Author Archives: Tom Harold

The Great Cut Out ’08!

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It’s the second year running.  Last year it was thirty.  This year it’s (almost) sixty.  Six.  Zero.  There will be sixty jack o’ lanterns on my front lawn this Hallow’s Eve.  How has this come about?  Glad you asked, as have many other people.

A few years ago I got some not-quite-random email from the good folks at my Kodak photo site.  It was just one of those festive things detailing photo ideas for the coming season, but the lead photo in the email was composed of about six jack o’ lanterns gleaming, grinning, and snarling in the darkness.  I don’t remember anything else about the message, but the image stuck in my head.  “That’s pretty sweet, man.  I want to do something like that.”

A year or so passed.  I think that year I did do four pumpkins, just because I thought it would be fun.  The next year I slacked off and did only two.  It was fun, but I really liked having more.  A lot more.

The next year rolled around, and I started talking about this idea.  “I should have a bunch of pumpkins, a bunch of jack o’ lanterns this year,” I told a friend.
“That’s cool.  You mean, like, five or six?”
“No, like…twenty.”
“Twenty?!  How are you going to carve all those!”
“I don’t know, but it would be cool, right?”
“Yeah, it would be really cool.”

Having thusly convinced myself of the coolness of my idea, I formed a plan: get lots of pumpkins.  It was a loose plan, I’ll give you that, but it was a plan just the same.  Eventually I fleshed it out some more, found a place that would give me a deal on thirty (somehow the number went higher – go figure), and had a bunch of people come over and carve, and carve, and carve.  It was a big success, and before I’d even lit candle one I had people encouraging me to do it again next year with even more.  After looking at the resulting photos, I couldn’t argue.  Thirty was superfab, but by taking two photos and placing one above the other, it was easy to see that sixty, or even ninety(!) would be better.

Having the wrath of gourd instilled in me from the previous year’s efforts, I decided that I’d “take it slow” this year and only double the amount.  (This is taking it slow?  Honestly?  Um, okay.)  So it was that I arranged, with the wonderful cooperation of my loving and helpful parents, to have them pick up sixty orange victims from the patch nearby their home.

They purchased them on Friday the 16th, and mom brought them down the next day in dad’s pickup.  Behold the orangey goodness:

Mom gives ’em a good scrub as we unload them.

Here they are all unloaded on my front porch, patiently awaiting their fate.  Holy crap that’s a lot of pumpkins!  Can I really pull this off??  (Yep, there are actually 61.  They threw in an extra in case one was bad in the batch.)

On Saturday folks began arriving sometime around 1pm.  My folks went straight to work (well, my mom actually made mulled cider and dusted things and cleaned up first.  She was great!)

Here is some of my faithful crew from last year, back at it just as enthusiastically this year.

Time was taken out from the busy schedule to make sure my nephew received some tickling by grandpa.

At the end of the day on Sunday, despite the efforts of my wonderful friends, I still had 26 pumpkins left!  I did four of them myself Monday, then rallied on Tuesday morning and sent out the emails: Please come for carving tonight!  It worked.  I have such great friends!  Andrew even returned from his stint on Saturday for a rematch with the gourds.
 

Goo, carving, markers, cutters, Coke.  I did supply bubbly caffeine.  Surprisingly, most people seemed to run on pure creative energy.

All Hallow’s Eve eve, and look what we have…three in the left front corner not carved even after the flurry of activity Tuesday night!  Where’s my marker!  My cutter, posthaste!

10/30/08 11:00pm  Ladies and gentlemen, it’s a go.  Sixty (okay, sixty-one) pumpkins carved!

Tonight is gonna be sweet!

Artist Date #7: Children’s Museum – Art Glass, Rhoads Sculpture, Comics

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I’ve had my mind on the Children’s Museum of Indianapolis for quite some time.  They have a rolling ball sculpture there that was the genesis for all my sculpture madness at present, plus they have an exhibit on vintage comic books.  One or the other alone would have gotten me out of the house, but with both it was a sure thing that somewhere in this twelve weeks that is The Artist’s Way I would have found a way to make it there for an Artist Date.

When you first step into the main part of the Children’s Museum, you come face to face with this enormous art glass sculpture.  At 43 feet, the sheer size of it is impressive.  It’s the largest permanent installation of blown glass anywhere.  My friend works at the museum, and I joked with her once about how they clean the thing.  She replied rather seriously, “Oh, they have a crew that comes in and does it regularly.”

It weighs 18,000 pounds, and took over 14 days to install 4,800 pieces of glass to build it.  You can get some idea of the intricacy of the whole thing with this closeup.  An assembly photo at the site showed the blown glass pieces being slide onto metal stakes that protruded from a central metal column.  The scope of this project is astounding – makes me want to try something!  (Um, like maybe carving sixty pumpkins for Halloween?)

I’ve mentioned this in previous blogs, but my current (and quite possibly eternal) fascination with rolling ball sculpture was sparked by a trip I made to the Children’s Museum about five or so years ago.  I went with my nieces and their mom, my older sister.  It was really just a trip to have fun.  I didn’t have anything in mind, except I always personally liked the science exhibit.  My niece Abby was extremely excited that “We’re gonna make a boat!”  The boat turned out to be a few pieces of that styrofoam like they use for meat packing trays, and we taped it together with some straws.  I admire the mind of a child for thrilling in such simple pleasures.  Honestly, she made it seemed like we were about to construct a battle cruiser with working weaponry and a functional engine room. 

When we entered the area of battleship/foam raft construction my eyes came upon one of the most fantastic things I’d ever seen in my entire life:

The George Rhoads rolling ball sculpture, Science in Motion.  Incidentally, you won’t find any of that information readily available anywhere near the exhibit itself.  There is this:

But you have to look for that to find it.  I didn’t even notice it, and the sign next to the exhibit says that it’s a “Rube Goldberg ball machine” or something like that, and that it’s in operation thanks to…individuals or some company which escapes me.  I was actually bummed that it didn’t mention George or any of his other work.  That befuddles me somewhat.  He’s a pretty well-known kinetic sculptor.  (I found out what I know about it by doing multiple internet searches, and finally exchanging emails with one of Rhoads’ staff members.)

Be that as it may, at the time I wasn’t concerned quite so much with its origin.  I was more amazed that such a thing actually existed.  I hadn’t seen anything like it in recent memory, and it just reached out and grabbed 100% of my attention.  There was so much to it that appealed to me: 


1. Its inherent sense of fun and playfulness.  It said, “Behold!  I am a machine upon which much time was spent in construction so that I may perform the extremely important task of…being entertaining!  Woohoo, I am a machine for fun!  Watch me!  Play with me!”  Children need no encouragement whatsoever to grab and twist the knob that imparts action onto the long, pale blue screw lift for this portion of the sculpture.

2. The fact that such great care and attention to detail went into it.  Bending the wire alone had to have taken much patience and forethought.  Add to that the fact that certain moving elements of the sculpture required their own specific exacting calculations.  In the picture above, for instance, you can see a green wire basket to the left.  Notice the ball falling into it?  Notice also that there is a metal pad at the lower middle of the frame.  The ball has just finished leaving the track, bounced (with a fabulous *gong!* I might add) off of that square purple pad, and landed perfectly inside the wire basket.  Who spent time figuring all that out?!?!  To catch a moving ball?!  Brilliant!

3. The creativity.  Look below at the number of different elements the sculpture employs.  This sculpture is not just about balls rolling here and there on some fancifully bent rails.  Numerous different devices were created to manipulate the billiards in interesting ways.

