Sunday, October 18, 2015

City of Owensboro to Acquire Sculptures

It's official...
 ...The City of Owensboro is going to acquire a sculpture from both Meg and myself.  My sculpture (shown above) is entitled "Oberon" and it is scheduled for installation by the end of November.  Meg's sculpture, entitled "Escape", will probably be featured on her blog soon.
 This week's efforts were focused on finishing this 2 foot high Dragon Head in Indiana Limestone.
 "Why a dragon?", you ask. Because it's a symbol for powerful creative energy. 
 I find it strange how so many cultures around the world have come up with the same mythical creature.  For something that never existed, why is it showing up in the imagination of so many people in different places and different time periods?
 It can't be denied, I just had loads of fun doing this thing.  I like walking out and seeing it in the lawn.
This rough computer rendition shows potential plans for adding two wings and a tail.  I envision the Dragon as coming up out of a "dry landscape" of raked pebbles, perhaps in a vortex pattern.  Now that I see this idea translated from thought to image, I can see how it resembles a Viking long boat - or even what they call a boat burial, where stones create the outline of a boat for burial on land.  This seems to be a pattern; I create artwork that resembles that of my Celtic ancestry.  Coincidence... or racial memory?

Sunday, October 11, 2015

Marble Dove and a Safe Bench

There was a huge push in August to finish the sculptures for the Yew Dell Sculpture Show, right on the heals of getting back from Meg's Alaska sculpture installation.  That knocked the wind out of us and it took a while to "get in the mood" for sculpting more stone.
 I started out lightly by creating this stylized Dove out of Brazilian Marble.
 Then, I started to have a little fun.  I made this "Safe" bench.
 ...and walking around the piece...
 ...and looking at the next view...
 ...and coming full circle around the piece.
 There's been some great weather for working outside, so I made some progress on the large hands, too.
 This comparison photo shows the progress that was made on the back.
The Safe Bench was inside and I only worked on it when it rained.  I spent a lot of mornings, in the shade, working on finishing the Comet bench (left) and Harmony (middle).  Ecliptic (right) is being planned for a dry landscape installation, similar to Japanese rock gardens.
 I've also made a scale clay model for another couple of stone elements to complete the installation.  The Japanese aesthetic has a careful relationship between 3 stone elements as the primary focus of a garden - I'm trying to emulate that consideration with the addition of a "Mars" in TN red marble and a Jupiter with moons in IN limestone.  The largest element represents the Sun on it's curved path around our galaxy.  The 3 inner planets are represented; the smallest is Mercury and the 2 that are approximately the same size are Venus and Earth.  The paths of the planets are actually curving spirals as they chase the sun around the Milky Way.  Even if you're sitting still right now, you are hurtling through space at about 230 miles every second - something to think about....