Between Ends and Beginnings

Thanks for stopping by. The WFB is my 'whatever I happen to be in to at the moment' corner of the web. I have two other Blogger sites which are far more interesting.  

The Lost Canyon Project is the chronicle of my work photographing and cataloging the life's work of my late friend, artist Pete Hampton (1940-2018) 

 

The Lost Era Transcripts is the fruit of the Lost Canyon Project. It is a re-creation in book form of Pete's unfinished master work, The Lost Era. This is a good candidate for the finest work I have ever done.

 

Between Ends and Beginnings

Monday, 8/16

Gray Soapstone

 

Mostly I avoid politics, and current affairs here on the WFB. I spend altogether too much time on the internet reading about the aforementioned topics.  Sometimes I'll drop a comment at Fran Porretto's Liberty's Torch, or trade remarks with the regular visitors at Gerard Van der Leun's American Digest, but I leave the editorializing to bloggers who are smarter, and better informed than I am. I try to keep my focus close to home.

Even so, the news as of late has been horribly depressing. The idiots and mad men in charge seem hell-bent on the destruction of this nation, and indeed, all of Western Civilization as we know it. I take the measure of my daily life. It is hard to believe how fast we've fallen in such a short time. And the decline into totalitarianism continues at an ever-increasing pace. Where does it hit me next?

At times it seems petty and selfish to worry about our own small affairs when we’re looking at the collapse of Western Civilization. But how many small, precious things that we cherish will be corrupted or lost? How staggering is the loss of liberty already. Note the insanity in France, Scotland, Australia, New Zealand.  This is global. There is no escape. In the short term we’re already learning to live like the Russians in the old USSR.

We use code speech when discussing certain topics on line, lest the algorithms detect an improper sequence of keystrokes. We’re learning which small businesses won’t enforce the mask rule. We’re even having to find work-arounds to escape the totalitarians messing with our recreation and hobbies. I recently learned that my favorite polishing compound has been banned in California. Luckily, I found a vendor who would put  the stuff in a plain brown wrap, and UPS it  to me from Texas. Every day items are becoming scarce, gray-market, and even black-market trade. I won’t even go into guns. You know.

I’ve retreated to my back yard hermitage.  I go off grounds maybe once or twice a week at most. My only real outing is getting together with the bike gang to cruise the beach. I cannot stand the sight of the faceless. It brings up that “Invasion of the Body-Snatchers” horror in me. 

I have enough stone left for three major projects. That should carry me into the winter. The stone work is a gift from God. It’s a primitive, dirty task, as primal as any human activity gets. But gives me a sense of purpose. What do you do in the face of all this? 

Make like a cave-man, and pound on a rock. Anyone got a better answer? Grab a picket sign and stand on the street corner? Make an angry comment on a blog?

I have a stone, and a new project all ready to go. In the mean time I'm just taking a couple of days away from the table. Tomorrow's my birthday, so I have a good excuse to just fart around, and...

Oh wait, I don't have a good excuse. We're doing a party Saturday, and I have to get the grounds straightened up, do some of the shopping, and all that.
So I spent the morning raking out the bushes, and cleaning up my work area. The table is just the right height for everyone to use as a bar, perfect for leaning on your elbows, and nursing a drink.
But my heart wasn't in it. It's always this way before hosting a gathering, even a small one. 

Do I really want to do this? Maybe just cancel. No, can't do that. Yes I can. It'll suck. No, just shut up, and keep working...

 
And the work went much faster than I expected. By ten in the morning, I had the perimeter all raked out, and the greenwaste dumpster filled.



I messed with the stone a little. This wedge of rock was supposed to be soapstone. It probably is. Soapstone (talc), like alabaster, can vary in hardness from too mushy to work, to only slightly softer than marble. This chunk is hard. Soapstone has a very distinctive "crunch" when put to the tool. There is something strangely addictive in that tiny vibration between the steel and the stone. Once you feel it in your fingertips you want to do it over, and over again, and it's hard to stop. It's like nibbling at a handful of pistachios. The dust is fine and slippery. No surprise, ground up soapstone is talcum powder. 

This gray rock is hard, but not unworkable. I carved a pipe out of it for a friend many years ago. It doesn't take a glassy sheen like the alabaster. Wet sanding up to 2000 grit, plus a lot of rubbing with Simichrome gives it a satin, yet almost metallic finish. The polished rock is deep gunmetal gray, but if you look close you see it's shot through with flecks of rusty orange. This will suit my purpose perfectly for this project.



This won't be a free-carving exercise. It won't be a swoopy, biomorphic composition, either. I planned this for the anhydrite, but this gray soapstone is actually better suited for what I want to do.
So, what is it? Don't keep everyone hanging on the edge of their seats.

OK. I'm gonna' make me one of these:

 

Uh... cool. I guess. But, just what is that?

That, my friends, is the fender bomb from a 1950's vintage Schwinn/Whizzer motorized bicycle.
I love retro-futuristic. And this project is going to present me with a real challenge. There will be no Pee Wee Herman, "I meant to do that" excuse, if a chunk of the carving breaks off. No making it up as I go along. Round has to be round, not sorta' rounded. Both sides have to match, and all that.
I'll have to take measurements, draw up a sketch on graph paper, cut the stone into a rough blank, use a compass or something to mark out the round part, and work the whole thing as methodically as I can to get the symmetry and proportions right.
 

But difficult is more fun than easy. I need all the fun I can get.