Spring time is Sculpture moving time. Venues are making ready for their summer seasons. Moving heavy art is not for the feint of heart however. The Impacted Female got a new location this week, and during the installation at the Historical Museum in Tecumseh, MI we had a minor incident that brings a pause.  A truck lurched forward just as the sculpture cradle crested the ramp and it came down in a hurry. Fortunately it was lined up well and no one was hurt and no damage.The mind races for a bit at a time like this and then idols for a long time afterwards on the "could haves" and the dangers of what we are doing. this one went OK but their have been a few that cost me rework.   What if someone got injured? Yikes! Steady boys, don't be nervous, just stead boys.  The mind will idol on that 1/2 second every time I unload now, as it did for the rest of that day and on into the next.
Be careful out there.
Tj

From Art Serve Michigan! Great article on Tj

http://news.artservemichigan.org/2011/07/putting-art-first/
Great article by Katie Donavan

400 lbs of Light Weight Cement?

I was all ready for my first large cement casting, I had the ingredients, mold was prepped, armature welded up and materials measured out. Estimates on the surface area put the cement at about 225Lbs. So I started in on a Friday morning. One side complete by evening. The trick to concrete is to cast continuously , never letting the material reach full cure where you are going to add more. Saturday morning early I was casting side 2 and assembling components. Some breakage occurred, then an armature alignment issue, causing me to cut metal and remove the base rig. By dinner time I was exhausted but not done. A quick meal and back to this fight, to select a place at which I could stop for the night without leaving a major flaw in the cement work. By 3 AM the skin was all assembled and the armature welds figured out. My pre-measured ingredients were gone a long time ago. I’m now into my entire stash of stuff to get this monster finished. The weight grows. I realize I’m at about 340 lbs now.

Little things like lifting, positioning and rolling over an object of this size when it is still delicate pose quite a challenge. Just me and my modified engine hoist in the middle of the night maxed out to it’s highest lifting point is an eerie thing. I’m propping it up to get a new position on the lifting strap. It is dangerous and tentative. Jazz saxophone in the background is calming but the panic is immediate. Be quick before this heavy sucker shifts or falls. Tension and adrenaline into an old guy’s body already drained from two days of continuous lifting, mixing , stooping and calculating. Whew, back on the hook! Position achieved, next operation.

The shower and bed feels pretty good but is short lived. Sunday morning I am back to weld in the base armature, fill the core with foam and layer in my partitions and finally trowel off the bottom of this massive base.

At the end of the session I had over 400 lbs of material and 39 hours in three days.

How does it feel to see her standing complete, out of the mold? Decompressing and joyous. Now comes all the finishing, grinding and polishing, but not tonight. Tonight I drink and wonder what the …. Is the matter with me? Where are the studio assistants? Am I out of my mind? I like to sing a country song these days, “I ain’t as good as I once was, but I’m as good once as I ever was.”

Thanks,

Tj

(with a little Toby Kieth)

Spirit of a New Project

Last week I posted from my notes on how we obsess on things.

I’ve been reading Artist in His Studio by Lieberman, which looks at those famous guys from a hundred years ago in France. Almost all had a few antiques around, notably the (then) recently publicized African sculptures and Japanese prints. They were struggling with how to get the raw underlying spirit of nature and people into their expressionistic works. Most were ceaseless fanatics in the studio with intense discipline to paint or sculpt. (Giacometti’s brother took molds from his pieces at night because he never stopped working on them).

I’ve been focused on a full scale version of a complex piece, bouncing from camera to computer to tape measure to projector to calculator and wondering about the efforts.

In our times of commuting, computing, and machine interface, have we lost the ability to search for underlying spiritual condition? In our screen time we may watch the modern art forms of TV or Movies. There’s lots of focus here on the results of underlying spiritual condition (CSI, Criminal minds, vampire, murder, celebrity fixation and reality shows). If we spend a lot of time on the web it seems really removed into a tech blizzard.

It is my hope that I can cap the statements about the car culture fixation with this work. It is a tough undertaking. This week I studied casting and assembly methods and did armature design on the new piece. I am prepping the “Boomer’s Nike” for a rubber mold which will allow me to make the major components. The size and logistics are an intense study. All the while the non technical side of my brain is mulling the spiritual understatement that should emanate from this big composition. Can it truly indicate the speed at which we hurl through our world of cars and screens? Is it worthy of the time and materials I will consume to make it full scale? Should I be doing more human or nature focused pieces that speak more to the spirit? What is the spirit of our day? Is our machine interface and constant analysis making us spiritually cold? Can a car centric form speak to the spiritual condition? Could this be the end of the Car Impact work? It always seems like the last piece I’ll ever make when I get into a big project like this, and it should. How else can one create his best from his utmost?

Passion & Time

Here is a fun clip done from the GR show recently. I had a ball showing this piece, and it prompts me to think about real passion and time utilization. (click the pic after reading)

At a show or event you can obsess with your fellow buffs about authenticity, production statistics, industry lore, current trends, and of course- grouse about, and critique the stuff on either side of your position! Yes, organized events draw out the worship in great depth and magnitude. And these last two statements apply universally to any modern obsession; sports, guns, music, art, clothes, wine, you name it! We get so knowledgeable that we start to be indignant to the novice. Yes we can now compare how we rate on the "Snobometer" for all our passions, "On cars he is a 6, on beer a 7, but the guitar thing he is off the meter at 12!" How many passions can one person actually hold at once? And more importantly, what do all these hours of contemplation supplant in our lives?

In each pursuit we achieve goals, we acquire something new, we crest a hill only to note the mountain we couldn't see just beyond our conquest. On some items we finally realize the "minisculity" of our knowledge and capability and give up the striving. Or we back off burned out. At the end of a life what will remain? What did we find fulfilling? God designed each one of us with certain bents and passions that align with His way for us. Many poor substitutes supplant these perfect walks with Him where there is incredible peace and a pure satisfaction of life lived by the moment in the way we were created to be, with God. If you have never experienced this flow, ask Him to show it to you. At the end of the day the life of true joy is worth so much more than all the striving. For me it is doing a big sculpture for people to experience.

What's it for you?
Thanks-Tj

Ain't over till.......

Well it is true! It ain't over till the paperwork is done, or in this case the documentation. I'm now in the task of trying to get good clean images of this project put together in some fashion that tells the story concisely. But what a job! I'm spending a lot of my time and the time of other great artisans like Rob White on Photo shop, and Steve Goolian on Video to package the visuals from this installation. It's huge. The location was so cluttered that we are having to remove tons of junk from the backgrounds of the photos to let the piece come through. Funny how you never quite envision all the work it takes to do a project of this scale. But I'm slogging through and getting ready to use the documentation for new project applications. Sure will be nice to get back to the studio for some sculpture!

Aftermath

I new this day would come. There are pieces of the Car Chase all over the yard, the pad isn’t prepped for re-installation because I’ve found no cheap source for earth moving equipment and my budget is spent. The hunt is over, I ache from all the loading and moving and I’m not on the stage any more. Worse yet I need to generate basic operational funds so I will have to seek some kind of work, sheesh. I’ve got some big molds to do and the studio needs a remake to get it organized again, and it’s pretty cold outside. Winter is approaching, and I’m doing the Edmond Fitzgerald with an old guitar and a slide to commemorate the season.
Life is not a disaster but quite a bit more stark than last month in the sunshine. A lot of documentation to do to get the “CarChase” story usable for marketing efforts. The dazzle is over, the news teams are gone, the wind blows some debris across the drive and we plod forward into increasingly chilly winds.