about

First and foremost — I am an artist

I remember when I decided I wanted to become an artist; it was during my first freshman year high school art class assignment. Mrs. Marjorie Picchi told us to draw 'what you see — not what you know'. It's important not just to look, but to observe. Like many wise statements, it comes across as simple and obvious, but simple statements can sometimes provoke a paradigm shift. 'Seeing, not just looking' was more than a approach to realistically draw a classroom chair, but an invitation to use my senses to more deeply understand the world around me. An artist must be, amongst many things, a good listener.

I have my own personal definition of art: it is the byproduct of the act of attempting to create something that never existed. A lot of people use the phrase works-of-art to describe excellent works-of-craft, as if great craft couldn't be better than bad art. As an ever-evolving artist and as one who endeavors to ever improve my craft, I have come to understand that art and craft must be equal partners in order to succeed as either.

Whether or not my art is good… is another topic entirely.

I am Kirk Tegelaar of Seven Cycles

After working as an offset press operator and doing freelance illustration for coffee house bands while growing up in Maine, I moved to Boston and scored my dream job at Merlin Metalworks in Cambridge Massachusetts, where the legendary Skip Brown taught me what all the knobs on a Bridgeport do, and where weld master Tim Delaney taught me the ways of the TIG torch. I slowly learned how to make aerospace grade titanium bicycle frames with some world-class craftspeople.

In 1998 I transitioned with a handful of other folks from Merlin to Seven Cycles, doing so much more: going full-custom, adding steel and filament-wound carbon fiber to the mix, limited-edition bikes, prototypes and editions-of-one — all led by the multi-talented powerhouse Rob Vandermark. I helped out all over production: I loved my time in machining, but I spent most of my time in welding making hundreds of custom frames one at a time. I finished more bicycle frames than anyone else on the planet, except for maybe the ever-helpful Matt O'Keefe. I had been doing website, design, documentation, labelling, and illustration work with Seven for years when they posted a notice on the shop door that they were looking for a full-time graphic designer. I applied, got the job, and I've been their in-house designer since.

If there's one thing I have learned in all my time at Seven: Nobody works harder than Rob Vandermark.

I am Fleet Admiral Emeritus Skunk of SCUL

In 1996 I stopped messing around in the Allston Rock City music scene and started a bicycle chopper gang called Flying Donut – before changing the name to SCUL a few weeks later. I transmogrified a bunch of trash-picked bicycles, called them 'ships', gave them a bunch of mean sounding names, then tried to convince other 'pilots' to come fly with me on 'space missions'. It's a tough sell — even tougher if there's only one person asking. To make this 'gang of one' to look bigger I made a multi-page website, padding it out with as much technobabble and unnecessary stats tables as I could conjure. SCUL started out very small and stayed that way for a while. We all chose 'call-signs' instead of our given names. I thought Skunk would be a fitting name for a bicycle chopper gang leader. Attendance grew, and so grew those frivolous stats tables.

In an effort to get more people to help me fix things, maintain the work area, pick up after the missions, etc., I devised a 'point system': a gamification of responsibilities. The point system was also made to encourage pilots to ride choppers, as people would often opt out to 'ride their civi ship' — which is fine unless you are trying to start a chopper gang. The crazier the bike you rode, the more points pilots would get. The more you helped out by taking on responsibilities for the evening, the more points you got. I attached the total point value to rank based on sci-fi culture, resetting points and rank each season. And I made a bunch of medals to give out for extra credit behavior. I liked doing all this anyway because it was a great way to play with design and web coding. We used to do all the data entry on paper and then transfer it to the website. As the seasons rolled on, our systems became complex. Since we've been documenting everything from day one, data entry is an intrinsic part of SCUL for better or worse.

For the first fourteen years of SCUL we ran weekly missions out of the basement of whatever house I was renting. People would bring their friends to ride, and next week that friend would bring a different friend, and so on. So a lot of strangers would be around. I had a few sketchy people take advantage but almost everyone was cool.

Each SCUL mission day started with me hosting loosely-attended open shop sessions in the basement — maintenance, repair, and construction, six hours every Saturday. Then I would eat and then start mission prep. We assigned a sentry to enforce a whispers-only silent running policy with a nerf sword and a smile to keep things as quiet as possible for the sake of the neighbors. Faithfully at 10:15pm we silently walked our ships to the 'launch pad' — usually a nearby parking lot, where the briefing happened. The flagship, USB Cloudbuster, was a 200-pound tallbike with a rotating functional telescoping disco ball and sound system complete with subwoofer. We flew all over the place, often out past two AM, through some tight spaces and up some big hills, most which were scattered around our home turf of Somerville. It was exhausting pushing all that weight up those monster hills on a bike you can't put a foot down.

Once we had enough adventures we would head back home, put everything back, fill out damage tags, hang out for a bit, then head off to bed, sometimes as the sun came up. Sundays were completely useless.

