Blog Archive Five
October 7, 2007
In some ways this endeavor feels like it might have felt to have a small
farm. Every moment of everyday there are things waiting to be done. Since most
of it is preparation for future projects, coronary-causing tension is not part
of it. Other things on which I have worked required not sleeping or doing
anything other than everything possible to meet deadlines. Here, I drop the long
term projects to work on individual poles. When they are shipped, I return to
the long term projects. I work at a pace that is as fast and as long as I can
maintain. I would like to leave behind peace poles that last longer and look
better than any that ever will be created again, but the goal might be beyond my
grasp. Quietly I do what I can.
October 9, 2007
- etching copper
I won't say much else about it, but I was the victim of criminal acts eleven
years ago. Some days most of the time is spent in pain as a result. This was one
of those days. I stumble around working anyway, but it's not the best frame of
mind for imagining ways to communicate peace when the criminals are free and
well protected and with almost daily opportunities to prey on others. How to
live with the fact that they are free to prey on us but we are not be free to
warn each other about them?
October 10, 2007
Perhaps
one way to freshen perspective is to write it one hundred times on a chalk
board, or, in the absence of such a board, with a pen on a postcard in as many
languages as will fit.
October 11, 2007
Still
exploring etching brass. Unfortunately I cannot put all these colors on peace
poles because outdoors over time the elements mute them, sometimes even erase
them. Except for the wheel-spoke-like facets of this. That would remain.
If I get better at making things like this, I can't help but think it will help me make better peace poles. But I also have an idea for crinkling stainless steel for a peacepole. Experimenting with such things takes so much time and costs so much.
October 12, 2007
Once
upon a time when I did not own a place where I could keep tools, I built this
case to hold a back saw and hack saw and keyhole saw and other saws and levels
and chisels and files and an auger and plane and tape measure and square and
hammer and pliers and all the things a carpenter would need even though I wasn't
one. I had driven across town to borrow tools from friends and relatives enough
times. I got a book on carpentry and made a list of all the tools a person
likely would need. I went to a hardware known for carrying everything, bought
everything on the list and built this case to hold most of it. Everything was
tied down and organized inside. It carried like a suitcase when closed and when
opened looked like the tool laden panel above someone's workbench. I almost
never needed to borrow a tool again.
I have better places for all those tools now, so I retired it today.
October 13, 2007
I'm sketching for the next etching. I'm re-sketching the citrus I etched before. I'm not
happy with how it came out. And the figurative work below that is what I made
instead of a different figurative work that I was afraid looked less like
figurative art than a long-haul trucker's mud flap. But maybe I was wrong. So
I'm staring at the one I didn't make and wondering whether to expend copper on
it. I also took some photos of steel springs that I setup outside for a photo to
submit to a show that comes around in the spring when the weather is wrong for
taking the photos. So I shot them today but I guess I should not post them. I
should wait to see if they are accepted. If they are accepted, I still should
not post them. I should wait until there is a final product. Although I don't
really know why. I'd rather just muse here about what's on my mind.
I haven't figured out how to blog. It is not uncommon to be working on or thinking about something that I guess I should not talk about or show the work on. So what do you post that day? I tend to list some of the day's endeavors and stay away from the thoughts. Even then I don't think to mention that I spent hours building a shipping crate for a peace pole. Or the time spent responding to emails about peace poles.
I looked at the blogs of a few other people working on art. I found them uninteresting, unrevealing and uncreative. Maybe because their talents are graphic and not literary. Or maybe because artists don't like to interrupt the process when creating the work - interrupt it to show how it comes about. But that would only be like a public television piece teaching hacks how to paint. The real matter happens before touching materials to give thoughts a physical manifestation. Maybe there should be more about what happened that caused a specific work to come about. Perhaps I'll start with that tomorrow.