A. Bell-ringing tipper arm: At the back of the sculpture you see the yellow bell.  Swinging away from it is a mallet on an arm, and at the top of the mallet arm we see that there is a billiard being carried from an upper track to a lower track by the arm.  Once it reaches the lower track it will fall free, the arm will swing back, and the bell will be rung.  A serious bell-ringing apparatus!

B. Ball-collecting tipping arm: As the billiards come in on the track at the upper left they fill a catchrail that is balanced so that it points upward on its fulcrum.  Once enough balls collect on the catchrail, however, the arm tips downward, emptying all five balls at once onto a lower track.  The result is a delightful train effect of balls chasing each other down the track.

C. Corkscrew: The balls chase each other from the catchrail and race down this corkscrew in a visual and auditory flurry.  Colors and noise!  Bring it!

D1. Music and Motion, Chimes: Here a set of flat, tuned metal chimes are suspended so that they form the base of the track for the balls.  If you look toward the right you can make out the blurred ball racing over them, and you’ll notice the chimes are hanging at angles as they are rung during its passage over them.

D2. Music and Motion, Wood Blocks: Here you can just make out a white billiard tripping the first of three forks that protrude up between the track rails into the path of the ball.  As a fork is pushed down, the sounding arm rocks back, after which it most naturally swings back and gives the wood block a satisfying little *thock*!  The mallet heads on the end of the sound arm?  Golf balls.  I love the use of so many different objects!

E. Interacivity: In both photos above you can see how portions of the sculpture can be manipulated by viewers.  In the first one a girl raises a ball that is caged in a chute of stout metal bars.  The billiards collect at the bottom, and they will not continue along that portion of the sculpture unless they are moved by hand.  Children have a great time lifting them to the next level and sending them on their way.

In the second photo there is a tilting green lift that is operated by a knob turned by hand.  As shown here the knob is being turned by a young boy and the lift has reached its full height and is realeasing a ball onto the track above it.

F. Displayed laws of physics: Newton’s law of motion is shown here.  Three balls remain at rest on this particular dip in the track.  When a new ball comes along at the left it smacks the other three, and the one to the right takes off, sending another ball along, but always leaving three behind.

F2. Motion and rest: This one is a harder to see, but in the rectangle there are no downward angles.  All rolling surfaces are tracks, though the corners have angled pieces to encourage a rolling ball to continue its journey.  The balls enter at the top and are forced to go either right or left by a wedge placed below the point of entry, and they zig-zag their way from the end to the middle where they drop down to the next level.  They don’t have a lot of momentum, so sometimes they end up coming to rest as you see two of them doing in the lower right corner.  Eventually one ball will come along that will have enough juice that it will smack a few around and send them down.  It’s a little unnerving to watch, because you want them all to go RIGHT NOW!  Doesn’t work that way, I’m afraid.  It’s a bit of lazy motion on this one, and patience is required.

G. Active track splitters: There are a number of active splitters on the track, and this pendulum is a very simple one.  One moving part.  Balls come along often enough that they keep the pendulum swinging.  It has a post at its top center point, seen just to the left of the arriving ball in this photo.  This ball will be prevented from rolling to the left by the post, and when the pendulum swings back it will tilt over and roll the ball to the left.

H. Track splitters without moving parts: How can you possibly make a ball choose a right or left course without using some machinery to guide it?  When the balls fall from the upper track, they aren’t forced to go one way or another.  The landing area is basically flat.  When the balls fall down they run into each other and are forced to go one direction or the other without employing any outside forces to direct them along a certain path.  Here you can see the striped ball is being forced off to the right by the presence of the green one already sitting below it.  I like this trick in particular, as it induces an action without adding any more machinery to the sculpture itself, simplicity of design in action.

I. Automation: I’m a gearhead for certain.  Nothing like having a little electrical motor powering up a chain lift!  The sculpture contains two separate runs, each with multiple tracks.  This run is completely motor-driven, so it will continue with its operation even if no one is around.  Its motion attracts people who can then activate the hand-powered run.

J. Track Variety: Not all of the track is made up of steel rail.  This portion incorporates pieces of metal U-channel down which the ball drops.  Not only is it fun to watch it change direction at sharp angles, there’s also plenty of thunking going on as it drops from one section to the next.

Here is a final end view of the sculpture.  It’s fully encased by plexiglass, which is a good thing, because kids pretty much just want to bang on it when they see it, which you gotta take as a good sign.  If they gave it the once over and walked away?  Not so good.  It’s nice to see people want to be a part of what they are seeing, even if it’s along the lines of “Hey!  Move!  Go!”  There was plenty of laughing, giggling, ogling and grabbing going on at the Rhoads sculpture. 

I just basically stared at it for over an hour.  I’m very grateful that such a source of inspiration is so readily available to me.  Even though some of the mystery was gone compared to the first time I saw it (now I know how some of the designs are accomplished), that doesn’t mean I enjoyed it any less.  I took away another completely new set of experiences that will surely provide inspiration and motivation for my future sculpting efforts.  I so can’t wait to get another one completed!

There was still some time left before the museum closed, so I headed over to the comics exhibit.  Along the way I swung by the merry-go-round and snapped some pics using a slow shutter speed.

I used to love to ride on this thing when I was a kid.  It used to be outside at a park that is not far from my house.  For many years there was a ring of concrete still in place at the park marking where it had been years ago.  I’m amazed that it survived and could be restored years later.  It makes me a little wistful for times past.  My dad has told me on a number of occasions about various amusment parks that used to be around the city.  We had roller coasters, boat rides, carousels.  He even has a few old photographs of some of the rides before they were torn down.  Kind of sad that we don’t have them anymore.  My city has obviously gone through many changes in its lifetime.

I had to stop off at the comics exhibit, seeing as how I spent a short period of time collecting them in grade school.  I was an X-Men fan, but you cannot deny the allure of a superhero of any stripe.  Since I’ve started fooling around with drawing again, I’m also interested in the art aspect of things.

Batman’s Batmobile has changed markedly over the years.  Personally, I’ve always been fond of the original, seeing as how it was a Barris custom creating, and I believe morphed from what was originally a Ford Thunderbird.  If memory serves, it was put on the dragstrip once, and it had so much metal in it from the customizing procedures, it managed a rather miserable elapsed time.  Guess that’s why the rocket was added in back.  My favorite feature on this latest edition is the set of Hoosier front tires.  That’s right, the Caped Crusader rides on tires straight outta the Heartland.

It’s the real cape!  The real one from the TV show!!!  Sweet!  If I put this thing on, I’d have to try and scale a wall or right some sort of wrongdoing.  Maybe I’d just hang out in the Batcave and let the Boy Wonder handle the tough stuff.

Unforunately, I arrived late, and they were shutting off the light tables for the Draw a Superhero activity.  No way!  I wanted to draw!  Oh well, maybe next time. 

The Artist’s Way talks about the need to “refill the well” of creativity by experiencing new things to spark your imagination.  Thanks to this trip, I certainly have a store of things to draw from the next time I sit down to create.

New Name Sign: Genevieve

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I finished another name sign, this one by request for my bud Genevieve.  I actually finished it over a week ago, but I delayed revealing it here until she received it in the mail.  Observe the results of my toil:

The letters were colored with good ol’ Crayola markers (both Classic and Bold Colors, if you must know).  The outline of the words and the background were all done with Crayolas, but these were of the waxy variety.  These “old school” markers are often referred to as crayons.

