Seeing into the Stone 

At some point in an art project, the artist should have a clear idea of what the finished product should look like. Of course if the artist is doing a likeness of a person for a statue or a portrait, he knows before he sets out. Too, a representational work has a very clear criterion for evaluation: Does the portrayal, at the very least, resemble the subject?

An abstract work is free from the constraint of having to resemble any particular subject matter. An artist can begin such a work without a hundred percent clear idea of how the finished piece will look. Even so, all the rules still apply. Balance, symmetry, grace, proportion, all have to work together, and add up to beauty. The finished work should be pleasing to the eye.

It's Monday night as I'm sitting here typing out these thoughts. I'm pleased with the progress on the stone, but I'm also stalled. Here's where I drag out my over used comment about climbing a rock. Yeah, I'm stuck on a damn ledge, or something. It's the whole ridgeline arcing down the front, and into the bulbous nose end of the piece. This is going to be the most prominent feature on the carving, and I'm going round in circles trying to sort it out. I don't know how many times I've thought, "Yeah, GOT IT!", and then said, "No, not quite."

Well, I got it.

It's Friday night. I've decided how to shape the bulbous piece, the "nose" at the low point of the wedge. I made some good progress excavating the hollows. The point chisels really speed the work along, but I'm still not deft enough to avoid bruising the stone. That's a problem with any alabaster, but especially in translucent material. A sharp blow to the stone will leave a white bruise that can go down a couple of millimeters. The clear stuff on this rock is hard and tough, but it seems to bruise easily. Proceed slowly and with caution. 

I'm just about ready to drill through the base. I set up the jig yesterday, and marked out where the first two holes are going to go. It's going to be an awkward set up, resting the rock on sheets of plywood, and 2x4's to get the drill bit lined up at the correct height. Then I'll have to strap it down on the table with the ratchet, then shoot the  drill, undo it all, and set it up again for the next hole.

But all this is on hold for a day.

My brothers are both coming to So Cal for a visit, one from New York City, and the other from Thailand, where he's been doing the ex-pat thing. My niece and nephew, and their mother, whom I seldom see will be here also.

It's an impromptu family reunion, unscheduled, and un-planned, but holding parties is what Mary and I do. It's sort of our thang, y'know? We got the fixings to do tacos, Mexican style. I do not get all stressed when I'm holding gatherings for our friends, but I'm stressing over this one. Truth to tell, I don't see eye-to-eye with either of my brothers on much of anything relating to religion, politics, and current events. I spend over three hours  every day reading up on the shit. Reading. No videos, no podcasts, no television. I have no patience for "the narrative", and I absolutely will not engage in discussion, or argument. My worldview, and opinions are hard set, and not up for re-consideration. I don't get into arguments either on-line, or in person. Nobody changes anybody's mind on any of this stuff. I purely hate talking about it.

And I'm worried about my cat. Wednesday, Buddy the Cat looked like he was favoring his right foreleg. Today, Friday, he's listless, complaining...

Anyway, I'm calling the vet tomorrow morning first thing. Another item on the agenda.

...and now, Saturday morning. Buddy the Cat seemed a little better this morning when I gave him his fish. We'll see how he's doing when the sun comes up. I'm dreading the day...

Sunday morning. The kitchen is still a mess.  Buddy the cat seems to be doing better. The Skinamalink is bugging me to go outside. I'm on my third cup of coffee. But we had a good day, yesterday. We had an unbelievably good day. Nobody got going on politics, and current events. But somehow, the day left me exhausted, and melancholy. If life was a book, the heavy part would now be in my left hand. Despite the warmth of the day, the gathering had the feeling of a chapter very late in the story. All things must pass, including all of us.

Anyhow, not much work got done on the project this week. Here are the latest pics.

 

 

 See the purple marks on the base? I'll be drilling this week. Tune in for the next exciting chapter!

November 

Buddy the Cat

 

thu.11/3/21

November started off cold, gray, and quiet. It's been a trying, and very expensive week. Last Saturday's party was a lot of work, and it came to a long, slow, very late, and not very pleasant end. I love my weed, but I do not drink. Mary, and the gals love their wine, but whiskey hits a party like a wrecking ball. I saw two fifths vanish within the space of an hour, and the results weren't pretty. I hate to be a blue nose, but I'm seriously considering banning hard liquor from our gatherings. Sunday was a day to straighten up the mess, and then just flop. 

Last Monday started with the tax bill. I'll say this much, and change the topic. I'm about ready for French Revolution II. I'd love to see this "Government" shoved into tumbrils, and dragged whimpering and wailing to a date with Madame Guillotine.

OK, enough anger.

