Slog Sunday

Still down with something. No energy. No appetite. I got some sleep last night, but today I still feel like I got et by a coyote, and shit off a cliff. Here are the last of the stones. The first is arguably the best of my older pieces. It is certainly the largest.

Curvular, 2002. California alabaster

At this stage in the game, twenty years makes a lot of difference. Twenty years ago it was heavy. Now I can barely lift it.

This is the last of the old work. Here are the new pics of the pieces I did starting in April 2021. This first piece is the bridge from then to now. In 2003 I was about two thirds of the way done with this. I was working with the big rasp, and right in the middle of a pass something awful and strange came over me. I stopped work, set the tool down, and stepped back from the table. The Voice spoke, and all it said was, "It's over." That quickly my muse just died. For weeks, I told myself, "Get back to work." But somehow I couldn't even force myself to do it. I stuck the unfinished stone in the corner of the garage with the handful of rocks on the project pile. I put the tools in the drawer and they sat there for two decades.

A year ago last April I saw a post on Gerard VanderLeun's American Digest. The post featured ancient movie footage of some of the French Impressionists. One clip showed the sculptor Rodin working a heavy mallet and chisel at eighty years of age. Something in that couple of minutes of black and white film flipped a switch in me. Suddenly I was on fire to work again. I built a new carving table, retrieved the unfinished stone from the pile, and, well, here we are.

Figure in Crystal, 2021 Italian ice alabaster

Figure #2 in Crystal, 2021 Italian crystal alabaster.

The next four stones are California alabaster from Anza Borrego. I meant these to work as a group, but I couldn't quite discern what unifying theme would emerge. I originally called the first piece, "Sangre de Anza". It sounded good at the time, but it wasn't right. The second stone was the key to the first. The theme would be elemental: Fire Water Earth Air.

Lost California #1 Fire.