That “G” was kind of fun, but took freakin’ forever.  I squiggled the red into it and immediately went, “Why did I do that?  There’s no way I’m going to color in all those little circles I just made.”  I decided to at least go around the squiggles with the dark blue, but almost immediately I started coloring them in anyway, couldn’t stop myself from doing it.  I think it ended up being a two-hour process.  Here’s to determination with magic markers!  (Shouldn’t this say something overwhelmingly positive about my attention to detail and ability to stick with a task?)

Now I have to draw a giant bee for Melissa.  It’s been decades since I last drew giant insects, and most of those were destroying tiny cities and shooting lazers from their antennae.  I’m not sure how this one will turn out!

Artist Date #6: Melting at the Gathering

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On Wednesday night I was seated with all my critique group friends getting ready to start for the evening.  We were going over some pre-meeting pleasantries, and the group leader speaks up and says, “And don’t forget!  This Saturday is the annual Gathering of Writers here at the Arts Center.  We have 76 people signed up for so far, which is more than we’d hoped for.  Robert Owen Butler will be the keynote speaker, and we’ve got some great workshops as well.  It’s fifty dollars, and it should be a lot of fun.”

Oh, crap.  This was it.  I knew it.  The next New Thing I Should Try.

“Um, what time does that start?” I asked.
“It starts at 8:30am and goes until, I think, five.”

Just great – it doesn’t even interfere with anything I already have planned!  How am I supposed to try and avoid it if it doesn’t conflict with anything!

“Hmmm…maybe I should try and do that,” I said. 

The following morning I sat and stared at the sing-up screen on my computer.  Fifty bucks.  That expenditure was easy to justify, and it was only a single day.  Would I learn enough?  Would a day even help?  In order for me to improve as a writer, wouldn’t I need, like, a week?  Wouldn’t I need to sequester myself into some commune in the woods with no internet or phone access and discover my true self with a bunch of other neurotic author wannabes?  Sure I’d put a note on my fridge early this summer about wanting to go to the Iowa Writer’s Conference, and sure I couldn’t afford the time or money, but was this what I should be doing instead.

A little voice somewhere inside me, which is probably me, but seems far smarter than Usual Me, spoke up at that point.  “Fifty bucks, one day, and it’s a three minute drive from your house.  You’ve been wanting to go to a writer’s conference for a year.  The only way this could get ANY easier is if they offered to hold it in your house for free.”  

I signed up.

Saturday morning brough with it one of those blessedly gorgeous fall days that define the beauty that is the Midwest.  As I was parking my car, a woman, looking for the correct place to park, asked if I was attending the writing conference.  “Yes.  Yes, I am,” I replied, and then I thought, ‘Holy crap!  I am!  I’m doing this!’

Inside I got signed up, picked up all my materials, and noted the placement of the all-important coffee service.  I didn’t get to it for several minutes, however, because I became involved in a conversation with several other attendees, only one of which I’d ever met previously.  In the middle of it all I went, “Weird.  I’m having a very enjoyable conversation with other writers!  Writers I don’t even know!  And we’re all hung up about how we’re doing as writers and what we hope to learn!  And I’m enjoying this!”  There were lots of exclamation points in my head.  These were important thoughts.

The keynote speaker, Robert Owen Butler, gave us an hour about how we should forget everything we know, and write from the heart.  We needed to write two hours a day if we wanted to really get with it, really be serious about making good writing happen.  I was curious, a bit fearful, skeptical, and doubtful.  I don’t write two hours a day.  I don’t know where I’d find the time.  If I did (and I’m sure I could if I really, really put my mind to it), this would pretty much mean I didn’t do anything else, at least not during a work week.  Was I not serious?  Did I not really want it?  Was I not a real writer? 

I decided to leave all that unanswered for the time being.  I was not going to stop writing, but I wasn’t going to start killing myself trying to do exactly everything he said.  It worries me though, this two-hour daily dedication.  I know that applying yourself to a creative pursuit takes a self-induced repetitive regimen, and Butler was not the first one to drive that point home.  Stephen King’s book On Writing also notes that he spends a ton of time at the keyboard.  “If you want to write, you have to write.  A lot.”  That’s not a direct quote, but it’s pretty much the gist of what both gentlemen were saying.  I sat there still feeling the joy of my recently completed rolling ball sculpture, and wondered what the hell I was doing correctly, if anything.  I’ll just keep up with all of this stuff and see where it leads.  After all, writing a little bit is a lot more writing than none at all.

Following the keynote speech I attended a class on grant writing and then one on plotting for murder mysteries and thrillers.  I can now write a grant proposal that will keep you hanging onto the edge of your seat wondering who killed the starving artist.

After lunch my first afternoon class covered Finding Your Voice.  While it did outline some helpful strategies for getting started if you were totally blocked as a writer, overall I didn’t feel it helped me out too much.  I was also slightly disturbed by the leader’s admission that she had “a lot of unfinished stuff.  I start a lot of things, but don’t finish much, so that’s my new effort now.”  I was hoping to find my voice, not my unfinished manuscripts. 

So far the day had been largely positive.  It was fun to hustle from room to room between workshops, nodding hello to other writers, and gathering with a group of strangers who all shared the same purpose.  The classes were even in different buildings, so hurrying from one to the other felt like being in college again.  My mind felt younger, and I recalled that rush I had when I first went off to school and it seemed like everything was possible, which is important for me to remember.  Having the feeling of possibility is what makes stuff happen.  If it cost me fifty bucks and all I got was that, I’d still be money ahead.

I was looking forward to the final workshop, Fictionalize Your Own Experience.  I was thinking of my experiences in the world of hot rodding, of being in a band, of racing my motorcycle at Bonneville.  These experiences are a little unique, and I’ve always hoped I could bring something different to my writing by somehow incorporating some of those elements, or at least the feelings I’d experienced through them.  I’d hoped I could learn how to do some of that in this class.

We met in the printmaking room of the arts building, pulling our mismatched chairs around a table scarred from the multitudes of cutting blades that had been pulled across it.  This class was going to contain some writing exercises, we were informed.  After a short rustling, we sat, pens and paper poised, awaiting our cue.  The leader paused, smiled, and spoke.  “Write about a woman stealing at Walmart.  The woman is your grandmother.”

Um…oh crap.  This is not what I was expecting.  This is not my experience!  I don’t have any shoplifting history (okay, that one time at Kroger when I got nabbed after suddenly deciding that lifting a candy bar would be “fun,” but that’s it!).  And while my grandmother was tight as hell and wouldn’t pay 89 cents for a bag of jellybeans, because “That’s too much!” she sure as hell wouldn’t steal it.  What do I do with this?!?

“Try to fictionalize your grandmother as this woman who is stealing,” the leader explained, suddenly seeming like much more of a writer than my humble self.

Ah, I see.  Well, that’s tough, but I came to be challeged, didn’t I?  I can do this!  I scribbled and scratched.  I came up with a fictitious person who had some characteristics of my grandmother, but was quite different in a few ways.  It took me a few minutes, to mentally get there, and we only had ten total.

“Okay, let’s see what we have,” I heard.  Damn.  Only four sentences.

Readings were called for.  A couple of women offered theirs and read.  On the third query, I raised my own.  I was not going to let this thing beat me.  The only way to get this was to confront it head on.  I read my four lines aloud.  They sounded very short.

“What did the woman look like, Tom?”
“Oh, um, I don’t know.  Just…glasses…gray hair.  I, ah, I guess I’m not too good with description,” I finished, managing a bit of a smile.
“Okay.  That’s fine.  Does anyone have some description in their events?” 

