistan."

The 12th Tiger was delivered to the military earlier this week at its facility in Donauworth, which assembles and modifies the aircraft.

Germany is part of the International Security Assistance Force in Afghanistan.

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Germany receives helicopter configured for use in Afghanistan

Tongue Groove Pine Ceiling installation
Day 3 progress of a Tongue Grove Pine Ceiling installation we worked on.

By: Croixco Construction

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Tongue & Groove Pine Ceiling installation - Video

Industry-First Product Makes Dynamic Curved Designs Possible Without Custom Fabrication

Bendable by Design At only 6.5 mm thick, Gyptone BIG Curve can be easily dry bent to a 10-foot radius, and can achieve up to a 5-foot radius by wet bending. Such a malleable product radically broadens the universe of design options available to an architect. Its a perfect solution for spaces that require not only breathtaking style, but sound acoustics and indoor comfort, as well.

Gyptone BIG Curve enables avant-garde architectural design without expensive custom products or time- and labor-intensive installation, said Christine Fonock-Smith, product manager for CertainTeed Ceilings. Its also highly sound absorptive, so function and occupant comfort never have to be at odds with cutting-edge design.

Uncompromising Acoustics The companys commitment to Environmental Acoustics design means the new product uniquely melds style, acoustical performance and sustainability. Interiors installed with Gyptone BIG Curve are meant to inspire and help people thrive.

The panels are fitted with an acoustical backing tissue and are available in a variety of striking perforation patterns, each with varying degrees of sound absorption and eye-catching beauty. With an NRC up to 0.70 and the ability to fine tune acoustics based on placement and curve radius, Gyptone BIG Curve is ideal for calming healing environments, inspirational learning spaces and engaging workplaces.

For photos and descriptions of each perforation style, click here.

Seamless Interplay Between Ceiling and Light Gyptone BIG Curve comes in modular 2400mm x 1200mm panels, which are pre-finished in a bright white to maximize light distribution. However, the panels can be easily painted with a short nap roller to complement any palette or add an attention-grabbing burst of color. This means the entire character of a space can be redefined with just a simple coat of paint, making it extremely flexible for future updates.

Also, Gyptone BIG Curve ceilings are designed for simple integration of lighting elements, creating harmonic interplay where ceiling and light naturally blend into the collective architecture. Light fixtures and ventilation can serve as breaks in the ceiling surface, or can be pulled back into the recesses for a simple backlit design. Again, the only limit is the designers imagination.

Industry-Leading Product Transparency Made of 85 percent recycled content and certified for low-VOC emissions, Gyptone BIG Curve contributes to sustainable building standards and helps maintain high indoor air quality. It is also covered by CertainTeeds industry-first collection of Health Product Declarations (HPDs) for ceilings solutions. By providing detailed information on the products makeup, the HPD contributes to important materials and resources credits under the newest version of LEED, which places greater emphasis on product transparency.

For more information, visit http://www.certainteed.com/ceilings.

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Revolutionary Gyptone BIG(TM) Curve Panels Create Limitless Possibilities for Sweeping Architectural Ceilings