Step by Step

It's Tuesday night as I'm sitting down here to make some notes on the stone. Maybe other stuff, too. We'll see.

The picture of the stone that I posted last week showed sort of a head beginning to get separated from the lower pyramid.

The lower shape was starting to remind me of a conch shell, or a fat slice of pie. I did that much, not knowing for sure what would follow. But somehow I knew that those first few steps were on the right path. Working this way is a lot like rock climbing, or caving. You sort of just feel your way along, and hope you don't make a wrong move, and get stuck.

Of course, this risk of getting stuck doesn't entail falling a thousand feet to a certain death, or being trapped underground to slowly perish from thirst and hypothermia. (I'd take the thousand-foot fall, thanks for asking.)

Oh, wait. I already told that joke, huh? eh, so what. I'll probably tell it again.

Anyway, Saturday night after dinner, I got the germ of an idea, so I grabbed a colored pencil, and did some rough sketching on the flat face of the rock.

But that was in the dark, and at the end of a very long day that started early with a drive to the beach. Once I got to the beach, there was a wake n' bake with Penny and Jim, and a twenty mile ride with the rest of the bicycle club. Good times! But it was a long cruise followed with a long drive home, and more than a few bowls after dinner.

Unfortunately, the rough sketch was, well, rough. Sunday morning it just looked like some stoner scribbled all over the rock with a colored pencil.

At first.

I had to stare, and repeat several times, the magic incantation: "Wut th' fahhhhk". It was like trying to decipher the crappy hand writing, and short-hand spelling you'd use if you woke from a dream in the middle of the night, and felt like you had to write it down. But I caught the idea, and started refining the sketch. It took until Sunday night until the lights came on for reals, and I got that flash that would carry me all the way into the design. I'm not kiddin,' I actually jumped up and down.

Eureka! and all that stuff. Monday I pecked in a few lines with the chisel, and then stopped. Inching forward, and all that.

And so the week has gone. Chisel a bit, plan a bit. cut, sand, draw some more.

When I bought this stone up in Ventura, I looked at a few blocks of limestone, as well. One of the sculptors on site talked about what a pleasure it is to work the stuff. Limestone is consistent in hardness, and I am told, has a very smooth, almost creamy texture when put to the steel. It's not especially pretty stuff, though. A sculpture in limestone is gray. Period. Too, the limestone was sold in square cut rectangular blocks. That's like a completely blank canvas. I want to try it sometime.

I'm bringing this up as a contrast to working in alabaster.

This piece of stone is a perfect example. Limestone is consistent. On this chunk of alabaster, the milky translucent stuff is very hard, while the stuff with the red inclusions is much softer, and easier to cut.

Shaping across two different degrees of hardness is a challenge. I can shape the colored stuff with a rasp, quite easily. The same rasp just skids across the harder stuff. It's a good thing I invested in the Milani chisels.

I'll digress for a bit here. This has been an unexpected treat. I mentioned before that the work I did in the past was done almost completely with drill, saw, and rasp. My chisel skills were non-existent. (Not a good admission for a stone carver) Now I have the chisels, and a proper mallet. And this stone is forcing me to get those skills up to speed. And I'm doing a pretty darn good job of it. Most of the shaping I've done so far has been with the point chisels, and mallet. It feels really good to learn new lessons. (Especially when it's in a remedial class)

Anyway- I mentioned that the limestone came in the blank canvas of a rectangular block. The alabaster always comes in a fractured boulder, part of a thick slab that was unearthed, and broken into chunks. Most pieces have cracks, and fissures to take into account. There are thick parts, narrow parts, plus color, translucency, varying degrees of hardness, all to add to the fun. Rather than impose your idea on an empty field, you're constantly in a dialogue with the irregularities of the stone.

And so the week has gone. Chisel a bit, plan a bit. cut, sand, draw some more.

By Friday afternoon I reached an agreement in my 'dialogue with the stone', here. Carving it is going to be a ~~total pain in the ass~~ challenge. But that's what makes it fun. I'm walking into this feeling like I have the potential to knock it out of the park.

And I become aware again, that despite...

Look, I'm not going to waste anyone's time making a list of shit to get depressed about. Those lists are not just easy to find, they're hard to avoid. (Whoever's reading this just dodged one.)

Despite it all, I have much to be grateful for. For all my many faults, and shortcomings I have been gifted with an acute sense of gratitude. I approach seventy years of age with over twenty years of as close to a perfect marriage as ever has been. Mary and I are still stupid in love after all this time. We have friends, no debt, and a lovely home. I have an anchor in daily meditation and prayer, a quiet, if somewhat feral faith.

When my old friend Pete Hampton died, in 2018, I found myself thrust into the huge task of doing The Lost Canyon Project, and later, The Lost Era Transcripts. My creative energies had been dead for years. But creative energies had little to do with those projects. I was driven with a sense of mission: This stuff had to be done, and I was the only one who could do it. I worked my ass off on those tasks, and drove myself into a complete burn-out finishing them.

Then the End of the World As We Knew It hit. For a year, pretty much all I did was ride the bike, and get buzzed. But somehow, the combination of burning on those projects, and the intense, horribly negative energy from the coup, and the lockdowns, drove me lower, and lower, until I dug into the fire, and re-lit the creative burn. Now, I'm working again. With four new pieces on the shelf, and this one on the table I'm once again feeling that sense of mission. I am as grateful for this as anything.

But, hey, let's digress, once more. This time we'll check out some beauty.

The best show of the week has been the San Pedro. The Pachanoi is popping.