Hands went up.  People read.  Descriptions followed.  Oh well, maybe not my strong suit.

“Now do a description of this same woman getting caught, and add a character trait to her that your grandmother didn’t have.”

Aww…Argh!   More of this?!  How-what-argh!

I sat there for ten minutes, trying to come up with something.  How do I describe this woman?  What are words for kinds of coats beyond color?  What does her face look like?  What are her hands like?  Do I have any vocabulary AT ALL?!?!?!?!?!?!

I managed four sentences again.  One of them was just standard dialog.  Collectively, they kind of sucked.

“Tom, would you like to read yours?” 
I declined.  “My description isn’t very good.”
Other people read.  Description seemed to be bountiful.  It filled the room except for the apparent descriptical vaccum chamber that surrounded my head.

“This time, write a scene in which a person is steppping onto an elevator.  As the person steps on, he or she notices another couple engaged in some sort of playful physical affection, and notices that one of them is a person he or she had an affair with some time in the past.  Make the person stepping onto the elevator out of a friend of yours.”

I sat and stared at my paper.  I could hear scribbling all around me.  No scribbling noises emanated from the vicinity of my fingertips.  I didn’t have friends who would get involved in something like that, did I?  How do you write that?  What are they wearing?  How would someone feel?  What would they feel?  Why would they even care – it’s ancient history?  How do I write this!

I wouldn’t be beaten.  I could do this somehow.  I could.  I stared.  My mind whirled around and around.  I was very conscious of the prosaic excellence that was most assuredly going on around me.  One of the women in the room was in my critique group.  She was writing up a storm.  Surely it was something good.  I put pen to paper and, “The doors to the elevator opened, and Janet was met with the sight of a couple nuzzling and giggling inside.  She let her long, dark hair fall across her face before the two could look at her, and quickly stepped inside and turned to face the front.”

“Let’s see what we have.”

Two.  Two sentences.  Great. 

A number of people read.  They were masterworks of literary triumph!  I stared at my two sentences.  As each reader finished, the leader looked around the group for another.  I avoided her eyesight.  No way.  No way was I going to be called on.

“Tom?  Would you like to read yours?”  Something inside me got very tight.
“I – I only got two sentences,” I smiled weakly.
“Can you read them?”
“There’s nothing there.  Like, the elevator doors open and she gets on.  That’s all I got.”  I was allowed to pass, but discouragement stayed.

“For the final exercise, take a person you know and give them a different trait from another person you know.  Try to make this trait as different as possible from the main person.  Create a situation where they are confronting someone of authority.”

Machinery ground together, but nothing moved.  I was totally locked up.  As writing went on around me, I steamed, fretted, and didn’t write.  How do you put two people together like that?  How can you make someone act a way they would never act?  What – ?

I scribbled desperately.  “‘So what do we have to do to fix this?’ Bob asked.”

“Okay, who wants to read?”

One.  One sentence.

Mercifully, I wasn’t called on.  We listened to others read their examples, and each one seemed to hammer home the fact that I had no clue whatsoever what I was doing.  Why was I at this conference?  Did I think I was a writer?  Why did I think that?  It was plainly obvious I was lacking in basic skills.  Why did I even show up?

After receiving some overall instruction, the lead acknowledged that it was a tough set of exercises, and that she usually performed the same set during a four hour long class as opposed to our fifty minutes.  I ignored that largely.  I gathered my things and headed off to the panel discussion on publishing.  Why, I didn’t know, because I certainly was in no shape to have anything of mine published.  I couldn’t even describe what an old woman who’s shoplifting looks like.  However, as with Masterpiece in a Day, I was determined to stick it out.  I was not going to leave until I’d attended all the events.  That was my goal, and I was sticking to it, sucky writing or not.

I sat down in the conference hall, and another writer took his seat next to me.  He’d either recently gotten some good news, or was just in a pleasant mood that day, as he was a bit talkative.  I, having just been pulverized in a fifty-minute workshop, was not.

“So, do you want to exchange manuscripts?” he asked.
“Not today,” I answered, eyes staying trained on the largely empty stage in front of us where nothing was happening.
“I’ve only got twenty-five copies in my car!” he smiled.  I said nothing.  A minute or two later he moved one seat away from me.

As the panel went on, I cooled somewhat, or maybe I warmed up a little again.  I listened to Tom Chiarella talk about getting published with Esquire.  I listened to an agent discuss how to present story ideas, and in the process hand off a compliment on an idea from that same girl who’d been scribbling up a storm in my previous, humiliating workshop.  I couldn’t be too mad.  It was an excellent idea.

As the panel ended, I split.  I still wasn’t feeling chatty.  Besides, I had my NaNoWriMo group was meeting in half an hour.  I didn’t want to be late for talking about November’s novel challenge, especially since coffee would be involved.  I might have smiled a bit at the realization that, while I’d felt humiliated a mere hour beforehand, I was now eagerly darting off to a meeting of writers. 

At the meeting, conversation turned to my conference attendance.
“How’d that go?” one of my NaNo compatriots asked.
I smiled, “It went pretty well, really.  I had a great time.  Totally melted on this one exercise though!  It was this descriptive exercise, and my brain locked up completely.  Apparently, I’m terrible with description in a story setting, which means I should never be a writer,” I paused and smiled, “which I am now describing…while sitting in a meeting with a group of writers.  Yeah, it’s obviously turned me off of writing for life!”

Masterpeace in a Day(s) – Complete!

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Well, my friends, my companions, my lovely readers, it has happened.  At long last, after a rough start at Masterpiece in a Day, after subsequent hours of slaving away over my dining room table, after several burned fingers, noticeable neck pain, some frustration, occasional doubt, moments of elation, quite a few ounces of burnt propane, who knows how much solder, much vacuuming of the floor and table, a bowl of spilled water, and the stripping of sixty feet of house wire, it’s done.  Done!

I took several in-progress photos along the way, and though I though of posting them, I was really much more concerned with finishing the darn thing, so they haven’t made it up until now.  Here we go!

Previously, I believe all I’d shown you was the spiral itself, the largest element of the sculpture.  At the time, however, the poor thing just lay there on the table and looked a little forlorn, if not kinda neat.  The evening of September 30th was huge, because the project finally grew legs!  I remember being particularly excited about this stage, because I was finally able to place a marble on the thing and have it function in a manner somewhat resembling its form.  I was very pleased to find that the marbles did in fact roll on it as I wanted.  (This stuff is never a certainty, as I’ve learned from reading about others’ efforts on the interwebz.)  Oh, and see that little coil?  Remember that one.  It shows up later – kinda.

Following “Leg Day,” as I like to think of it, there seemed to be only one way to go, and that way was indeed up.  I needed to be able to test the rest of it as I went, and I couldn’t do that so well until I had a starting ramp.  The ramp would determine the speed of the marbles, and upon that I would be basing the rest of the design.  I kind of freaked out at this point.  There were moments of deliberation and procrastination.  I tweaked the spiral some more.  I looked at the legs to see if they were really properly affixed.  I goofed with the exit point below the spiral to make sure it would hypothetically actually really work – and then I had to look at it all again and go, “Aw, crap.  I’ve done well!  I have to do the ramp now!” 

