Oak Park Sculpture Installation

It was finally time to deliver and install my sculptures for the Oak Park Sculpture Walk.

Monday, I rented a flat-bed truck from Thrifty, loaded up 2 stone sculptures and made the 7 hour drive to Oak Park, Illinois (just a few miles due west of downtown Chicago). (photo Meg White)

It's a bit of a change in scenery, to go from this...(the Ohio River valley). (photo Meg White)

...to this. (The Windy City)

Tuesday morning, I arrived at the first site, where I was met by some of the members from the Oak Park Public Art Advisory Commission: on the left is the commission member Bruce Samuels, in the center Colleen Berg (who has been my contact person and project coordinator), and on the right, the commission chairman David Sokol.

A 40 ton crane arrived from P&G Crane Co. The operator, Jon, was excellent - smooth as silk! (photo Colleen Berg)

We set "Entwined Seedlings" in front of the Unity Temple. It was designed by Frank Lloyd Wright. You can see some of the architectural elements, in the upper left, that are signature to his style. (photo Colleen Berg)

Then, everybody went 1 block west, where Shawn Morin (from Bowling Green, Ohio) was installing his sculpture. He set a concrete base...

...and then a steel arch (it goes well with the gothic arch behind it). There is a piece of swirled Stone Mountain granite on top of the arch. There are 2 bronze elements (on the ground) that get bolted to the top.

Next, it was my turn again with the crane. We set "Pod of Sun Seeds" in front of a home on Forest Ave. (photo Colleen Berg)

On the 7 hour drive home, I snapped this view of a small portion of a large Wind Farm just north of Lafayette, Indiana. There are many hundreds of these huge windmills - a great sign for a positive direction in energy sources. It's a start...

Zephyr Gallery Opening

The high point of the week was going to the opening at Zephyr Gallery in Louisville...but, business first...

This is how the stone sculpture "Accord" looks on its new base.

This is the back view.

Friday afternoon, before the Zephyr Gallery opening,, we went down Main street to check out the temporary foam mock-up of Michelangelo's "David". I'm in the lower left of the image to give a sense of scale.

John King had an installation of his glass sculptures in the ground floor gallery of Zephyr. This is one of his figurative pieces (photographed from underneath).

The upstairs gallery featured the installations by Mike Ratterman. In the first room was this creative use of salt blocks with plants. You can see part of another installation in the left of the image.

The 3rd room had this rose petal and salt crystal installation. David Biblehauser, a sculptor friend of ours, is the guy in the middle background. His wife Aerie and their daughter is on the right - she works at the Kentucky Museum of Art and Craft.

This is a close-up of 1 of 3 salt crystal sculptures. The concept of the show uses the whiteness of salt to address the issues of Purity and the Transitory nature of Life.

Meg is always on the lookout for strange images - this one caught in a stripmall parking lot. (all photos copyright 2012 Meg White)

Crucible

Monday, I made a base for "Accord" (see last week's pictures), and I'll post a picture of the finished piece when I move it out of the studio.

Tuesday, I took advantage of the cool weather and returned to working outside on a very old piece, "The Crucible". This is a 4-1/2 foot diameter sphere of Indiana Limestone.

I re-honed the outside of the piece, but it has a long way to get the polished surface that I want.

Then, I began to carve the interior - making those intertwining vine forms that is my obsession (cheaper than therapy, I suppose). The concept behind this sculpture is: Industry and Agriculture are the foundations of human civilization.

Saturday, we went to an opening for the artworks of Marilyn Matthews and Kathy Wariner. This is one of our favorite paintings by Marilyn. They are our neighbors - well...20 miles is "just down the road" out here.

I have managed to get out for a walk down by the river a couple of times this last month. This time of year, I would prefer to get out more often. Oh well...

Meg snapped this "Disney moment" out the studio break room window this last week. There are 2 hen Wild Turkeys, a young spike buck and a mother Raccoon (in the shadows to the right), all eating cracked corn at the same time.

Oak Park Sculpture Walk

Several good things have happened this week.

On Monday, I received a call that 2 of my sculptures had been selected for a temporary outdoor sculpture show in Oak Park, Illinois - which is due west of downtown Chicago. This is one of the sculptures; "Pod of Sun seeds", Indiana Limestone and Brazilian White Marble, 81" high by 39" wide by 33" deep.

This is the other piece; "Entwined Seedlings", Indiana Limestone, 45" wide by 21" high by 21" deep.

On Thursday, plans became more solid that my functional granite sculpture "Felicity" will be the focal point of a memorial to be installed in Floydsburg Cemetery.

Since the last post, I've made serious progress on a sculpture that now has a title - "Accord".

This is the back view. I hope to finish it and make a base for it this coming week.

On Wednesday, I came up with this design. It was inspired by the Tree of Life bronze that I did last year.

Ideally, it will be carved into this 7,500 lb. piece of Indiana Limestone that I bought in 2009.

I shared the studio this last week with 5 baby wrens that had gotten too big for the nest that had been built in a storage cabinet. They finally got big enough to leave - their constant chirping (neurotic psychobabble!) was driving me nuts!