Beware the Ides of March!

With the crane truck finally up and running, I was able to spin this life-size figure around - making it easier to work on her other side.

This is how the figure looks today. This is her left side.

This is her front view.

This is her right side. She is still very thick all over - but that's what carving is all about - thinning and refining.

Exactly 20 years ago this last Tuesday (the Ides of March), this twenty-something year old couple went on their first date. A lot of things have changed in that time - and a lot of things will change, if we get another 20 years.

Super Moon Rising. (photo Meg White)

The flood waters are leaving the fields and returning to the river. (photo Meg White)

The fun never stops

This has been a long exhausting week...but the fun never stopped. Meg and I are having to work straight thru this weekend to meet our deadlines.

On an upbeat note! - Meg's $53,000.00 commission for the Home of the Innocents memorial is featured on the FRONT PAGE of the May 27th edition of Louisville's Courier-Journal newspaper. It was also picked up by USATODAY may 27th edition! There are 3 pictures in the photo gallery that shows Meg working on the sculptures (and they mention my name in the text of the article, too.) Check it out http://www.courier-journal.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080527/NEWS01/805270439/1008
These are the tools that I've been using all week. On the left is a 1" dallet style air hammer from Trow & Holden. It drives a variety of chisels with a 1/2" round shank that fit into the end of the hammer. The top chisel is a tempered steel piece with a slightly rounded end - it's an old, old chisel that is a hand-me-down from another stone sculptor Don Lanham (deceased). The middle chisel is an Italian made carbide-tipped 3 tooth chisel. The bottom chisel is a flat carbide-tipped machine chisel from Trow & Holden.

I use the tempered steel chisel to form the shapes. You can see the wide marks that it leaves in the middle form and the inside of the leaf. I then take the toothed chisel and make spiraling lines around the shapes. This effect accentuates the curving movements of the intertwining forms. The flat chisel is used to clean up around the edges, such as the slightly diagonal line at the left of this photo.This is what the front side looked like at the end of work on Saturday.This is side B at the end of this weeks work.

"Too much fun" is what Meg is having. In the last 2 weeks, she had a serious rush getting her proposal together and then flying out to Colorado to give the presentation. Now, she has had to 'hit the ground running' to finish her sculpture for the Yew Dell Gardens Outdoor Sculpture Show. She and I are honorary co-chairmen for the show. Here, she has matters well in hand as she loads the stone that will become a base for her 3/4 life-size male dancer.

This is a photo of the invitation for the show. My 7 foot tall, 7,000 lb. mechanical hand is featured on the invitation and poster for the show. We will deliver and install our pieces this Friday.
The blue-grey Granite base for the Green Bay commission arrived this week. Meg is multi-tasking at this point; she snapped this shot while operating the crane at the same time. I will have to stop work on the Washington commission until I have completed the Yew Dell installation and put the final touches on the Green Bay piece.

Blackberry Winter

This week was the 'last blast' for winter. As there is a reoccurring cold snap that coincides with the Blackberry blooms, the 'old timers' have given it a name - Blackberry Winter.

One of the most exciting events of this week was the newspaper article that covers the commissioning of my stone sculpture for Ft. Nugent Park near Oak Harbor, Washington. You can read the on-line version at http://www.pnwlocalnews.com/whidbey/wnt/news/19032164.html

The large amounts of waste stone have already been removed. This week's effort focused on blocking in the organic forms that are bursting forth from the seed shell. The 1st half of the week involved using a 4 inch electric grinder with a 4 inch diameter blade to roughly form the main shapes. This is the front side after Monday's effort.

This is what the back side looked like on Tuesday morning.

The first task was to lay out where the organic shapes will be carved. I use a wax china marker to draw the design onto the stone.

This is how the back side looked at the end of Wednesday. There's a little bit of 'roughing in' to do on the bottom forms, but basically the 'fun' part is about finished. So much for the Ecstasy, now comes the Agony.