I really had no idea how high to make it or how steep I could bank it.  I was afraid that, either the marbles would be too slow, and wind up just stopping on the spiral, or that they’d be too fast, and I’d get to watch as they repeatedly launched, one after the other, onto the floor.  In the end I could do only one thing: build it and trust it would work out.  This is the part where I quite literally said, “I will take care of the quantity while some Higher Power takes care of the quality.”  I really did feel it was out of my hands, though mine were the ones doing the work.  I kind of went slowly with it and just did a few tests here and there, but I think I got really lucky and nailed about 80% of the design right off the bat.  Still, it took a lot of work.  That little ten-inch rise of copper?  That took me at least one evening, maybe two by the time it was completely finished with the big swoopy support on it.  Glorious it was when the marbles rolled off the end of the ramp and spun around without flying off into space or dragging to a halt!

 You can also see in this photo the beginnings of the lower track going together.  I was working on a series of S curves at this point.  I had the initial design completed, and was clamping them in place and checking what areas needed to be tweaked.  Much tweaking was involved.  I remember that bending one wire of the S took about two hours, and I thought I was cooking along.  The second one I figured would go faster.  It didn’t.

Here is a shot from above, and you can see that some of the track below is not complete enough in form that I was able to solder connecting joints to it.

Here’s a side view during the same period of progress.  You get a better idea of the swoopiness of the lower curves.  Those were pretty fun to design.  I had to get them banked right, because the marbles were reacting to changes in direction in such a small space, that making them flat would have just thrown them all over the floor.  I really do enjoy that part of these sculptures, the graceful curves that kind of sail out there and make the marbles seem to effortlessly follow the track.  Not such an easy trick, kids, but so rewarding when it works.

And now, the moment every one of us has been waiting for:

Ta-da!  CHECK IT OUT!  Isn’t that cool?!?!?!?!?!  I can’t believe I actually finished the darn thing!  Remember that little coil I pointed out earlier?  I’d planned to use it as it was originally formed, but since the marbles weren’t really ever going fast enough to be held inside it by inertia, I reformed it, took out a couple of loops, and made it into the small spiral that runs around the leg of the tripod.  That part took some doing, as I had to reform it several times so that the marbles would just barely clear the leg when they spun around the inside of it.  The final straightaway ended up with a rise in it to slow the marbles a bit, and then I threw in the J-turn, because I had enough extra wire already cut, and it seemed kind of a shame to just have them speed out of the little spiral and then just smack to a halt at the end of a straightaway.  The track was all done on Sunday, October 13th, (and there was much rejoicing – “Yay!”).  I even showed it to my sister’s family Monday night, but the final bits of bracing took some hours to complete.  It was very wobbly before that.  You can see them at the curves of the S, and then there’s a very small one that’s hidden from view at the base of the small spiral.

The sculpture, which should probably be called Masterpeace, has now made a whirlwind tour of southern Indianapolis, downtown, one bar at 96th and Meridian, Carmel, Indiana, and Avon, Indiana.  Overall it’s been a pretty big hit.  I figure if a kid keeps staring at it like it’s television, I’ve done something right!  Happily, adults seem to be about as entranced, making me feel like not so much of an idiot for repeatedly rolling marbles down it and grinning like a tot.

I feel pretty good about sticking with this whole thing.  The rewards of persuing it to completion after my disappointment at Masterpiece in a Day are hard to put into words. 

Ah, now there’s that other unfinished one that I started before this one.  Time to get back to work!

Artist Date #5: Savage Grace

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Saturday morning, and my heels have hardly cooled from my most recent Artist Date for week four from the previous night.  I’m talking with a group of friends, and someone speaks up.  He says, “A lot of you know that I lost a son in an automobile accident two years ago.  I won’t be able to make this event, but some friends of mine are involved in an art exhibit Monday night in Broad Ripple featuring paintings from women who are using art as a way to work through their grief after having lost their children.  The women will be there to speak about their paintings.  I just wanted to let anyone know who might want to attend.  It will be a pretty powerful showing.”

I believe that one of the key values in art is its ability to allow us to feel our feelings, to understand them and work through them, be they positive or negative.  I’ve come to realize that sort of expression as a healthy necessity in my life.  My problems are insignificant when compared to the loss of a child, but I deal with feelings constantly, as we all do, and sometimes I’m pretty terrible at it.  If I wanted to see some people really putting their feelings out there, if I wanted to know just how brave people could be in sharing of themselves, if I wanted to see the proof first hand that art is not just a plaything of children or something on the mantle to be dusted and quietly admired, if I wanted to see how art can heal and how it can help me and others, this would be the place for it.  Ground zero for healing through creativity.  There was no deliberation.  I was going.

I didn’t know anything about the event other than the location and the few details my friend had provided.  I was going into this a bit blind, but sure that I wanted to experience it.  I arrived and began to look at the exhibits.  Before I’d hardly taken in the work itself I was stopped by a quote by Valarie Millard-Combs posted near the closest drawing stating that hardly two years ago her son passed away at a very young age of a heart attack, and his son had passed away just one week following of a heart attack as well.  Another of his sons then passed away in an accident in his garage not one year after that.  Three young men in the space of a year.  I was amazed she was still standing upright, let alone doing art work.

I felt like I didn’t even deserve to be there.  I hadn’t been through an experience like of that sort.  I’d had losses in my life, yes, but none in such close proximity.  What would I do?  How the hell would I handle something like that?  Perhaps I would do what Valarie did, make drawings with walls in them, separating me from those I’d lost, or with my chest opened up for surgery to remove the pain that wouldn’t go away.  There was also one with four sections, one colored nearly completely black.  “That was all black at first, but then I didn’t want it to be that way.  I wanted to show that there was some color in there, somewhere,” she said, “that it wasn’t all blackness.  There might be a lot of black, but something could come through.  I took a scraper and physically scraped the black pastels away in spots so that I could add color.”

Did you ever draw or build something and then attack it physically so that it would show that you were feeling better?  Worse? 

Jaymie Gatewood had a similar story about one of her pieces that was composed of three red figures against a black background.  One of the attendees asked her about it.  What did it mean?  Why was it so red?

“I don’t know exactly who those figures are…partly me, partly Sara and Nathan?  I don’t know, but I remember being very angry when I did that one.  I kept adding red, more red.  I was physically mashing the color into the canvas.  It was a very physical experience on that one.” 

I went over and looked closely at the piece later on.  There were large chunks of oil pastel stuck against the canvas, ground right against it so that they were at least an eighth of an inch thick in places.  If you ran your hand over it you would feel the bumps.  Jaymie lost her son before he even reached school age.  Her daughter Sara died of cancer when she was just 23 years old.  “Very physical experience.”

I spoke with David Labrum, art therapist at St. Vincent’s Hospice about his work.  He said that those involved in the free program come in for two hours per week and create.  They are given materials, space, and time.  He said he does little if nothing to instruct them, and no previous art experience of any kind is necessary.  Each work is an individual piece created during that two hours.  “I never tell them when to to stop, and they seem to be finished at about the end of the two hours.  I just give them the tools and leave the room.  They are allowed to create what they want.”

There were others viewing the work who were in similar circumstances.  One mother attended who had lost a child to SIDS in the last couple of years.  Another family was in attendance that had lost a young child.  I was thinking about my parents, the rest of my family.

I left the gallery feeling rather drained, and fortunate to have my family and friends.  I’d originally planned to go to my parent’s place for dinner that night, but instead I’d been looking at art from mothers who didn’t have children to invite to dinner.

I pulled my cell phone out of my pocket and dialed. 
“Hi, dad?  Hey, I was just calling you guys back to say hi.”

