Back to the Rock

It looks like July will  be eventful. I have three Lost Era shows at the Whittier Museum, and one pending in Fullerton. Later this month, Mary and I are planning an open house here around solstice. Maybe it'll turn into a big party. That has happened before, and it's fun when it does. But it's work, and lots of it, to throw a real party. 

As always, I'm in two minds about the whole thang. Of course, it is great fun to have a gathering. Mary and I are good at it, and we've earned a fair reputation for being good hosts. On the other hand, we are both feeling the years more and more. Get-to-do becomes have-to-do rather quickly. Our energy reserves are shallower than once they were. Everything seems like a bigger deal than it used to be. Welcome to post-middle-age.

We'll pull it off. Always have.

So, let's take a look at the rock. We left off here:

Unlike the last stone, this wasn't too heavy to lift, so the next step was  what I call take-down. I got out the angle grinder, and made a dusty mess out of the back yard.

The stone had a pretty clean bottom cut to begin with, but when I stood it up, it seemed a little bit off, leaning ever so slightly to one side.

I stuck a wedge under the base, and nudged it in until it looked right. It was off vertical by just around a half inch. (note precise measurement) It has to look "right" but this isn't machine shop. As long as the eye is pleased it passes QC. So here we are with a new bottom:

I started sketching out a plan, and even committed to it far enough that I scribed it into the rock face.

But I changed my mind. We were going to begin with a loop-the-loop at the base, and continue with an "S" curve, but...

No. I don't want to do another loop-the-loop right now. The "S" curve will stay. We'll see where it goes from here.

Getting Out of the Flatlands

I got a call for work this morning, so I've been up and running since a quarter to six. I spent the after work hours with the exchange over on One Cosmos, and that was a brainful and then some. And my head was already filled pretty close to capacity from trying to digest yesterday's comments right here at the wfb. (and Thank You all very much!) It's almost eight thirty, and I'm just now sitting down trying to improvise some content.

Actually there wasn't much left to say on the topic of losing the burn. I started carving rocks, and didn't stop until the fire went out, which it did abruptly, and without even extending me the courtesy of letting me finish the last piece I was working on. But it was great while it lasted. I turned rocks into three dimensional versions of the forms that I had formerly put on paper. I'll get out the camera and take some pictures later this week.

It took a whole new set of brain muscles to start seeing, and working in three dimensions. It was like going from swimming laps in a pool, to surfing. The knotwork drawings are impossible figures. They can exist only in a world restricted to height, and breadth. Stone will not tolerate that kind of fanciful nonsense. It makes you play by real world rules. Along with height, breadth, and depth there is balance, strength of material, hardness, flaws, and all sorts of other considerations to deal with. And oddly enough, courage. Courage? Well, it's like this. It's really tempting to carve thin, to carve delicate, to carve with lots of open work, and things soaring off and hanging in space. It sounds really cool to make something with a lot of mass sitting on a tiny foot, and depending on a precisely placed center of gravity to keep it stable. Until you have a two hundred dollar chunk of alabaster, and ten weeks worth of hard work sitting on the table in front of you.
I'm reminded of people who go around climbing rocks, but that's a whole 'nother kind of idiocy. And I wouldn't be so presumptuous to compare breaking a sculpture with breaking me. I'm sitting here right now looking at one of my early, loopy efforts which was instantly transformed from one piece of stone into three, courtesy of last summer's earthquake. It was disappointing, but it didn't involve the loss of blood. But I'm getting all sidetracked here, and besides, that's about all I have left for now. I get to work again tomorrow, and that's a good thing. Maybe I'll dream up something during the day.

JWM