These ruins were once homes: people lived here…
This is a cast “reproduction” of my stone carving “Blue Ruins”, a carved Bluestone paver. The paver is extremely hard, and required a lot of work with diamond power and hand tools. I polished some areas and left others rough.
The carved stone paver is darker in color and fairly uniform, but this cast is a lighter color with contrasting specks. I really like this effect.
For this photo shoot I added the face, cast in the same material. I may attach it permanently. The artistic warm lighting lighting at left is by digital effect, the right image (full and detail) was photographed with natural sunlight.
This is my third cast, and tinted to be most like the original shown beside it above. I have a plan for this one: I think it will find a home soon. It may get mounted on a print background in the wooden tray at left, but I am not quite sure yet about that part. I think that print is too busy and too distracting.
These are the first resin moon snail casts from my Moon Snail limestone carving, so I am excited!
I experimented with brushing in powdered pigment, in addition to adding pigment to the resin. This fast cure polyurethane resin is bright opaque white, so I added a little pigment to make a light warm grey throughout the first cast, and a lighter off-white on the second cast.
Brushing color into the mold is always an experiment, as you cannot see in advance how much color is collected by rougher surfaces of the mold, etc. I tried for a light touch with highlights, which is more difficult than a full surface coverage.
I was not satisfied with the results, which were too patchy and high contrast, so I brushed & rubbed additional colored powders directly onto both casts until I liked the result better. I used a clear matte acrylic spray to fix the color. This surface color is thin & susceptible to scratches, but then that’s art for you 🙂
I have offered the first one to a friend who may want to buy it. Her price is based on my rough estimate for the cost of materials… and this price is for friends only! But she may prefer to hold out for another material or different coloring. I do plan a few more casts, but will limit the number. Not sure about the size of the edition, but under 25, I think.
Preparing to cast my carved limestone MoonSnail. I think this mold is better, but I should reinforce the rigid mothermold: it is too thin on the sides! I have even remember to measure the volume I will need (3 cups) today, so the mold will be really dry tomorrow. I do plan to experiment a bit though: I can’t resist. I will mix two fillers plus pigment in my clear two part epoxy resin, and see what happens. I am hoping it will be opaque, or almost, and a bit stronger (due to chopped carbon fibers as one of the fillers).
Working on variations of an unfinished pastel:
Despite appearances the much modified print at left is the larger of the two, at 18″x12″. The print at right is only 11″x8.5″. I printed the smaller size accidentally due to a glitch somewhere in my Epson printer software, which sometimes fails to update both paper size and a separate setting for print size same as paper size!).
In both cases I printed my unfinished pastel drawing on a special Epson watercolor paper for inkjet, then worked further to make each a completed piece. The larger one on left, with the pink, is all pastel over the archival inkjet print. The smaller one has both colored pencil and a touch of pastel over the inkjet base.
The larger piece retains the softness of the original concept, with much more refinement and additional colors and shades. The pink evokes early morning or late evening light in the far north.
The smaller piece is darker, and has greater sharpness and detail. The blues are more predominant for a very different mood: perhaps early morning at a different time of year.
I hope to visit both of these in my dreams 🙂
When requested to come up with some visual imagery, my response today was verbal:
My Thread is a Rope
The thread I hold is a rope.
My thread is not a delicate silken floss,
Bright with color.
The thread that I hold onto is a rope:
Strong, dull, dun colored,
Dirty, encrusted with the juices of sixty-two years.
Years of living, struggling, crying
Laughing, making, and holding hands.
Tarred by many more years of history,
Family stories, memories not my own.
Some strands of this rope are loose,
Unraveled, untidy, adhering to people and things
Left along the way.
But the rope is strong: I can
Pull, and lean, and even hang limp
From this rope.
— Sandra
The original request came with a poem by William Stafford:
AN OPEN EXPERIMENT for anyone interested:
“The Thread
There’s a thread you follow. It goes among
things that change. But it doesn’t change.
People wonder about what you are pursuing.
You have to explain about the thread.
But it is hard for others to see.
While you hold it you can’t get lost.
Tragedies happen; people get hurt
or die; and you suffer and get old.
Nothing you do can stop time’s unfolding.
You don’t ever let go of the thread.
~ William Stafford ~”
…………………………
The Work Described:
Item 1, primary, a 3-D piece:
Two modest older three dimensional gentlemen, both a bit chubby, stand together in conversation on a narrow platform. They appear amused: one is clearly pleased & smiling, perhaps having just shared a joke or told a humorous story. The other listens, a bit bemused, but enjoying the moment.
The figures are realistic, but rustic & rough, with faded metallic surfaces.
They stand in front of a two dimensional galaxy of shooting stars, or perhaps it is a greenboard extensively marked up with complex curves & intersecting lines. The platform could be a station for some unspecified transportation system, or it could be a strip of beach. It is dotted with odd dark elongate half dome “boulders” that on close inspection appear to be weather worn: multi-colored, with shallow fissures, and lumps. The surface of the platform has a hard to see design: it takes a very close look to find the two figures stand on a row of dark strange faces…
Item 2, secondary, digital photography:
This photo of a mixed media sculpture, taken in late afternoon light that is almost orange in tone, casting long deep shadows. The light from the left illuminates and shines through scratched & broken sections of acrylic onto three concrete figures standing in a conversational group among an unusual assortment of objects. Is this odd scene a sculpture park? Who are these people & why are they here?
The lighting is dramatic. While the left side of the photo is so bright as to be nearly white, the far right is the dark side: sharp black shadows of the figures are thrown up against a dark background lit up to a deep orange and patterned with a spider’s web of shadow created by the “wall” of cracked scratched acrylic.
Item 3, tertiary, mixed media based on a lino cut print:
Two rather mysterious softly outlined figures, a man and a woman, stand together amid a whirl of leaves and rippled lines: the air currents are as visible as the figures or the leaves which fly loose from the tree at left. The figures are transparent, gentle, & ghostlike; they stand barefoot on or in an area of soft brightness that is more cloud than ground. The colors are soft, the tones are dark greenish black, soft yellow to a peachy or coppery color. The print shows the texture of the thick paper.
The Work Selection:
My selection of work for Flotsam & Jetsam was not based on extended consideration: there was not very much time to choose once we decided to change our work for a March show.
And I was so pleased with my new metallic look resin figures that I wanted to show them off.
I liked the idea of sharing my newest figures with others. And I liked the challenge of getting my new piece properly mounted & complete for the show (although the timing for completing the presentation along with my commitment to cook a RW Monday dinner was terrible!!!).
The other two pieces were selected to be compatible with my newest Conversation (number VI).
