A Small Stone for Spring

 

 Monday, April 10, 2003.

 

 Smallstone project, Day 1

More on this after I get done writing, and upload the photos.

I got an email from The Santa Fe Springs Art Fest this last weekend. They offered me space for up to three more entries in the Three-Dimensional Category. I'll be submitting these two pieces: 

Stoneblossom
 

 

Airstone
 

in addition to these two that I already entered:

 

Aerodyne
 

Waterstone

 

 That's some good news.

And we had some of our favorite people from the cycling world, come out to cruise with us on the So Cal RatRod Ride last Saturday.

 

Newport Harbor

Big blue boat

 

Little purple boat
 

I even made the drive home from Huntington Beach by way of the choking traffic on HWY 39, Beach Boulevard without getting flustered. 

All to the good.

 

Easter Sunday, Mary and I held our first gathering at the house since Christmas. The day was warm, bright, and clear. Not to mention, dry.  I roasted a big hunk of beef on the coals, and sliced it thin for sandwiches. We also set out a ham, got crusty rolls at the Mexican market, and Mary made her famous potato  salad with tomatoes, and bacon. Friends brought fruit salad, and three bean salad.

  Mary's niece, Katy and Katy's steady, Avi came over.  Mary's nephew, Evan and his wife, Jennifer came by as well. 

 Mary's brother Randy was Katy, and Evan's father. Randy  died rather suddenly the year before last. His wife Martha, Katy and Evan's mother, also died suddenly shortly after. This left Mary and me as the elders of the clan. We're doing what we can to hold on to some tradition.

 I like these... I want to say, these kids, but we knew Katy and Evan when they were kids. I remember bringing them toys and dolls for Christmas. They're all fine young adults, and I like them tremendously. If we have enough like them, the world as we know it may yet get by.

It is to be hoped. 

 

So, on to the stone.

 Well, wouldn't you just know- within a few days of finishing  the odd white wedge of rock that became Stoneblossom, I'm once again faced with working a carving out of a narrow three-sided splinter of rock. I have to remind myself that I chose these pieces after spending over an hour rummaging through the rock piles up at Art City. Water brings out the color.

 

As I'm sitting here at the keyboard I seem to remember that I tossed those two stones on the purchase pile almost as an afterthought before weighing up the whole batch. The new stone is rather petite; it weighs in at just a shade over twenty pounds. 

 

I'm pretty sure it's a chunk of the same material as the Aerodyne carving. We'll see.

 

 

At any rate, it's a nice firm piece of stone with interesting bands, and good translucency. I got the bottom cut, and flattened. You can see the line for the base. I have a whole school of ideas swimming around in my head for this one. Later this morning we'll start exploring.

 Working Between Showers

It has been a while. I started this project back in November, after doing the Aerodyne sculpture:

 

 I wanted to do a simple, improvisational piece; just make it up as I went along. Just as a reminder, here is what we started with: 

This narrow wedge of striped stone did not seem to have much potential. The challenge was to find a pleasing form within the scrap of rock.

 

 

 

Then the rains came.  So Cal does not handle them well. And it's been quite a few years since we've had a genuine wet winter. We spent more time indoors than we are used to. It was fun at first, but we've had all the fun we can stand.

Spring has arrived, and the Southland is drying out. I finally got a few days of work in, and the stone is finished.

And here's the finished piece. 

 

 Stoneblossom.

 

 

Every one of my pieces has some quirky element to it, something sort of odd that just emerges as I work. The odd feature here is that while the form is quite simple, it defies all attempts to find a good angle from which to view it. 

 

 

Maybe put it on the turn table...

 Notes From The Hood (ornament)

 

Buick hood ornament

It has been another week of cold, crappy weather here in So Cal. The stone is  not far from completion.  It's a simple form. I need to do some more shaping on the inside of the cone, but for the most part, this is shape of the finished product. Here's where we left off some days ago. 

 

I have to wait until Spring gets here before I can get back to work. That should happen later this week. More rain is forecast for the next few days.

 

But, I found out some other interesting stuff, this week. 