Like I said, first thing in the week was a tax bill, then the insurance bill, then Wednesday was a six-hundred dollar vet bill for the Skinamalink. Thursday morning, as always, I got up in the dark, and Buddy the Cat, and The Most Mysterious Skinamalink were waiting for me in the kitchen. I took the bowl of tuna fish from the refrigerator, spooned out a little for the cats, set the bowl aside, and started making the coffee.  Yes, the cats get their tuna before I get my coffee. Buddy the Cat is as loud as a firetruck, and the meeyowling drowns our even the coffee grinder. But in the time it took me to brew coffee, an ant swarm charged in from behind the switch plate and completely covered the bowl of fish. The whole kitchen counter was alive with the goddamn things. So before I got my coffee, I spent a fun session with a spray bottle of Windex squirting down the ants on the counter . We can add a visit from the exterminators to the financial damage.

Monday it was back to work on the stone. Even here in So Cal, the weather is now cold enough that I don't get to work until late in the morning, so progress is slow. I'm just about to the place where I have to drill in order to take care of all the excavation that needs done. Wednesday, John came over, and helped me  build a jig for my big power drill. I need to be able to shoot a series of long straight holes through  the wide base of the stone. It's easy enough to make the drill go in at exactly the right spot, but it's tricky as hell making it come out exactly at the right spot. Twenty years ago, I seemed to be able to hit the bullseye without any effort, but on my last few attempts, my aim wasn't all that good. I'll find out how well my invention works any day, now.

 

 

The carving is shaping up with an inner figure protruding from the hollow of an outer shell. But it's  going to be tough to do the shaping in the confines of the inner space. We shall see what progress this week brings.

But finishing up with the small doings around here, Yesterday, was the first Sunday of the month and that means the Cyclone Coaster antique and classic bike ride. I feel a little guilty, writing about this event without posting pictures. It's been a monthly tradition for over ten years, now, and we tend to take it for granted, and forget to bring cameras. I don't do the phone-cam thing. Sunday was the bi-annual swap meet that has been postponed for the last year because of the virus bullshit. Holy cow, I could easily have trashed my bank account at that event.

But bikes were not the main event for us, Sunday. The event was having our good friend, and club member Dave come out to ride again. Dave's had a brutal battle with cancer. Friends set him up with an electric assist three-wheeler. This was his first ride after a long tough struggle. Having him cruise with us again made the ride feel like a family reunion.

And so, November. It has been a little over six months since I got back to to work. Winter is just about here. Even in  So Cal that means a season of crappy weather, and slow production. Slow progress is still progress. I'll take whatever the day has to offer.

  

 Digging For The Light

 

Holy cow, it's November already. Eight months have passed since the burn to work re-lit. Four new projects are completed. I'm grinding away on this one, and enjoying doing it. The work is a gift for which I am most grateful. 

 

 In the last post I was considering some of the challenges that come up in shaping a chunk of stone like this one, and I referred to the work as being a kind of dialog between the ideas in my head, and the reality of the rock on the table in front of me. I mentioned that I had wanted to approach this from a set plan, but this ragged chunk of fossilized lake bed just isn't going to work that way. The stone speaks first, and sets the terms of the discussion. And in this case, the dialog with this wide-assed rock is turning into a date with a gorgeous chick who turns out to be a petulant, whiny bitch. It's too wide here, and too narrow there. Hard here, and soft there. Flat here, curvy, and convoluted there. The backside will not take kindly to being messed with at all, and the single most beautiful, jewel-like feature on the stone is exactly in a place that needs to get dug out, and excavated.. 

Even so, we are working together, staring, then planning, then working, then stopping and staring, planning...  and this whole piece has been sort of evolving. There's a ton of beauty in this chunk of California, and I'm going to bring it to the light. Maybe I can wedge that  metaphor about a "dialog with the stone" into the scene in the corny movie where the homely girl gets a make over, and goes all Cinderella on everyone.

Just havin' a ball, here y'know?

It has been a week of distractions around the suburban hermitage. Wednesday, I popped out the sliding screen doors  from the back, and took them in to get re-screened. And then the Most Mysterious Skinamakink showed up with a badly abscessed wound on his neck. Cat fight. That meant a six hundred dollar visit to the vet, and a few days of pills, and house arrest for the poor cat. And of course it was a hot two days, with no screen doors at the back so the sliding glass doors were shut, and the house got all hot, and the cat was crabby. Somehow, we survived it all. The cat is doing much better.

 Our Halloween gathering Saturday turned kind of sour, also. We're not shy about partying at all, but a couple of guys brought whiskey. Dangerous stuff.  I saw two fifths disappear within the space of an hour, and ended up with some very drunk guests. I love my weed, and I'll occasionally take a ride on the mushroom, but I do not drink, and I don't like being around folks when they're drunk. But everyone made it home OK, and as far as I know, they all escaped well-deserved hangovers.