Our attendance began to get out of control, but as we developed good documentation and training, the turnout level subsided, and gang slowly coalesced. The website was overhauled more than once, a members-only section was added with a BBS and a wiki, and redesigned five or six times. The site continues to grow more and more as pilots fly every Saturnight from April to Halloween in Boston and New Bedford.

Gui Calivanti started the mighty maker space known as Artisans Asylum in 2005 and asked SCUL to join forces. It was a dream come true — not only did I get my basement back, SCUL got a real star fortress that didn't need me there to let people in. And the Asylum got a fully-equipped bike shop — a big value for Somervillians. Plus SCUL had some street cred. It was a big moment for SCUL, but it was a little sad that our 'secret fort' was now known to all who inquired.

When COVID hit fifteen SCUL seasons later, we lost access to our starfortress and couldn't come near each other, rendering our systems useless — SCUL's ancient website needed to adapt to be editable via mobile. I overhauled the entire site ro be mobile-friendly and responsive, including the the front and back end, our wiki and BBS. Getting SCUL into the palms of pilots hands eliminated a lot of data entry and paperwork, and gave the ability for pilots to sign up for missions and jobs, reference relevant data, and update stats on the go.

After 28 seasons of heaping helpings of hard work, I retired as the Fleet Admiral, and was given the title of Fleet Admiral Emeritus by the Iron Cog Council — a group of dedicated pilots who have received a lifetime achievement award given out once at the end of each season. Technically I serve as a guide to the gang, but the gang is going strong without any meddling on my part. It feels wonderful to have created something that will continue on without me.

Being the "fleet admiral" has been a nearly indescribable, albeit well-documented adventure. I have watched our city mature and grow, and I have seen some things I love about Boston come and go. Most of all, I have lived a very rich life thanks to SCUL, because I have learned to act in ways that help enrich the lives of others.

I am Skunk of Skunkadelia

In 2006 I began making primitive looking robots out of repurposed bicycle parts, which have been slowly evolving towards highly sophisticated human figures. I started out under the name Eighty Grit Art, but my work stopped being abrasive pretty early on. I had already gained a lot of press under the name Skunk — PBS, NPR, and the Boston Globe a number of times, etc. So I went with the name Skunkadelia. In retrospect perhaps I should have chosen a different SCUL name, but hey, here we are!

I've made a few other things besides robots, such as rayguns and rocketships, but prefer to work on figures; to mimic human emotions through subtle body language, and to practice learning to get my robots to 'sit on their bones'.

Skunkadelia's website documents nearly every one of my robots, listed newest to oldest: you can see the progression arc of my work — my breakthroughs and my firsts. I have made robots in all sizes from pocket-sized companions up to my 800-pound heroic Dyanna at Somernova in Somerville. My sculptures have found their homes on three continents — one of my big ones, MOBOT, went to burning man with me in 2006. Pretty sure he had even more fun than I did.

Some art-going Bostonians may remember some of my shows at the Nave Gallery in Somerville, The Cyclorama in Back Bay, my solo show at Mobius, talks at 13FOREST Gallery, and the wildly successful show "Ink and Steel" at Space 242. The opening reception hit building capacity — and it was a big space. I hauled all my huge metal sculptures to the galleries and back by bicycle, and rode my 200-pound tallbike to the openings and back.

I worked with a small group of wonderful people at the Museum of Science in Boston for their Star Wars exhibit, commissioned to make Skunkadelic thank you presents for the speakers, including director of animation Rob Coleman, C3PO actor Anthony Daniels, and some of the model makers from the original trilogy, whom I was honored to meet. MOS used one of my robots as their icon for the Brainy-Acts series that accompanied the exhibit.

I have also been making the trophies for IFF Boston since 2008. In 2010 I made the Lifetime Achievement Award for Kevin Kline. In 2019 I made Cameo — a poseable robot mascot of the Film Festival — Cameo was on banners and subway ads throughout the city of Boston, and even used in an impressive stop motion animation promo for the festival.

In 2018 Adam Savage visited and did a piece on the Artisans Asylum, doing segments on SCUL and Skunkadelia. We was kind enough to purchase one of my pieces on the show, which gave me an amazing boost in number of fans, followers, and patrons.

I had a fifty-square foot studio space at the Artisan's Asylum in Somerville, Massachusetts called the Ready Room Microgallery. It was a place to store my scrap metal and tools, but also a place to show off my work. I had a number of group shows there, including a magic-wand workshop, opening reception and exhibit. I relocated to a home studio in 2020, but a few of my life-sized robots still hang around at the front desk remind folks to smile.

I am currently happily continuing to make art. My new work has been time-consuming but worthwhile. I look forward to debuting some exciting new pieces as soon as they are ready.

I am Laark?

In case you hadn't made the connection Laark is a play on my name — Kirk tegeLAAR. Did you notice the Laark logo looks like a colorful bird in flight? I'm really into birds: in fact my best friend happens to be a parrot.

I have been considering changing the name of art enterprise from Skunkadelia to Laark. What do you think?