Working with a chip of alabaster to make myself a scarab beetle (with human face):
Busy Day
Just hung this piece (first showing) at a group show 1012 Coffee on Lawrence St in uptown Port Townsend, the work to the right is by Geralynn Rackowski, Kathy Panks, and Noa Piper:
Also made a trip out to Adelma Beach Road to buy a little stone suitable for carving! 60 lbs. of limestone and 50 lbs of alabaster! Now we have tools and stone; what more could we want? A bit more expertise :-), but that will come with practice. Stronger younger tendons & muscles would be nice too, but those are less likely to develop, I fear!
New Resin
I think this one gets the title “Flat Earth Society”…
The textured and colored backdrop is an acrylic box open in the back. I plan to add led rice lights in the box behind the figure, and to create a base (ground for the figure to stand on). And maybe extend the clear acrylic at the sides too, around the figure… all TBD.
Tools on order
Sealed and …
Starting in Stone
This bird is my first stone carving, chiselled from a 6″ x 6″ x 9″ block of nice soft uniform limestone; started & completed in the NWSSA beginners tent at Pilgrim Firs Stone Camp this week.
The stone camp was so much fun: the NWSSA stone camp beginners’ tent provided an amazing opportunity to try carving with great access to tools and knowledgeable sculptors! I highly recommend the experience. Also everyone was friendly, tried to make this introvert feel welcome, and the food & facilities were good.
My work is crude, but I am pleased with it: it relates back to an early monoprint success from 2008 shown here at left (lots of brayer work!). This fat “Bird with Fire” was accepted, and exhibited in the Collective Visions Gallery annual juried show in Bremerton.
My first concept of a two piece set of baby and parent bird (also a concept previously rendered in 2-D) was too ambitious for starting out, so has been deferred to acquisition of, and practice with, some power tools.
Unfortunately my hammer wrist took too much force toward the end: it is still swollen & sore 🙁 I could not stop chiselling for four & a half days straight. Clearly I need to work on my hammering technique in order to protect my aging body!
I started a second carving, which is more abstract, based on the concept of a rectangular block (where would that idea come from? :-)) wrapped or draped with twisty rope or cord. It may also evoke fossilized work casings in stone (limestone of course). This piece is still very much a work in progress. And you see here my fat baby bird in an earlier stage.
Rope Foils
Selfie
This selfie in plaster was so grim and ghastly that I took my carving tools to it before sharing it. It is so heavily altered about the mouth and more that is barely recognizable (a good thing!). Believe me, you will have a stressed and ugly expression making a plaster gauze face mask for the first time, even if you are not as old, wrinkled, fat & lumpy as I am! After reshaping & smoothing, I added the lines or threads: the matrix of my life 🙂
Poem Response
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 ~”
…………………………
- What color do you envision your thread?
- What does the matrix to which it is attached look like? How big? What is inside of it? Does it have color?
- Can you draw what you see in your mind’s eye of this matrix?
- How is the thread connected to you…… in your hand? or imbued thoroughly in your whole body and spirit. What color is the you holding the thread?
- Would you mind doing some drawings of these images and bringing them next Wednesday? I am going to try it myself and ask others to try embodying in art form these images, too.
Another
This is the result of yet another procrastination prior to tackling my studio cleanup (see the previous few posts). I added some ink to bring out the contrast and detail on this older print, and then started foiling the digital scan:
And these are foils of two prints from a foil covered collograph plate :-):
