Tag Archives: Artist’s Way

Aaaaaaand DONE! “Make Stuff #2” Rolling Ball Sculpture

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Finished at last! I forget when I started on this thing, but it seems like weeks ago. I think it was nine days hence, but I was figuring it would be wrapped up in no more than a week, or perhaps even less.

Yeaaaaaah, right. I don’t think it’s likely that I can do something simply and quickly, although that last one wrapped up pretty quickly once I was able to put some time in on it. Okay, it’s possible. Not likely, but possible.

So this one was supposed to be pretty simple and quick, and I suppose, compared to the 30-day builds that I’ve done in the past, this one WAS pretty quick, but not as fast as I’d planned, and, well, really…not as simple. Concept, yes. Execution, no!

Basically there’s a spiral that dumps onto this backwards-facing incline, and then the marble gets carried to the top by inertia where it stops, rolls back again, passes the point where it fell from the spiral, and then continues on through the rest of the sculpture. At its most basic it’s just a spiral and about a foot or so of track. In the real world, not so simple.

But enough of that! Check out the results!

makestuff2lftop

Above you can see the unique aspect to this particular sculpture, the brass ramp. Said ramp is made out of the reed plate of a Hohner harmonica. I removed all the reeds and bent it into a shallow U-shaped channel. The track that it mounts to extends for quite some distance before it is anchored to the base. For this reason, when the marble lands on it, it vibrates a lot and looks like it’s about to fall off at any number of points. It also sounds kind of cool, because it’s brass, gives it a nice little clanky, rattley sound. I would like to get some video of this one in particular. I don’t have a camera, though, nor does anyone I know offhand. I’m wondering if maybe my goal should be to sell several of these so that I can afford a camera. After all, the whole point of these sculptures is that they actually move. It’d be nice to show that aspect to people, particularly when it’s a weird one like this one.

Here you can see the extension of the ramp a little better:

makestuff2side

To the lower left of the above photo you can see some more brass. This is where the non-spiral portion of the track is finally anchored. This is also where minor insanity set in. I’m guessing there are about ten inches or so of free movement before the track reaches that anchor point. This is necessary for the agove-mentioned wiggling and clanking and whatnot. It just HAD to be done that way, or it would have really taken the fizz out of the punch, so to speak.

Getting that brass cut properly and soldered on there was a PAIN! That was an entire day of my life, and after that entire day, I failed quite spectacularly at the soldering. I had to leave it sitting there all blackened and lumpy, go to bed, and come back to it the next morning. The following day I realized that, if I were to have any hope in completing it as I had envisioned, what was going to be required was that I clamp the entire assembly onto a 2×4 board *vertically* so that the solder would flow onto the joints properly. Note: This is the part of the sculpture where things went from simple to “Hey, wait a minute! How did I end up doing all this work!” ‘Twas totally worth it though, kids, as it turned out freakin’ sweet!

makestuff2rtqtr

Here’s the final photo showing some more detail on the curved supports for the spiral. Those turned out kind of nice, though I was torn about them for a while. I made them all and then wanted to scrap them and do something else, but instead I made a few cuts and bends and figured they looked pretty decent anyway. Here you can also get a better look at the upswing on the end of the whole affair. It does a nice job of slowing the marble down and bring it to a more gentle stop where it just kind of settles into the curve and waits to be picked up again.

By the way, didn’t my dad do another killer job on the base? He’s pretty awesome. I should probably get hold of him and ask for more for future projects. I have three left, but by the time I’m done he’ll probably just be finishing up another order for me.

So, fun, right? I thought so, anyway. I’ve never done anything previously with an active element like that wiggling ramp. I think I dig it. I’m going to try something like that with the others, some different kind of element for each one, maybe throw in a little more brass while I’m at it. It’s a bit of a pain to solder, but it looks nice when it’s done.

So that’s it! Pretty cool, eh? I’m jazzed. I hope the next one is as fun as this one. Completing this was rewarding, as it negated all those feelings of frustration that I had while I built it. When those brass pieces refused to solder properly I really did want to scrap that whole part of the plan, but I took a deep breath, called on some patience, and it came through just fine. We all have these moments in our creative endeavors. Remember to “Never judge a fledgling piece of work too soon.” That’s Artist’s Way stuff, kids. Learn it, know it, live it! It’s better than a pile of bent copper wire!

