Late in the Week

The Most Mysterious Skinamalink

 

Thu 9/8

It's almost 7:00 in the morning Thursday. I've just made the depressing slog through news and current events. *faaahhhk*

 

'nuff said. 

Here's my 135 word  artist's statement for the October show. Having to condense everything to so few words is a good exercise. No room for the airy-fairy stuff. And Glen Eisner got this very cool pic of me working.

 

 

“It reminds me of…”

In the command of beauty, we rise to the discovery that we have been working for God.

David Warren

A figure in stone speaks without language in the same way that music conveys emotion without words.

I’m a self-taught sculptor. I have no formal training in the Arts. I carve these pieces with hand tools: saws, drill, mallet, chisels, rifflers, and rasps. The surreal shapes I create awaken a memory  in each viewer’s eye. The stones become three dimensional Rorschach figures, windows into the subconscious.

My aesthetic is pretty simple: It must be well crafted, and it’s gotta’ look cool. As an artist, I can “work in the command of beauty,” and do so with a single goal: create something wonderful that will bring joy into the world long after I’m gone. 

 

We have cooler weather, and maybe even clouds and a little rain forecast for Saturday. I was looking forward to getting down to Huntington Beach for our monthly bicycle event, but I have to miss the RatRod Ride. I'll be going over to the gallery to discuss preparation for the show.  I'll get a fix on how many pieces to bring, where, and how they'll be displayed, and all that sort of stuff. 

 

 

 

The heat over the last week has kept everything moving in slow motion, here. It's all we can do to keep ourselves fed, and cool. Even so, I've been out back working. I'm doing the fine cuts, bringing everything down to the layout lines. It's slow delicate stuff: Re-check the measurements. Get the hacksaw blade *exact-o-mentally* on the pencil line, and draw in the first scratch. Make sure everything is lined up and level, and send the saw in straight up and down. If the line starts true the groove will keep it true. I did the disc, and now I'm on the horizontal shaft, teasing  along the pencil marks with hacksaw blades, and making sure the torpedo is neatly centered in the big disc.  I got four of the eight cuts done today.  There are four more to go, and that'll be tomorrow's task. Weather forecast says we may even get a shower. Good heavens, that'd be nice.

 

 

 

 

Fri, 9/9

 It took two days to get the refining cuts done on the horizontal shaft.  It's freehand machine shop, trying to do precise work with hand tools. The cylinder is very close to right. The shaft is lined up, and of consistent height and width.

 

 

 The wafers of scrap that I'm cutting away clank like glass when I toss them on the pile. This will probably be it for this week's progress and I'm happy with the results. 

 

 Perfectly timed moments. I got the day's work accomplished, got the work area cleaned up, and sat down in the gazebo with a cold drink.Wind has been howling all afternoon, and the yard is full of sycamore leaves from the giant tree over on Jordan avenue. We got a new set of Corinthian wind bells to go with the old Woodstock chimes, and the storm is making music in the yard. 

Finally, the rain rolled in. At first it was just a maybe- one big fat drop here, another over there, but soon enough it became a real shower. The rain was so welcome in the heat  that I went over to the patio, sat out there, and just let it fall on me. The Most Mysterious Skinamalink came out of the house, and decided to join me. He hopped up on the red chair next to where I sat. It was raining on the red chair. So he tried the blue chair. It was raining there, too. So he figured that I would have the good sense not to sit in the rain, and he jumped up in my lap. Damn, but it was raining even there.

 

Saturday 9/10 afternoon

 

I just got back from the Whittier Art Gallery. Holy cow. The Whittier Artists.com group are very impressed with my work. I'll be displaying all fifteen of my large stones along with one of my Celtic graphic pieces. This is a very big deal, and I have to start getting ready. Many of these stones have been sitting in the living room ever since they were finished over twenty years ago. They all need to be cleaned up, buffed up, and waxed. Luckily, I'm nowhere near to finishing the pearlstone project. If I had the least hope that I could finish it before the show, I'd get on a frenzy, and work myself sick. Ain't gonna do it. Ain't gonna try. 

Starting Monday, I'll be putting this project on hold until all the older pieces are all clean and shiny. I'm predicting being able to finish two or three per day. We'll see.

 

So now I will finally get around to taking real photos of all these carvings. (been procrastinatin' on it since forever) And I'll be posting pics of  older work for a while. Oldies week coming. Stay tuned rock fans!