 

So here's the progress on the stone this week. I still have a long, long ways to go, but what I'm seeing is making me happy. This form is going to have a lot of open space, and will show some beautiful translucence, and color, but the deep excavation yet to come is going to be a challenge. It's all about working the light. The deeper I dig, the more the light shines in the stone. This thing is going to glow like a lamp. My friend John is coming over Wednesday, and we're going to build a jig to do the long drilling across the wide base of this monster. All kinds of fun!

 Falling into Fall

 

Thursday, 10/21/21

Thursday night is my night to stay up late, get a  good buzz going, and spend the evening doing stuff other  than sitting here at the desktop. But I went to bed early on Wednesday, woke up at midnight, couldn't get back to sleep, and couldn't even doze off for a nap this afternoon. I've been a zombie all day, and I  got no work done at all. So Thursday night is off this week. The whole week has been sort of off key. 

Can't get focused, no energy, just tired to the eyeballs of life the universe, and everything. The world is a warm, flat beer, right now. It's cold, stale coffee with sour milk. If the world was a girlfriend, I'd break up. If it was a job, I'd quit. If it was a sandwich I wouldn't eat the second half.

Last night I was looking at old posts here at the WFB. I've had this blog up for twelve years. Much of the early stuff came from my exchanges with the folks who were posting at "Gagdad" Bob Godwin's blog, One Cosmos. And much of the stuff I was writing about then, I'm still writing about, now.

 

From February 2009...

 

... 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 [Celtic] 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... 

 

Friday, 10/22

So, now, it's Friday night. Mary always has a couple of friends come over for dinner. She usually does some vegetarian thing for them. This time it was sweet potato lasagna, so I phoned in an order for a taco plate from J's Grill. When I went to pick up the food, they had a television on playing KCET, the national public network. The telescreen is always on. I couldn't hear the broadcast, but in the time it took to pick up my order I saw the news go from Covid hysteria, to a huge "climate emergency" protest in Germany. Every. single. protester, and all the TV people were masked. The faceless interviewing the faceless. Television is unadulterated sewage.   Since we don't have one, every time I actually see a TV, I find it horrifying. And I'm not exaggerating for dramatic effect here, either. Gut level horrifying. The propaganda is so blatant, so heavy handed. 

 Everyone working in the burger hop is masked. Everyone who walks in during the ten minutes or so I was there, was masked. I do not mask. Ever.  I always sort of steel myself, wondering if anyone is going to say anything. I click off the safety on my asshole switch. I hate being an asshole, but I'm embarrassingly good at it. Nothing happened. Truth to tell, very few people will say anything. Most shopkeepers aren't going to turn down a sale to enforce the mask rule. Still, I hate it more than I have words to tell. This is why I don't go out much. Mostly I sit here at the desktop, or work in the yard. The news I get across the internet is depressing as hell. One quick excursion off grounds confirms everything I just got depressed  reading about.

But anyway- Mary's friends did not stay late, Mary turned in early, so I stayed up, and burned a few.

It was cold, and rainy most of the day Saturday. The San Pedro bloom is over. Summer's gone and all the roses fallen.

 

Beauty in the decay:

Sunday we had a cool, clear morning, and a sweet bright warm autumn afternoon. We got the cycle gang together for a club ride down to Seal beach. It's one of several cruises we do from time to time. We meet up in the corner of a huge Wal Mart parking lot that butts right up against the San Gabriel River bike path. It's about seven miles to Seal, when you take in the little detours for pit stops and safety meetings. Mary came along for the first time in a long while, and Russ brought his wife, Liz. Club members Dave and Mike were waiting for us not far from the pier. Dave is recovering from a very rough bout with cancer, and complications. Mike's back is bad, and he's been out of commission for a while. They joined us for lunch at the Mexican food place right across from the pier. RatRod Riders Bicycle Club is a small gang, but a tight one. The club is high on the list of things for which I am grateful. Love these guys. It was a wonderful finish to a mostly dull week. Couldn't have been a better day if we'd written a script for it.

 

Not a lot to report on the stone this week. Despite the distractions, and overall low energy, I did get some time in on the project. I'm still excavating; separating an inner figure from the shell/ base that will contain it. 

 

More and more I'm making use of the point chisels to excavate material, and to rough shape the figures. I'm getting the hang of doing the smoothing and rounding with the flat blades, before cleaning up the work with the rifflers. And I have a plan to fix up a jig for my heavy drill. This project is going to take a couple of long drillings, and I don't want to risk doing them freehand. More work. More fun. Love doing this stuff.

We got some rain coming up this week, and that's mostly a good thing. It'll slow down the work, though. Not the worst problem in the world by a good measure.

 

 

 

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.

 

JWM