Bench Bottom and Crate to Colorado

The unseasonably warm weather has left, and winter has returned (I knew it wouldn't last). But, "the show must go on!"

I continued to make refinements on the functional limestone sculpture with the air hammer.

Before I got too far ahead, I knew that I wanted to catch the bottom side up. I moved the gantry crane into position, rigged up the sculpture...

...and laid it over, onto its side. (that's a deceptively easy sounding sentence - 1,500 lbs of carved stone doesn't just roll over on command).

I began to carve the bottom.

In the tradition of 'restless rocks', I stood it back up, spun it 180 degrees, and laid it over onto its other side. I was then able to carve most of the bottom.

The plaster molds for the Tree of Life commission were cured enough to make the journey across the Great Plains to the bronze foundry. We used shrink wrap to fasten each mold together. The best way to ship molds is to put them back together, although it is better to store them with each half lying flat and the rubber piece on top of its plaster mother mold.

We wrapped each mold in carpet padding. I built a shelf for the mold of the tree (which is rather large) so that its weight isn't bearing down on the first layer of molds(the leaves).

The crate was weighed, and the freight company was contacted to get a quote number, bill of lading and a 'pick up' scheduled.

We loaded the crate onto the back of our crane truck, so that it could be loaded into the back of the freight truck.

We use R & L Trucking for our freight needs. Given the chance, I think that the driver, Steve, would be more than ready to take the crate to Colorado personally. Turns out that he's a big skiing enthusiast and the Colorado mountains are one of his favorite destinations.

One of the activities that we did recently was to attend the opening at Pyro gallery for Bob Lockhart (the paintings on the wall with GREAT absurd titles) and Mike McCarthy ( who is peeking at the camera from behind one of his sculptures). Mike has sold 8 out of 10 sculptures in the show already! I suspect that we'll be seeing great things from him in the near future.

Meg put some bird seed in the mouth of her Sea Lion bench. It didn't take the birds any time to figure it out. (all photos copyright 2012 Meg White).