Check this out:

I know. We've already seen this. I finished it back in November. But I learned some new stuff this last weekend, that I did not know before. If you'll recall, I based the carving on this photo that I  got from a bicycle forum:

The picture originally came from an ebay auction. The piece was identified as a "Schwinn Whizzer Fender Bomb."

 

Schwinn Whizzer

 Cushman Motor Scooter

(Couldn't find Whizzer, or Cushman pictures with a fender bomb)

Now, some of these pieces certainly found their way onto the front fenders of  Schwinn Whizzers, or Cushmans. But, it turns out that the Dart Torpedo Ornament was a popular after-market automotive accessory.

 

 

 (From the ebay auction)
NOS 1946 1947 Ford Torpedo Hood Ornament Acc, Cushman Fender Torpedo Rat Rod  Made in the 1950's in Jacksonville, Fl. by the Dart Engineering Company. 

 

1946 Ford Tudor Banner

 

 

 

Buick used this design on their late 1940's Roadmasters.

1949 Buick Roadmaster conv.

 

1949 Buick. Roadmaster

 So it turns out that I was missing some relevant information on the origins of this piece. I always figured that it was a Jet-Age symbol. The torpedo passing through the ring looks very much like this:

 

Jet plane breaking the sound barrier.

 

 But the sound barrier was broken in 1947 when Chuck Yeager flew the XS-1 over 700 miles per hour over Edwards Air Force Base in California. The torpedo was flying on Buicks like this one in 1946. So I was wrong about that as well.

1946 Buick Roadmaster

 

Ya' learn sumthin' new ev'ry day!

 

Long Strange Trip 

Eleven years of cruisin', and ten years as club

l to r: Penny, Dave, me, Jim, Russ, Troy
 

Just when we thought that this cold, wet winter was about over, another storm came in just in time to mess up the weekend, and make a miserable day out of our ten/eleven year anniversary ride. We had a break, yesterday, but it's Tuesday morning and we're sitting here waiting for another storm. Enough!

I got one day of work on the stone. As soon as there is some progress to show, I'll show it.

As I wrote last week, eleven years ago Mary and I set out to see if we could establish a monthly bike ride along the lines of the Cyclone Coaster group in Long Beach. A year later we founded RatRod Riders Bicycle Club of Southern California. Here's where I get all clever and say, "What a long strange trip it's been."

We started our first ride with a handful of people, most of whom we'd never see again. Attendance at the cruises grew, and our ride became a part of the "Outlaw Bicycle" scene. We founded the club just before the first Gathering of Outlaw Bicycle Clubs in Las Vegas in 2013, and returned to the event for the next six years.. The Gathering became the O.B.C., or One Big Club blanket organization. Over the last decade, the bike club scene has grown, and, of course,  changed.

 The clubs, and the group rides are still going strong, but the focus has shifted heavily into the one-off custom bike crowd. The builders come up with some incredible machines. 

photo, Renata Engles

 

The bicycle shows are getting as elaborate as the custom car or motorcycle exhibits. But the gatherings themselves are focused more and more on the showing, and gathering, and less and less on the actual riding. Too, most of the rides are short, a lot of people run "sound bikes" with loud music, and the cruises often feature long bar stops. 

Now, every one in the club does have a custom, a classic, or a stretch cruiser, but no one in the group likes bar drinking. As far as "sound bikes" go,  Look. it's not as though they're always awful, all the time. I'll admit to enjoying the heck out of hearing just the right tune at just the right time on a ride. But that doesn't happen very often. 

Our focus is riding, and truth to tell, the stretch bikes get old in fewer miles than the standard cruisers. We bring them out for the big rides every now and again, but mostly we've fallen back on doin' our own thing, as the hippies used to say. Our gig is pretty simple. Meet up, maybe catch a  buzz, or a beer, and put fifteen to twenty five on the fat tires, with a stop for lunch. 

We don't do bars, or sound bikes. We ride.  

Compared to the bike party scene we don't have much to offer other than some good bud, and long slow miles on the cruisers. As a consequence, attendance has fallen off. And we're fine with that. 

  What started as as a bike club has become something more akin to family. The Spanish word "Compadres" comes pretty darn close.

The Feral remnant. LtoR: Jim, Troy, (?), Dave, Russ Me, and Penny.