Is Anybody Home?

Is Anybody Home?

(above: a chunk of rock. below: Rat Fink)

(Rat Fink has nothing to do with this post. Just found the pic, and got a kick out of it.)

Well, it looks like a month has gone by without a post. Good thing nobody depends on this blog for an update on current events. Odd. When I do the daily tour through the various sites I have bookmarked, I don't have a problem coming up with a comment. When I drop by The Meow, I enjoy trading notes on the small events of daily life, but when I sit down to write here, I go blank. I don't want to get into politics, religion, or current events, and I haven't felt much like writing about the stone carving, or The Lost Canyon Project either. It's easy enough to come up with stuff that gets me angry, or keeps me angry, but that's back to politics and current events.
And, truth to tell, I've been in a state of out-of- sortedness lately. I can place much of it on the sad and sorry state of affairs in the nation, and the world at large. I will not, and do not need to go into particulars. We're all living the same age and time. We're all staring down the barrels of the same uncertain future. It's easy enough to blame a bad frame of mind on things external; you can always find something to get depressed about if you look for it. Even if you don't have to look far.

 And close to home, here in my own small world, stuff has been quite good. This Monday, the 18th, I'll be showing The Lost Era film at the Whittier Central Library. Luz, over at La Habra Art Association wants to arrange a showing in La Habra, and one in Fullerton also. 

My own work is being featured at the Ahmad Shariff Gallery in Claremont. Sunday, Mary and I are attending an opening at the Sasse Museum in Pomona. I'm getting a lot of good feedback on the stones. All to the good. And my domestic life is as good as it could be. Mary and I have a very easy relationship. There is peace and love here at home. Tranquility, and all that. Much to be grateful for.

I'm finally getting my strength back after being ill this last summer, and I'm putting in ten to fifteen a day on the red cruiser. 

Not bad for an old bastard. But despite being accutely aware of how richly I've been blessed, the blues remain.

 So anyhow, let's take a look at the stone project. I started this back on December 23rd. Of course, I lost a lot of days to bad weather, and sheer weight of this chunk of rock forced me to change up my way of working. Normally I begin by grinding the face off of the raw stone with the angle grinder, then cutting a flat base, then taking the time to plan out a form, and draw the cut lines out on the clean rock face. With this one I had to just start in with the chisels, and see what happened as it happened.

As it happens it's turning out OK.

Just as a reminder, here's what we started with. One hundred twenty five pounds of Anza Borrego Desert:

And here's where we are, now:

Challenges of Anza Borrego alabaster- the amber right side with the spiral is much harder than the silver side on the left. I was fooled by all the red on the face of the raw stone. The only red in this piece is a thin layer between the silver material, and the much harder amber stuff. That's it: the little red line on the base in the above picture. Most of the stone is silver gray.

More work to come on that opening. It's going to extend to under the heart shaped piece in the center.

The next major step will be deep drilling into that flat oval face. The pencil line marks the hollow. How deep will it go? Not sure yet. Like everything, it's a matter of keeping it up until it looks right.