I had to move the piece into the studio because of rain on Thursday. At this point, I have to switch tools. I'm using an air hammer to define the shapes of the organic forms. That small, unassuming tool is basically a small jack hammer that drives various shaped chisels that fit into its end. Don't let its small size fool you - it's powerful (and brutal on the user). After a full day of air hammer work, you'll sleep like a baby. After two days in a row of air hammer work, you'll get what we call 'the 3rd day blues'.

This is how the front side looked after Friday's effort.

This is the back side at the end of Saturday. All of the major shapes have been blocked in. Now comes the long slow process of refining and then finishing.
Sunday afternoon (about 2 hours ago), I dropped Meg off at the airport where she is flying out to Aurora (Denver) Colorado to give a public art sculpture presentation. She is one of four finalist for a $55,000.00 commission for a nature preserve. She will spend a couple of days in Estes Park and Rocky Mountain National Park, her favorite place. It kills my soul that I'm stuck at home and having to work while she's jetting off to a fun destination. O well, my turn is coming!

Sunshine Daydream!

This spring has been spectacular! The weather this week was perfect and the Locust blossoms filled the air with a wonderful fragrance. There are only 3 types of weather in Kentucky: too hot to work, too cold to work or too nice to work.

Nevertheless, work proceeds on the Washington commission at a brisk pace. Last week, the general outline around the sides was formed. This week will focus on blocking out the general shape from front to back.
This is the view of the north face as I began the week's work.
I've preformed the protective seed shell on the south face of the sculpture.
The procedure was repeated on the opposite side.
What is now the front side of the sculpture, was cut flat in the quarry as part of the mining process. I use the flat side to lay out the curves and forms of the design. By using a square, I get an accurate placement of the curves of the median line for the 3 shell pieces. I'm making the radius of the top piece correct at this point.
I begin to carve weight off the top.
This is the view of the south face as I continue to remove stone.
This is the view from the other direction. I have preformed some of the shapes on the front face, as well.
This is what the sculpture looked like at the end of work, late Saturday. The sculpture has its general preform. It probably weighs about 7,000 lbs, down from the original weight of 13,000 lbs. Next week, I will focus on forming the interior plant shapes.
The highlight of the week for me was the trip to the Victor Oolitic stone quarry on Wednesday. This is where the stone for the Washington commission originally came from.

The main purpose of the trip was to get the 3 bottom blocks of select grade cut stone that will be the bases for Meg's LSU fountain group. Of course, like a kid in a candy store, I had to get something for myself. The square block that I have my hand on, will be part of a base for the next project titled "Nexus". I rounded out the load with 8,000 lbs of variegated slabs (not shown here).

Meg has what she calls a "Daydream". She found and photographed a small flowering plant that has 2 state biologist stumped. She has the hope that she has discovered a new species. She will post pictures of it on her blog http://rockpaperscissorsnclay.blogspot.com/ later this week. Be sure to check it out. I hope her dream comes true!

Shake, Rattle and Roll !!!

This week we experienced a 5.2 magnitude earthquake with an epicenter about 100 miles to our west. Meg was lying awake about 5:30 A.M. Friday morning and heard it coming from far off. Our underground house acted like a sound chamber and amplified the noise. It shook the house for about 30 seconds, long enough for Meg to leave the house. I was too lazy to leave the comfort of bed (shaken, but not stirred).

I had a small window of time between the Green Bay commission and the commission that will go to Oak Harbor, Washington. So, I began a project that will fit into this slab of Indiana Limestone.

This sculpture is entitled "Moments". I have described its concept and inspiration in last week's post, so I won't repeat myself. I have drilled off the extra piece on the end. The design has been cut into the top surface and the outline is nearly complete.

The sculpture was moved into the studio after removing the bulk of the waste. I have begun to shape the major forms and have opened an interior negative space.

By the end of the week, the design is emerging.

