artistic side trip

Work continued on my functional sculpture 'Exodus' for most of the week.

The main focus of my effort was carving the intertwining forms inside the center of the sculpture.
The forms were further refined and the edge of the bench was shaped.
The inside forms were roughed-in on the other side, as well. I have to use the air hammer to make these shapes. I'd been working hard in the stone studio for the last few weeks; it's only natural that I would take some time away from stone for a couple days.
So, this is where I took an 'artistic side trip'. I spent the last 2 days of the week on creating a design for a block of Alabama white marble that I have. The trapezoidal outline is the shape of the marble block, with the design drawn to scale.
I wanted to make a 1/4 scale model in clay. Meg showed me how to make a scale printout (on the right side of the table), which helped me to lay up the clay fast.
Jon kept me company during the process.
I thought that the model came out well. However, it is too involved of a project to have ready for the Yew Dell Outdoor Sculpture Show which opens on May 29. Therefore, this truly was a side trip, as it will have to be set aside until the time is right.
I usually like to do a little exploring this time of year, but it's been a cold and wet spring. Meg talked me into going down to Holt Bottom with her last Sunday evening.
Meg took this picture of Bluebells (?) that were blooming next to the creek.

Something old, something new...

In terms of something new...

...work continued all week on my functional sculpture "Exodus". I cut the extra stone off the top to make the bench surface.

The next step is the removal of the extra stone along the sides, where I will carve in the intertwining forms. I have ground the surface smooth, to make it easier to draw the design onto the stone.

I roughed in the profile along the end of the sculpture.

The process was repeated on the other side. The outer form was refined, including the shaping of the edges.

The Dept. of Fish and Wildlife bought up 1,000 acres in Holt Bottom (not far from here). We will show more pictures in a later posting. Shifting the flavor of this post to something old...this abandoned house stands on that property. Whenever I see an old house like this, I can't help but think about a time when the new owners were so excited to move into their brand new house. They raised their family, the house knew good times and bad...and now its time has come and gone.

The house's job is not completely finished yet. It's the home for these bees (and who knows what else).
This is a portion of the old highway 259. The horses and wagons no longer travel this path (for now). It's amazing how fast nature takes back over. You have to ask yourself, "Will what I'm doing today, leave an impression 100 years from now?"

Hand Finished

I finished the Hand Seat and moved it out of the studio.

This picture doesn't do this piece justice - I'll work on getting better images. I'm very happy with the way this sculpture came out. It will be shown in the Yew Dell Outdoor Sculpture Show opening on May 29.

I began a new project that will also go to the Yew Dell show. It is entitled "Exodus" and the raw block weighed in at over 2,500 lbs. It measures 5'-6"L x 2'-4"H x 1'-5"D.

The first task was to draw the design onto the block. Then I inscribed the lines with a small diamond saw. There's an extra piece on the end that is being cut off. I have cut all the way around with a big diamond saw. Then, I drilled 3 holes in the top for the 'feathers and wedges'.

The extra piece was broken off by gently beating on the wedges, and slowly building up pressure. The scrap will become a small sculpture one day soon.

The wildflowers are trying to do their thing, but it keeps raining. Photo by Meg White.

Wildflower with frost. Photo by Meg White.
Saturday, Meg and I attended a workshop, sponsored by the Louisville Clay Society, and hosted in the University of Louisville's ceramics lab. Beth Cavener Stichter demonstrated her technique for creating large clay pieces. It was a fantastic experience!

blog's first anniversary

I've made 55 postings over the course of a year. You can review any and all of those posts by clicking on the archive links in the right hand column. ...and speaking of right hands...

I haven't posted in the last 3 weeks because it's been slow progress on my hand seat. About a week ago, I turned the sculpture onto its back so that I could have a straighter perspective to carve the fingers. Keep in mind that the piece in the picture is 5 foot long by 3 foot wide. This is a big piece, and I think it's coming out great.
This is the front view, so that you can see the work on the fingernails. There have been lots of 'stuff' that has tried to take up my time, and keep me out of the studio. Meg and I both had a flu. Then, we had to make a 650 mile trip to Charles City, Iowa, so that Meg could give a proposal for a sculpture competition, in which she was a finalist. Also, I lost a some time dealing with car repairs, a grant application and 5 public art proposals etc.. It's always something.
This is the view from the road between the studio and the house - that's the Ohio River in the background. (You can see why they're called Whitetails).
A sure sign of spring is when my neighbor does a controlled burn on some section of his farm. Photo Meg White.
All the trees are still bare and dormant. But the first wildflowers have popped up. One of the first on the scene is Bloodroot. Photo Meg White.
This is the Bloodroot flower after it opens. It usually doesn't stay around very long. Photo Meg White.