All Coiled Up

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These past few days I’ve sort of renewed my commitment to working on sculpture.  I think it started sometime last week.  After my post at the beginning of the month I had a delay in activity for about a week, and then I realized how much I was procrastinating.  I went and found a machine shop near my office to do some work on part of my sculpture.  It’s literally a five minute machining job.  Unfortunately, the particular shop I found is a commercial shop, and they don’t handle five minute jobs.  Sucks to be me.

I’ve not found another shop yet.  I’m still looking.  These sorts of places usually operate for tradesmen, so it’s not like they have evening hours or weekends.  I certainly know where some shops are located, but it’s difficult to get to any of them without sacrificing half a work day to do so.  I’d rather not burn vacation hours or take time without pay for this job, so it’s taking a while to find a shop.  I got some ideas from a friend last night, though, so maybe I’ll have more to report on that before long.

In the meantime, I realized I was once again sitting on my haunches and not doing any work.  I have this huge problem with setting aside time for art.  I always minimize its importance in my life and to the world at large.  It’s fun, I say.  It’s playing around, I think.  It doesn’t need to be done when there are more important things to do, I lecture myself.  This is how art does not get done.

I finally told myself, in fact I wrote it down: “I’m going to work on sculpture for 30 minutes tonight,” and then the next day: “I’m going to work on sculpture for 60 minutes tonight.”  This is how art gets done. 

Since I’m in the middle of this larger sculpture with the crazy brass and clockwork lift, I figured I’d spend my extra/down time on a small one.  It’s a bit of an experiment to see if I can make a small one that’s interesting and fun.  My inclination is always to go for the complex and/or grand (see the pottery I’m decorating – Oh, wait!  You can’t.  That’s because it’s complex and has ended up taking weeks instead of hours.).  This is an exercise in restraint of scale and complexity.  This is hard for me, but we’ll see how it works out.

Coils/spirals are pretty easy to do if you don’t make them too large.  They can be pre-formed easily around a piece of pipe, and this offers the added benefit of me not having to use my right hand so much as it still bugs me a little bit.  I used two different sizes of PVC plumbing pipe clamped in a vice as my forms for the sprials below.

These don’t come out quite as nice as they look here, but with some massaging it’s pretty easy to get them nearly uniform, and while bending them around the pipe it takes the majority of the kinks out quite nicely.  I can cut these into sections and make several different sizes of spirals out of them.  None will be very large in diameter, but that’s fine with me.  This is my exercise in a more simple design.  I’m guessing I may be able to get anywhere between three and five spirals out of these.

Last night I wrapped the second coil, and having finished that, I began making one into a spiral.  Actually, it wasn’t that easy.  I held it and stared at it for a little while.  I made the coil more tidy and uniform.  I was fiddling.  I was afraid to start.  I was afraid like I’m always afraid: What if it doesn’t turn out right?  I’m going to ruin it!  I’ll make it crooked!  This is going to suck, it’s too little.  I’ll never get this right!

At this moment I remembered a couple of the prayers that I learned from the Artist’s Way: “It is my job to do the work, not judge the work,” and, “God, I will take care of the quantity if you take care of the quality.”

I sat there and said those two things to myself as I started bending.  I certainly cannot take care of the quality.  I never think my work is good enough (well, not never, but I try!).  If someone or something else is taking care of that, all I have to do is take some action, and so I let go and went to work.

After about an hour’s worth of work, here’s what I had.  It turned out rather well.  This spiral is about at its point of termination.  I can’t really turn it down any farther and still have the marble clear the exit.  I’ll likely snip it off the rest of the coil at this point.  I’ll make some more of these.  They will vary in diameter and, consequently, the number of turns then have in each.  Hopefully this will add some variety to the piece and make it fun to watch even though it will be of small size. 

I’ll bring you more as I progress.  I love building this stuff, and I can’t wait to see how it’s going to turn out. 

Oh, and Olivia, weren’t you going to send me Hot Wheels and stuff, or was that just a tease?  I was all fired up about that challenge.

On Winning NaNoWriMo, (Not) Finishing, and The Artist’s Way

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Yesterday I posted a horrendously long, rambling, and only vaguely coherent comment on someone else’s blog.  I’m not telling you whose, because it was that bad, or at least it seems that bad.  Really, the length is what’s embarrassingly astounding about it, and it just looks heinous.  As a too-kind soul who reads that blog as well as mine immediately pointed out, I had not even put an entry up on my own blog in quite some time.  In an effort to drain myself of whatever wordery may be mucking up manky sponge that is my brain, I present to you what will likely be a long, rambling, and only vaguely coherent blog post.  Enjoy?