Last week, when I went out to get some extracurricular pictures for the blog, I came home with a stray kitten. I thought that it might be safer to stay home, this week, and post something from the archive. Here's a picture of a rock climber, about to camp out for the night half way up a shear granite cliff in Yosemite Park, California. Can you see the climber in the center of the picture?
There he is! I'm guessing that the black-and-white thing is to help people keep track of his position. Photo by Meg White. She took this picture when she was in California a couple of years ago to give a sculpture proposal for the City of Oakland. We spent some time in Sequoia park, as well.

The Devil is in the Details

Actually, the saying is "God is in the details", but the effort that goes into creating the details is other than heavenly. For instance, Take a simple phrase like "I crated and freighted a 3,000 lb. sculpture at the beginning of this week". Sounds easy enough, but the devil was in the details. I'll spare you.

The work on the Green Bay commission focused on the detailing of the intertwining forms on both sides of the sculpture. The "clean-up" phase of finishing a sculpture is the hardest. The initial enthusiasm of any project wears off toward the end. There are endless hours of work that go into the craftsmanship of finish work. In short - it's fussy and meticulous.

The sculpture is nearly complete. There are some minor "tweaking" that I'd like to do before pinning the sculpture to it's gray/blue granite base.

It will be at least 2 weeks before the base arrives, so I will leave this sculpture alone till then. It will give me a chance to "live with it", which will help me to decide about any changes or improvements.

This is the sculpture that I will make over the next 2 weeks. It is entitled "Moments" and will be carved from a slab of Indiana Limestone approximately 6' H x 4'W. The polished ring represents 'Here and Now', the large circular form rising from the bottom is the next moment (the future) that will be the new "Here and Now". The other forms are old moments, receding into the past. Every evening, I read before going to sleep - and I can't help but think that those stories work their way into my sub-conscious, and then into my work. I just finished a book by Isaac Asimov titled Nemesis, that features someone looking from an observation dome of a space station onto a habitable world that is the satellite of a gas giant that orbits a red dwarf star. Can you see the influence?

I've been too busy this week to have any fun pictures, so I took a quick drive 2 miles down the road to snap a shot of this roadside spring. We jokingly call it "Hepatitis Spring" because years ago it was closed for use because of contamination from a nearby elementary school. While snapping shots, we heard a meowing coming from... somewhere. But from where? We walked this way and that, having difficulty pinpointing the source of the noise.
Eventually we discovered it was coming from inside a hollow tree. Someone dropped off a kitten - I guess they were thinking that someone else would take it home. I wish that I could only show you "Waterfalls and Wildflowers", but there's another side of Kentucky country life that's not so pretty. There's a type of people who will dump garbage in the prettiest places - and give no thought to dumping off unwanted animals. Over the past 14 years we have had to deal with countless drop-offs. We currently have 8 cats - all 'road waifs', and all of our friends and family have their fill, too. I will lose most of a days work tomorrow and $25 to take this girl to the Louisville Humane Society, 75 miles from here where she'll have her best chance of getting a good home.

"...bustle in your hedgerow..."

The Green Bay sculpture commission proceeds at a vigorous pace.

The second side of the sculpture was preformed by removing excess material where the intertwining forms will be carved.

The pattern was transferred onto the side using a gridded scale drawing. Carving has begun on the currents.

The sculpture was laid on its side using the in-studio gantry crane. This makes it much easier to carve the forms. By the end of the week, most of the current forms have been roughed in. There has been some work on the bottom circular form, as well.

There wasn't a lot of extra time to do anything fun this week. The crane truck was fixed and there was a lot of 'catch-up' work to do. However, it's always a good idea to 'stop and smell the roses' from time to time. There are no roses in march, but the 1st wildflowers have made their appearance. This is a small patch of bloodroot in bloom.

Cutleaf dogwort

Hepatica

A trout Lilly pushes its way up thru one of last years leaves.