Tuesday, March 31, 2020

March 2020

March is when it all went to HELL.  Our show at the fairgrounds was a BUST!  There's a good chance that the show in Berea will be the same.  Meg had a show in Texas cancelled - and we haven't seen the end of it yet.  I'd made it through my 36th winter as a full-time stone sculptor.  But, when people can't buy bread, eggs, meat or toilet paper - who's buying art?!!!  I'm not worried about myself - "country boys can survive"  - and all that kind of stuff.  There are people who will lose EVERYTHING.  I pray that nobody that I know will lose their life...
 I'll admit, this whole thing has knocked the wind out of me.  Not much that I can do... so I took it out on a rock.  Above is a picture of "Now" taken last summer.
 Here's the current state of that piece.  It'll look better when it's finished and I clean the dark tree mold stain off the rest of the piece.
 Then, looking at the back view...
 ... and how it looked in the fall...
... and how it looked in the winter of 2014.
It's hard to feel motivated about creating art when everything is so crazy.  But, I'm not going to sit around and worry...
This isn't a time for drinking,
it's a time for thinking...
and I haven't a clue
what else to do...

February 2020

During the month of February, I worked steady and was looking forward to a good year.  I was creating a back-log of new designs for the coming season.  Both Meg and myself were coming up with some of the best sculpture ideas in our lives.  Things were still looking up...
 I had some warm days and was able to create this 44" x 13" x 13" garden sculpture.
 It's called "Firebird Sprout" and was inspired by the regenerative properties of the Phoenix.
 This is a particularly "flinty" variety of Indiana Limestone from Reed Quarry in Bloomington and has a combined total weight of 101 lbs.
 Meg used her crane truck to move the small bench to the larger bench.  They really belonged together.
 So, now I have a new sculpture called "Mother & Child".
 A huge portion of the month was used to get ready for doing the Home & Garden Show at the KY State Fairgrounds on Feb. 28,29 and March 1.  We'd always had pretty good luck with this and the Fred Wiche shows.  In fact, Meg and I met at this show 29 years ago...
I was also really looking forward to being in a small group show in Berea with 8 other stone sculptors.  I'd always had pretty good luck in Berea - they'd sold everything that I ever took to them...

.... and then came March.  Beware the Ides...

Monday, March 30, 2020

January 2020

The year started out "normal".  I was working in the studio when the temperatures were above freezing.  If not, then I stayed inside and did design work for the coming season - and kept the wood stove going... I was pretty happy - and I had no idea that the virus in China at this time would shut everything down around me in a couple months....
 I made a matching pair of sculptures:
"Unity" - which I thought would look great as a monumental sculpture.
 It is Indiana Limestone, 1-10-20, 24"H x 18" x 7", 91 lbs.,
 The other piece was "Moon Garden", which was based on a passage from "The Little Prince".
 Indiana Limestone, 1-8-20, 24
'h x 21" x 5", 92 lbs.,

The most eventful thing to happen was to see this sight outside my front door early on a foggy morning.  My neighbor's cow herd took a little "walk about" that day - and left plenty to show their... passing...