Hand to Hand

I moved the preformed Hand into the studio at the beginning of the week, as I knew that more freezing weather was on the way. In fact, we received another inch of snow on Saturday (I've had enough of winter!).
The task for the week involved checking measurements between the plaster model hand and...

the large stone hand. Back and forth - from one hand to the other. In the foreground is the only tool that I used this week. It's an air hammer with a small chisel for ripping off heavy areas, and a wide chisel for smoothing out and refining the form. The pace has slowed down as I get closer to the finished shape.

There is a reference line all around the model. The line lays directly under the outside points.

I drew a similar set of reference lines on the concrete floor of the studio under the stone piece. They correspond to the other lines on a scale of 4:1, which is pretty easy to work with. We've made enlargements on stranger scales like 7:1. For that we had to use an enlargement scale wheel (ordered from www.woodcarverssupply.com). Otherwise, it would be hard to calculate things like 7 times 2-5/8 inches.

Time on my Hand

Not having power at the studio for over a week, drove me to make some real progress - to make up for lost time, I guess. So, I set aside the work in progress on Nexus, and began roughing out the next project which is a large hand that is intended as a functional seat.

This is the 1/4 scale plaster model for the new sculpture. The "plus" marks are on the outside points. I'll find those points on the block first, by measuring from reference lines.

The next step is to remove the extra length from the block.

I drilled holes into the block, inserted 'feathers and wedges' and...

....split off the extra piece.

The next step was to grind off the rough surface and determine the outside points. You can see the plus marks that are the outside points for the end, top and back.

There's a big corner that needs to come off behind the fingers (to the right).

Measure twice - cut once. It's better to take off a little at a time, than to take off too much.

I moved around to the front, because there is a lot of stone that needs to come out of the palm.

I've determined where the pinkie will be, and have moved more stone out of the palm.

I'm beginning to find the other fingers.

After about a week and a half of frenzied work, I've changed a 6,000 lb. rectangular block into a 3,000 lb. preform for the Hand Seat.

ICE STORM 2009 !!!!!

We got slammed last week with the worst ice storm in living memory, for our region. Over 1.3 million people lost their electric power, and many will be without for weeks. The temperatures have been subfreezing for most of that time. We got our power back after 6 days, but our hearts go out to those still without and the linemen repairing all the downed lines and poles. It's going down to near zero tonight. It's the linemen who have it the toughest, having to work out in these conditions. Meg took over 700 pictures during this event; all the pictures on this posting were taken by her.

Tuesday, January 27 began the event with about an inch and a half of sleet. Then freezing rain fell all through the night adding an inch of clear ice on everything. It was two inches thick in places like Muhlenburg and Grayson Counties. Then we got about two inches of snow on top for Wednesday morning.

Ice coated last years flowers...

...and this years buds.

I'd never seen ice hang in rows of icicles, like it did this time. It's all that extra weight that brought down the power lines and lots of trees.

The first order of business was survival. I was completely unprepared. We got lucky when my neighbor, Steve McMillen, let us have some of his firewood. I'm taking the wheelbarrow over to get a load.

Later that day, Steve brought over about 2 days worth of wood in the loader of his tractor. Then he cleared off some of our driveway. That was super nice and unexpected; we really owe him, big time. That big limb, in the foreground, is where we normally park our car. Meg wanted to go out Tuesday, over the sleet, to do errands. I was at odds with her about going out on the slick roads, but it saved our car. It was too slick to get back up the driveway (lucky, lucky).

On Tuesday, while we were out doing errands, Meg took this picture of our sleet covered road back to our studio.

This is the exact same view, the next day, after the ice and snow fell.Portions of the road back to the studio were unrecognizable. It looked like a deer path winding through the woods, rather than a road that we bring semi's and cranes down.

The woods looked like a war zone. It's been hard on the trees for the last 2 years. First a straight line wind that swiped the region, then a hard freeze late in a spring that burnt the new leaves, the remains of Hurricane Ike last September, and now this.

I thought that I'd seen every form of ice and snow, but the freezing fog on Thursday night was a new one on me. It left everything up at the studio looking fuzzy with a coating of large ice crystals.
But enough about ice! Let's end this posting on a warmer note. We kept warm, cooked and heated water for cleaning, the old fashion way. I was glad to leave the 1800's behind and rejoin the 21st century with the return of power on Monday night. Be sure to check out Meg's blog as she posts some great images.