NaNoWriMo has come and gone in its 30-day fourish of literary madness and caffeine.  I enjoyed it thoroughly, except for the part where I didn’t reach the end of my novel.  Oh, I hit the word count all right.  I nailed that fifty thousand word minimum with a big ten-penny spike on the 18th of the month, so winning the challenge was not really a problem.  Of course, in my head I figured that I’d battle out my novel with myself until somewhere around 50K, and I’d reach the finish line, exhausted but exalted at the end of the month.

No.

At 10K I wondered if I’d be able to make it to fifty. 
At 20K I realized I had finally actually started writing the real story (plot). 
At 35K I started to get jazzed that I was really going to make it to 50K!
40K…starting to get concerned that a major character still hasn’t shown up yet.
45K – realizing there’s no way on God’s green earth I’m ever going to wrap this up in five thousand words.
50K – pretty elated, for maybe thirty minutes.  Keep writing.
60K – realize that another ten thousand wasn’t going to do it either.  When will this end?!  Attempt to get through major plot points and scenes as quickly as possible.
70K – Nope, that’s not gonna be enough either.  Start furiously writing extremely shortened scenes in attempt to finish all major points by November 30th.
74K – Having written 2K in two hours, have a major revelation about the plot and several characters while brushing my teeth.  Immediately rinse mouth, return to laptop, and spend 30 minutes typing up the story I should have been writing 74K ago.  Feel elated.  Fall asleep.
76,884 – Written on November 29th whereby REALLY finishing it wasn’t seeming so dire or possible anymore.  Start forming plan to complete novel anyway following existing plot so I can say “I did finish a novel,” and then immediately start rewriting entire book all over again with the “real, good” idea that came at 74K.

I learned a lot, kids.  A ton.  A literary Spruce Goose full of information was handed to me via many mornings, afternoons, evenings, nights, and full weekend days of writing.  For one, writing takes up lots of your time!  (This is a newsflash you’ll surely pass on to anyone you meet in the next thirteen seconds.)  For B, a lot of the hard work of “crafting” a novel isn’t sitting there in front of the screen/paper trying to find the perfectly exact awesome way of describing the trees in Bloomington, Indiana on a fall day, or thinking up the perfect synonym for the “red” of a girl’s hair.  It’s actually going, “What?  They just met that dude, and now they figured out this thing, and it would be perfect if they met this other dude tomorrow, but they can’t run into other dude until Tuesday, and it’s Saturday.  What the hell do I have them do for three days?”  It’s also about sitting there going, “Uh, why did he just do that?  He wasn’t supposed to do that!  I didn’t even know he was going to do that.  Now all this other stuff has to happen, and I have to write about all this other stuff, and I really, really, really just want to GET. ON. WITH. THE. STORY!

Ah, the wisdom of the “been there, done that” scenario.  Now I have said wisdom.  What other lovely wisdom awaits me?  Rewrite wisdom?  Finishing the novel wisdom?  Writing the climax wisdom?  Figuring out how to tie up all the loose ends at the denoument wisdom?

Stupid wisdom.

What else has happened?  Let’s see, I finished the Artist’s Way.  Big yay.  I mean it.  I’m not overly overjoyed right now, but yay.  I wrote a lot.  A ton.  I hand wrote 270 pages worth of journaling.  This does not include writing that was required for the Weekly Tasks, or the Affirmations and Blurts stuff.  I used up an entire full-sized, college-ruled notebook and started on a second one before I was done.  Now I’m not done.  You are challenged to do at least the Morning Pages and Artist Dates for the next ninety days – three more months.  I’m on Day Four.  We’ll see how this goes.  The Artist’s Way got me a repainted kitchen door, a finished rolling ball sculpture, a trip to Bloomington, a trip to the Indianapolis Children’s Museum, some self-decorated pottery, a look at art work from the Ming Dynasty, a bunch of colored name signs for friends and family, a (nearly) finished novel…how long can this list get?  I’ll stop there.  I got a lot out of it, more of which I plan to blog about, since I already spent tons of time taking the pictures of it.  It’ll be out of sequence, but I hope you enjoy them just the same.

I hope that cures me of some of my apparent need to talk about everything and nothing all at the same time on other people’s blogs.  I hope.

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!

 

 

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.