Artist Vacation Day: Ernie and the Hill

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The Artist’s Way has some basic tasks you are supposed to do on a regular basis, such as free writing in the mornings, or weekly Artist Dates.  There is also a group of ten tasks each week.  These tasks change from one week to the next, and you’re supposed to try to do at least half of them each week.  This past week one of the tasks was an Artist Vacation Day, where you take not just two hours, but an entire friggin’ day to yourself to go do artsy, creative, way cool things.

Time was tight.  An entire day to myself is hard to do, and I often don’t allow myself to have it.  As such, I really didn’t want to let this opportunity slip by.  There was one big problem, though.  I had no idea what to do!

I was sitting with my friend Jay having dinner Thursday night, with my week nearing its end, and no real satisfying plans.  “I could go around town and shoot graffiti all day,” I said, “but what I’d really like to do is find a vintage car or motorcycle event to shoot.”  Jay, a fan of such things mechanical, agree that would definitely be cool, but I left dinner with no further ideas.

The following morning in the shower, for no apparent reason, I suddenly thought of the Newport Hill Climb, and annual event held in the Indiana town of the same name.  Its a colorful bit of Indiana heritage that’s a well-known secret of sorts where vintage cars from the teens up through the 50s vie for a chance at being the fastest to top a huge hill that begins right at the town square.  Since none of the cars qualify as rocket ships, it’s a bit like watching a moving car show with plenty of good-natured humor thrown in.

At work I got on the web and did a quick search.  I was certain it was not for another couple of weeks, but what the heck, right?  Result: Newport Hill Climb, first weekend in October.  Bingo.

Forty-eight hours later and I’m heading out west toward Newport.  As I’m checking the map I notice that I’m going to pass within a couple of miles of the historic site for Ernie Pyle, famous war correspondent during Word War II.  I was already running a little behind schedule, yet it bugged me that I’d spent my entire IU existence in and out of the Journalism building that bears his name, and here I’d never even seen his hometown.  That seemed wrong, too wrong to pass up.

I first hit upon a rest area that is named in his honor.  I stopped for a few minutes and wondered, “You mean this is it?  This can’t be it!”  After checking out this monument that was erected in his name, I read a nearby plaque that indicated the actual site was a couple miles down the road.  I had to go.

I found the pleasant little house that had been turned into Ernie’s historic site right at the heart of Dana.  After checking out the grounds for a minute and still wondering if I should be taking time away from the hill climb, I decided “What the heck,” and rang the bell for a tour. 

Probably an hour later (I refused to look at my watch and make myself rush), I walked away with a lot more information on someone who I’d previously thought of as “that soldier who wrote some stuff during the war.”  Ernie wasn’t a soldier, for one thing.  He was a civilian correspondent, but he spent a great deal of his time on the front lines with the troops.  While other reporters were getting the big story on troop movements, fatalities, raids, supply conditions, and all manner of other data, Ernie was sitting in fox holes with infantrymen talking about how satisfying a good cup of coffee could be, musing on the decorations of said surroundings (pinup tearouts), or, sadly, watching men say goodbye to one of their own.  He was the eyes and ears of the common soldier, brought forth to the entire U.S. through his regular columns.  So important were his words that he appeared on the cover of Time magazine and was invited to take tea by Eleanor Roosevelt. 

Ernie was killed by machine gun fire in 1945 on the island of Ie Shima.  His works are still prized to this day.  Being personally familiar with so little of his writing, I felt it was high time I find out for myself why he is so esteemed.  I was particularly happy to find that the book store on site had original, used printings of his collected works.  I picked up a well-worn copy of “Here is Your War.”  The inside leaf states that the book would normall run to over 450 pages, but “this version has been reformatted to achieve 385 pages, in accordance with war time restrictions.”  Inside is a handwritten inscription from a son to his father.  The original article can’t help but make these stories that much more real to me.

Setting my new literature in the passenger seat, I turned north and headed toward Newport, Indiana.  It was a gorgeous fall day, but the sun was getting low in the sky, and I was a little concerned that it was four o’clock and I’d yet to reach my main destination.  Would there be anything left for me to see at this hour?  Had I hung the opportunity up when I entered Pyle’s museum?

Heck no.  (pics clickable)

Before I even reached the center of town I had an eyeful of some colorful machinery.  There were a collection of old cars like this sitting around on lawns and side streets.  This little get-up is called a speedster.  It’s a modified Ford Model T.  This thing has got to be lightning fast, because it has flames!  I’ll be it’ll go (gasp!) thirty-five miles an hour!

Here we have the lineup of contenders for the climb.  You can see all manner of vehicles in this photo, and the hill goes on so far you can’t even really make it out in the background.  In the early days it was a test of the fortitude of a team of horses to see how quickly they could make it to the top pulling a loaded wagon.  When cars became more common, a good truck could make it up.  A not so good truck?  It had to stop partway up and be pulled the rest of the way by the horses!  This is how the hill climb began its history many, many years ago.

Prizes are not awarded for paint jobs, but a sense of humor is always greatly appreciated!

As you can see, these aren’t Indy cars we’re talking about here.  This pickup gets the “go” signal from the starter.  You can just see the yellow light of the starting tree as it begins its descent to the green at the bottom.

Ah, the face of a hardened competitor!  (Ninety-one years of age!)

That is not tire smoke.  Probably had to refill the oil once he got to the top.

Here’s a fine Ford pickup being backed into starting position.  One of the Starting Queens stands nearby.  I like the angle on this one.  I was some yards away when I took it, lying on the ground and grinding my knees and my elbows into the asphalt, but it came out good.

Here’s a ’40 Ford pickup pulling off the line.  I liked the color on this one, and was trying to capture a little bit of the excitement of things – a little hard to do when they’re so darn slow!

As I was shooting I was also taking a look at the folks around me.  This old fella was sitting there quietly watching the proceedings while holding his daughter’s hand.  Every so often he’d rub across her fingers with his thumb.  They didn’t say anything to each other, just held hands and watched the old cars go by.

All that glitters is gold!  Yep, they actually hand out awards to the “fastest” of these machines.  I have received inside information from a former competitor that the rules are very strict for modifications, but that said rules are often bent a little, and competition is fierce!

A comptetitor (it seems so wrong to call them “racers”), makes his way up the hill as the crowd looks on.  Here you get a bit of an idea of the size of the event.  It’s pretty sweet that you can just set your lawn chair up by the side of the main drag and watch all these cool cars and motorcycles go by.  It’s a sleepy little town, but for one weekend a year it’s full-tilt!

This may well be one of my better photos of the day.  The lens I’m using really delivers on these closeup shots.  It makes this Studebaker’s front end really stretch out toward you.  Gorgeous little car, by the way.

I so dig this license plate.  Yes, this guy is going to race up the hill.

The Event Queens fan themselves and kabbitz at the starting line.  There were a group of four of them, each seeing off a driver before he or she left the starting line.

Here’s a better view of the long trip up the hill.  I don’t know that anyone gets to going more than fifty or sixty miles an hour by the time they reach the top – and some don’t even reach the top!

I don’t even want to think what that sunburn felt like the next day.

There were some vintage motorcycles in attendance, and this Rudge was one of them.  I’m not sure I really dig how I composed this one, but I love the look of the old, peeling lettering against the shiny tank.

Here’s a shot of the Rudge set up in the pit area.  Again on this one, like the Studebaker picture, that lens of mine is drawing out the rear wheel and making it look a lot more prominent in the foreground.  I have a bunch of pics like this from the past couple of years.  It hasn’t gotten old with me yet.  Being in the shadows for a black machine isn’t ideal, either.  You’d really want to see this in muted sunlight, like under some light clouds.  Lots of detail just turning into black nothing, unfortunately, but the bike was so bitchin’ I just had to shoot it.

