Artist's Blog
Archive Seven
October 29, 2007
I'm
still figuring out how and what to blog. I find myself not mentioning the
endeavors that consume most of my days, but only the flippant punching of metal
at the end, because that is more interesting to me than what I did all day. It's
exploration even if it looks like inept graffiti. Even the etchings of citrus
help figuring what can be done to text on a peace pole, and give me ideas about
what else might belong on a peace pole.
Another study of it
I wonder if both are the opposite of what I should be doing anyway. Perhaps this mainly should be photos of what I worked on and scans of graphics I created - more pictures/fewer words.
I also wonder if I shouldn't be generating this on a blog site, rather than on my website, where people could post comments that would be visible on the page, and where people could subscribe so that updates would be sent to them.
October 31, 2007
Leaving blood on a peace pole . . . fitting for Halloween, isn't it? It
wasn't intentional. And it wasn't actually on the pole. It was on the wrapping.
I was packing one to ship, cut myself on a tape dispenser and after a bit
noticed fingerprints here and there. If you want peace, you have to be willing
to bleed for it.
November 1, 2007
I discovered that I was going to be near where a peace pole needed to be
shipped, so I offered to put it on top of my car and deliver it. While there I
learned that she is a descendent of the Studebaker (whose
descendents manufactured cars) who in 1737 wrote a letter to persuade relatives
in Germany to come join him in America. He described in detail the politics, the
culture, the farming, even how blacks were treated, and closed by writing "God
Bless America." It is the oldest occurrence of that phrase ever found.
Wasn't that a rewarding place to plant a peace pole?
November 2, 2007
My latest attempt to have shipping crates shipped back for re-use failed
when maintenance people at a school discarded it. Perhaps signs should have been
emblazoned on it saying not to damage or discard it as it was to be returned for
re-use.
November 27, 2007
Christmas gift orders are coming in. I'm making a
peace stake today.
December 6, 2007
More of the same continues.
December 10, 2007
It is the peak of Christmas rush with people ordering things before it is
too late for them to receive them by Christmas.
January 1, 2008
A nice thing about some holidays is how freeing they can be mentally when
nothing has to be delivered, no calls have to be returned, no people visited
(for a while). So I woke up thinking about a peace pole I'd been wanting to
experiment with for a long time. A transparent peace pole with frosted letters
that would glow with the right light on them.
I worked on it for a few hours before I ran out of supplies. In my community most stores are open on New Years Day, so I was able to get what I needed to work on it. I spent the whole day on it. It mostly was a learning experience. I did end up with a transparent pole, but the letters are not frosted enough. A sample section I made in the morning was more frosted and glowed better in the light. The full pole I frosted less and it didn't work as well. I'd post photos of it, but did you ever try to take a photo of something transparent? When standing looking at it, you are not aware of the Christmas Tree behind it. But in the photo, that's the main thing you see. Especially with the under-frosted letters and bad light.
This needs to be worked on again when I have more time. I doubt anyone will buy one, so I'm not in a hurry. My artistic curiosity mostly has been satisfied. I have no place to put another peace pole, especially one intended to be indoors and lit directly from above or below to make the letters glow. So it's one of those projects that could lie dormant for a long time. But if you might be interested in one, let me know and I'll resume work.
January 6, 2008
For what it's worth, today on page 5 of the Sunday New York Times was
a full page advertisement that said simply, "IMAGINE PEACE, love, yoko ono," and
then listed the web site
www.imaginepeace.com. I have browsed around that site only a little, but on
the first page of it, at the time of this writing, there is a picture of the
"Imagine Peace Tower" on Videy Island in Reykjavik, Iceland, which is beams of
light focused upward. More photos of it are at
http://imaginepeace.com/towerphotos.html.
January 12, 2008
Today
at The Children's Museum in San Antonio, Texas, Beverly Prado of ArtsTeach told
the story of Sadako Sasaki and her thousand cranes. More and more Sadako and her
cranes are held up as a symbol of peace. She was in Hiroshima at the age of two
when the atomic bomb was dropped. By the time she was eleven she had developed
leukemia. During her treatment she attempted to fold a thousand origami cranes, a symbol
good luck and longevity in Japanese culture. To get the paper she went from room to room in the
hospital asking for candy wrappers or any other scraps of paper for her cranes. After she died a memorial was
erected in a park in Hiroshima with her likeness at the top reaching out for a
crane.
In 1995 a teacher, Sharon O'Connell, posted on the web an invitation for other teachers to read the Sadako story and fold paper cranes in class. Eighty schools in 42 of the United States and one Canadian province sent over 10,000 paper cranes.
Origami cranes are becoming a symbol of peace around the world.
Recently I had an inquiry about the possibility of making a peace pole topped with such a crane and perhaps with images of them on the side. So this week I folded origami cranes out of paper and sketched how one might be made out of metal. And I have cut and shaped copper to work on the process.
January 23, 2008
I'm
doing artwork. I'm considering offering artwork of the peace message intended
for hanging on walls. So far everything else offered on this site is designed to be free-standing outdoors. This is for indoors. It would be something like the piece at
right, only several times longer and with a ragged edge. It is the message in
ballpoint pen. Intended to be framed without glass and with a wide border. This
one contains 24 translations. The next iteration might contain 3 or 4 times as
many. The white portion of this one is 5.25" wide by 7" tall. The final one
might be about 30" tall without matting or framing.
I worked on a wider version of this, but for this one I like the smaller text better. For perspective, the white portion is only a little more than twice the width of my computer's mouse.
January 24, 2008
It's the opposite of the kind of thing I usually mention on this site. Where
do you stop when you start? Perhaps this one remains on my mind because of what
I've been through. Yesterday, in Kabul, Afghanistan, a 23 year old journalism
student was convicted for downloading an article from the Internet and adding
words of his own about the Prophet Muhammad's ignorance of women's rights. For
insulting Muhammad the judge sentenced him to death.
We feel so far from that. But did you ever write something that someone in the USA didn't like? It is unnerving to face Americans who would, if they could, sentence you to death for speech. Especially when they know you are telling the truth and it is only that they don't want anyone else to know it. The differences between our societies might be only that we have laws that prevent people from pursuing their convictions and desires to the same extremes. Here they can ruin your life, but not take it, usually.
It is a good day to spend writing "May Peace Prevail on Earth" in dozens languages.