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?