Obviously, I didn’t miss everything.  Though I would have liked to have gotten there a little bit earlier, I was able to take in so much, it was absolutely worth my drive.  This last shot I took while in the car leaving as I was in the line of traffic to get on the highway.  I felt very lucky that a line of old Fords pulled out just ahead of me.  I’m not sure if the lighting is right on this one, or if the sun spots on the lens make things worse or add something to it, but I sure do like the composition.  If  you look just at this little scene, for a minute it feels like you’re in the 1930s. 

On my way home I stopped at the Big Berry ice cream shop in Bellmore, Indiana.  The young lady at the counter, seeing my camera, said, “Are you a photographer?  Cool.  That’s what I want to be.”  We talked a bit, and she said she wants to attend classes in the future at the Arts Center in Indianapolis.  Her eyes lit up as she spoke of it.  At that moment, standing there and contemplating a banana split with six hundred shots of wartime heroes, old cars, and sunburn behind me all I could think was, “Man, you got to do that.  You so gotta do that.”

Artist Date #4: Harrison Gallery

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Friday night in Indianapolis.  First Friday, to be exact.  This is the one night of every month when all the art galleries open up to visitors for the evening.  I’ve taken advantage of it on a number of occasions, but always with a group, or at least with one other friend.  I was planning to do the same this particular evening, but as the day arrived it was clear that I needed to make this my Artist Date or else I wasn’t going to have one this week.  Artist Dates are mandatory as prescribed by the Artist’s Way, as is the fact that you are supposed to undertake these dates on your own (or just you and your creative self, as the idea goes).  Since these dates have so far proven to be pretty awesome, I wasn’t about to mess with this one or give it up, so I called my friend and left what probably sounded like a very odd message (“I’ll see you there, but I can’t be there with you!”) and headed out.

I ended up spending my entire two hours at the Harrison Gallery down on 16th and Deleware.  No shortage of things to see and people to talk to!  (all pics clickable)

One of the first things I came across was this collection of brass light fixture pieces.  Honestly, I have no idea if it was supposed to “say something” the way it was arranged, but it gave me ideas.  I work with copper on my rolling ball sculptures, and will soon be incorporating brass into them (hopefully!).  I just kept staring at this things going, “Yeah, that would work.  I could…yeah, I could do that with it, couldn’t I?  Similar elements may turn up in my work at some point.

I was particularly excited about the Harrison this evening, as Todd Bracik, the sculptor I’d met at Masterpiece in a Day, was exhibiting some of his work there.  My conversation with him that day was a chief reason I’d even thought to hit First Friday this month.  It’s not uncommon that it slips by while I’m out playing a gig, so when he mentioned that he would be showing there I made a specific not to try and check it out.  These works all appeared to be of reclaimed steel.  They appeared to be clearcoated so that they wouldn’t rust.  I *think* this one was called “Blind Bend,” but my memory is bad, and I left my stupid notepad in the camera bag, which was left in the car.  (Somehow I achieved a Journalism major???)

The last of these two is titled “Burst.”  I really wish I’d had something on hand to write them down.  I’m not diggin the lighting in these photos much, either.  You’d think I’d have this camera stuff all figured out by now.  Aside from all that, though, I was really excited to see Todd’s work.  He uses found objects, generally of metal, but not always.  I like metal and the whole idea of recycling or making something pleasing out of what may have once been considered junk.  The whole idea of how much crap we throw away every day kind of freaks me out, so it’s nice to see someone making art out of what might just end up in a landfill otherwise.  There’s also welding and grinding involved with this type of art, which means flames and sparks, and, well, you gotta like that.

Unfortunately, I didn’t get to see Todd this time, though I did meet someone who was an old friend of his.  I had hoped to talk with him some more about his work, but maybe there will be opportunities for that at a later date.

My true medium!  Thinking of the name signs I’ve been doing, I had to snap this.  It was part of a fun exhibit of children’s works.  These were all done by Cora Hughey, and featured crayon, watercolor, and magic marker.  I imagine she’s a Crayola freak just as much as I am.

Fun little dress…

…with a pencil belt!  If  you’re a teacher during SATs, this thing would be perfect.  “Need a pencil, kid?  I got seventy.”

These little guys are so much fun!  They’re the creations of Jude Odell, a ceramics sculptor. 

Her detail and use of color always impress me.

I really, REALLY wanted to take this one home, but there was no affording it that evening.  The sharp lines and the absolute black of the figures against the white and bright green really catches your eye.

See what I mean about her use of color?  Isn’t that just the greatest?!  Shortly after I took this picture Jude returned to her studio from a visit elsewhere in the building.  I could not keep from telling her how much I enjoyed her work.  She has also done some projects with inner city school children painting bridges and retaining walls to beautify the neighborhoods.  We also kind of bonded over the turmoil and travails of trying to install shower inserts (“All those angles you have to line up, and there’s no room to move!”).  If she had a web site, I’d link to it for you here.  Her stuff is really gorgeous.  She’s had a room at the Harrison for a long time now.  Go give her some of your money.

As I was leaving I snapped one more picture of Jude’s work that was displayed outside her studio on the wall.  These are little tiles that she does.  I was only about five bucks short of being able to purchase one with the cash I had on hand.  Next time I’m definitely making a purchase.  I get a great sense of fun and positivity out of her work, and it never hurts to have that surrounding you in your home.  Which reminds me, she did say at one point in our conversation that she had done some darker, more moody work.  She said, “I got great compliments on it – but trying to sell it?”  People aren’t so apt to surround themselves with dark images, and at this point I’m happy to say I’m not either.

In addition to all that, Jude’s tiles gave me an idea on how I might want to approach some of my sculpture.  I certainly didn’t have several hundred dollars to spend on one of her larger pieces, but I had or could easily find 30 or 40 to spend on something smaller.  So I’m thinking.  I’m thinking about scale and size of work.  We’ll see what happens with that.  I’m not near selling anything yet, but it can’t hurt to have plans.

Hope you enjoyed my date with my creativity.  Eight more of these to go!

 

 

Masterpeace in a Day

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I’m sorry I’ve not blogged about this earlier, but it’s been difficult to get back to the computer this week, partly because I’m not allowed to read anything this week, as mentioned earlier. I don’t want to let this news sit and get cold, though, so I’m getting it out there this evening, even if I can’t re-read what I wrote!

Masterpiece in a Day was an excellent experience, though not for the reasons you, or I, might have expected. The day was set to be a challenge right from the start, as I’d been up playing with the band late the night before, and while the event rules on the web site stipulated work hours between 9am and 3:30pm, I was not able to arrive until about 10:30 that morning. I felt fortunate to have my brother attending the event, as he was a veteran. He had some been-there-done-that advice for me, plus the fact that I had a bunch of crap to unload from my van, and his location made for a convenient dumping ground. Thanks, Ben!

When I arrived at my brother and his friend’s site, I was met with this:

Ben had laughingly told me before that they were going for the largest work, if not the best. To that end, they’d spent over 200 bucks on several sets of canvas totalling a 6-foot by 20-foot area. That’s right: twenty feet long! I told folks later that they had “about thirty cans of paint laying around,” figuring I was overestimating. I was not. They had a lot of space to cover!

