Blog Archive
Week One
August 25, 2007 - First day of blog
At
right is how I am thinking about a new piece I might try to build (eventually). Crudely cut out
of paper and placed on top of my laptop, this is not exactly what I had in mind,
but I'm thinking about how to join the metal and the balance it while
considering how sheets of steel will behave. My thought is that the text of the
peace messages would be in small type running along an edge.
If peace pole budgets were $30,000 I would be thinking mostly about design, but figuring out how bring this in under $3,000 will take months of models and experiments and lesson-learning (can work on it only intermittently - have other peace poles to build).
August 26, 2007
Most
days I don't get to be very creative. Today I spent most of the day working on
the artwork for the 25 or so translations that go on this peace pole, and a good
part of the rest of the day cutting, bending and riveting metal for it. I've
lost track of how many days I've spent on this one already. This is a very time
consuming pole.
The lumber next to it was outside supporting copper I was cutting. I threw it on these saw horses next to the peace pole to get it inside for the night.
Maybe I should save people the burden of wading trough the routine tasks, like tomorrow half of the day will be consumed driving around gathering materials.
August 27, 2007
I guess at the end of a day when I'm writing this blog, I don't think about the
most routine things I did - like all the work I did on this bronze peace pole
this week. I
worked
on it each of the previous two days, but it didn't occur to me to mention it
until it was ready to ship it today.
It is hard to get the right blues to come out in bronze. It takes weather decades to bring it out, but not long for weather to bring out the other colors. And the blues are what make the other colors work. So I bring out the blue so that some of that will still be there as the other colors come out naturally in the weather.
The most artistic thing I do to these peace poles is the patina. It has taken years to develop the skill and the process. It's like brush strokes in painting. What you do with your hands, what you have in your hands when you do it, how much of which substance to apply and in what order, etc. Then there is the experience of watching what happens during the ensuing years as it cures out in the elements - watching that and adjusting the patina process to arrange for it to improve over time in the elements.
I continually learn. On this peace pole I tried something that at first appeared to erase hours of patina work. But when I started over, it had left a base that made what I normally do come out better. Somehow I cannot help experimenting and trying things and wondering what would happen if . . . Most of the time that just creates more work. But once in a while, like today, it makes everything that follows better.
I don't use any of the commercial products that are supposed to put a patina on copper or bronze or brass. I cannot stand what those commercial products do.
August 28 & 29, 2007
I've
been working 12 hours a day, seven days a week, for quite a while. Yesterday
half of the day was spent renting and driving and loading and unloading a truck
to pick up brass and copper and stainless steel that came on the pallets at
left. I pushed my back beyond its limit. So I ended up at my desk for a couple
of days doing things like ordering parts for a breathing apparatus that will protect
me from fumes created when working on the patina (I've been using chemical
filters till now and they haven't protected me well enough), and doing artwork for the
translations - which can be extremely time-consuming, and shipping a five-feet
tall piece of artwork to NYC (I probably shouldn't have exerted myself as much
as that required).
Perhaps I should be more selective about which days to cover in this blog.
September 3, 2007 - Labor Day Holiday
Once again,
crudely cut out of paper just to think about it. It is balanced well enough to
stand on its own.
My interest here is in pushing the envelope for peace poles - which is different than pushing the envelope for art as a whole. These pieces need to observe certain traditions and certain budgets. If (when?) I get time I'd like to make an experimental one ten feet tall out of cheap steel to explore how to join it and stabilize it in ways that will not make it too expensive.
September 1, 2007
Tonight at about 9:00 PM I was highest bidder for a machine on Ebay - half a day
spent figuring out what to buy and how much to bid. It's going to take weeks to
get it set up for working on peace poles.
August 30 & 31
A reader wrote saying that I should include even the uncreative days - which
would be the days spent trying to fit the long translation of Odawa-Ojibway onto
a
relatively
short wooden pole (8 feet is short relative to my other poles), trying to fix a
band saw, building a box in which to ship a pole and trying to salvage lumber
from a pallet to use for the next box.
So, recently a breathing apparatus purchased by my brother on eBay needed parts. He said I could use it if I got the parts. I tracked them down and bought them and found that the person who sold it to him cheated him. I'd have been better off buying a new one. Which I guess I will do soon. Meanwhile, there is an unrelated and much larger piece of equipment I need and have found on Ebay. I am spending considerable time researching it to make sure things go better with an eBay purchase this time.