Here Ryan applies some blue to the lettering for the graffiti words. He was nice enough to help me move some of my crap over near a wall outlet. I’d hoped to set up near them, but I needed power, so I ended up around the corner.

Here I gamely try to whip some wire into a reasonable facsimile of artistic expression. I had people stopping by pretty often to ask, “What are you making?” I told them it was a little rolling marble sculpture, or a kinetic sculpture, or a number of other variations. The guy who took this picture for me, Todd, was particularly interested in my work, him being a sculptor of found metal objects. His full name is Todd Bracik, and you can find his work here.

This photo could have been taken either hours or minutes later. I think my workspace looked like this for 80% of the time I sat there. One young boy of about twelve kept walking by and offering me encouraging words. Around this point he passed again, and I said, “It doesn’t look like I’ve done much, does it?” and he said very matter-of-factly, “Oh well – good art takes time!” and walked off. Thanks for the boost, kid!

I seriously spent forever making that spiral you see me holding. For. Ev. Er. I had no idea so much time had passed, when some guy came by and asked what I was doing. He said, “You better hurry! You only have forty minutes!” I looked at my watch after he left. What was he talking about? It wasn’t even 2:30 yet. I had over an hour!

After a while a string of folks began going by me to the registration/turn-in table set up nearby. “I guess people are getting their stuff done a little early,” I thought nervously. I kept working. I wasn’t anywhere near done, but I didn’t know what else to do. I didn’t expect to win, but I really had wanted to finish the piece in the allotted time.

My brother walked by carrying one of the panels for his canvas. “You better hurry!” he smiled.

What the hell? Maybe I had really better get a move on. Better to finish with some time to spare. It suddenly hit me how I could tie up the whole thing in about twenty minutes. It wouldn’t be what I’d wanted, but I would be able to finish!

Now, about this entry form…I picked it up and read: All artwork is to be turned in by 3pm. I looked at my watch. 3:05pm.

I sat there and stared at the paper. I didn’t know what to do. I had read the web site the night before, and it definitely said 3:30pm, yet I’d not read the registration form the whole time I’d had it. I was crushed. I felt defeated. I was suddenly very angry with myself for even showing up. Why had I bothered? I mean, sure I didn’t think I’d win, but I could have finished at least! I hadn’t even bothered to read the rules! How stupid was I?!

A woman came by with her little girl. She asked if I’d done a sculpture inside. I shook my head. She asked if I was going to turn in what I had. I said quietly, “I didn’t finish.” She left with her daughter.

I wanted to throw everything in my box and leave. Now. I didn’t want to be there anymore. I felt like I’d wasted my time, expected too much from myself. All these other people had finished and I had not. The one thing I’d wanted to do, finish, and I couldn’t even do that. What an idiot!

I sat there and thought about what I could do. I could leave. I could go get my car and just leave, but my brother was there. He had artwork that he’d completed, and I wanted to see the finished product. As bad as I felt, I was more certain that I wanted to see what he’d done. For that matter, I was certain I wanted to see what other people had done. My purpose was bigger than simply completing my sculpture. Even as angry as I was that thought got through. I came to have a good time, and leaving angry was not going to accomplish that. It was going to make it worse.

I got hold of Ben on cell and he watched my stuff while I got my van. I threw all of my crap in there, still rather angry, but maybe not quite so much. I asked him about his piece. He said, “It takes up one whole wall in there!” Better.

I parked again, and went back to look at the artwork. I wish I had some photos for you, but they chased me out while they were doing judging. It’s too bad, because I saw the most detailed Etch-A-Sketch I’ve ever seen in my life. There were sculptures, at least one video piece, paintings, pencil sketches, mixed media wall art. All these people had shown up that morning and just created these things on the spot. Before we all arrived that morning none of it had existed, and now it lined the walls and covered the floors of two different rooms.

I split for pizza afterward while Ben and Ryan cleaned up. We got separated for a while, and I didn’t see him the rest of the time I was there. As I was leaving after the award ceremony (Ben and Ryan, unfortunately, did not take home an award, but were odds-on favorites for the “Most Obnoxious,” apparently!), I phoned Ben. I still had all those thoughts in my head about not finishing. I hadn’t forgotten any of that, not that quickly, anyway. Still, when he answered the phone I said, “Hey, man, I just wanted to say thanks for letting me know about all this. It was awesome, and I had an excellent time.”

I’m still surprised I said that. When I was younger, and even up until just a few years ago, I would have gone with my first inclination. I would have left and written the whole thing off as a miserable failure, and maybe never tried it ever again. Apparently, I can have a pretty excellent time even if I don’t meet every expectation I have for myself.  Achieving that sort of peace with my own abilities and expectations is worth more than anything I can imagine, and I’ll be calling on this experience when similar challenges will surely present themselves, likely at next year’s Masterpiece in a Day. See you there.

Why Tommy kant read.

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It’s like an ABC After School Special, only I CAN read (as many of you may have already guessed).  That is, I have a completely awesome functional ability to read.  I’ve done a pretty good job of it ever since that summer after first grade when my mom made me read 100 books.  (Thanks, mom!)

The deal is, I’m actually not allowed to read.  No kidding.  This Artist’s Way thing?  No reading this week.  Fer realz.

I’m sure you’re all “OMG!  WTF!” and I can hardly blame you for your exclamated lettery confusion.  I was a bit surprised and confused myself.  When I saw the header in the book I went, “Well, yeah, but they don’t really mean no reading at all.”  Yeah, wrong about that.  No reading.  No books, no magazines, no email, no interwebz, nada.

Were I to be totally obsessed and freakish, I’d have refused to do any reading at work and would probably be in some sort of disciplinary meeting right now.  Seeing as how loss of my job would seriously curtail some of my creative activities (like buying massive rolls of copper wiring, plus clock parts off of eBay), I’ve decided to make an allowance for work.  There are also a few other unavoidable necessities like road signs or packaging at the grocery store, but by and large I’ve cut most of it out.

The idea is that reading is one of those insiduous “busy time” activities in which we often partake to keep from doing other things that might be more beneficial to us.  We don’t think of it as wasting time like we do if we’re, say, watching every episode of The Wire all in one week, night after night, day after day.  (Who, me?)

I’ve realized that I spend a TON of time on the internet reading crap (and good stuff).  I’ve only read a couple of non-work emails that were a single sentence long.  I’ve cut out my daily doses of Barista Brat and customers_suck.  I’m not checking in on the Yahoo Rolling Ball Sculpture email list on and off all day, looking for new links, or combing through old posts for bits of info I probably don’t need right now.  I can’t even read any comments that wonderful, superfab people have left for me on my own blog this week.  (I’m treating them as Christmas presents for Monday morning.)  Oddly, I can write whatever I want, so long as I don’t go back and read over it, which I’m not doing, so this post is a first/only draft.  Thinking behind this is that you’ll suddenly free up a bunch of time and be forced to turn your engergies toward stuff that’ll encourage your creativity.

So what have I been doing?  Cool stuff (pics always clickable, btw):

Spiral RBS in process

Nick\'s name sign!

 

So, there we are, kids.  Creative stuff with my non-reading free time, and that’s only since Monday!  Okay, the spiral actually started at Masterpiece in a Day, and I promise to bring you an update on that with pics.  The extremely short version of it is that it was stupendous, and I had a blast, and I can’t wait until next year to do it again.

Even though I can’t read comments this week.  I still love them, and will be reading them as soon as it’s allowed!

Oh, and I’m carving sixty jack o’ lanterns for Halloween, but more on that later.