UPdate, 2011

So it's been a busy year so far. Holiday madness is finally over. I was up in DE, NJ and NYC visiting friends and family for nearly two weeks, I do this every year. I love to travel, but sometimes feel as if I am away from home and studio for too long and then have to work hard to recapture my creative mojo, so-to-speak. This year not so much. I ordered stainless a few days before Christmas and when I got back it was waiting for me. Right now I am working on a fabrication project for artist Martha Ferris who is also doing a project for the Mississippi Museum of Art garden project. She designed a bench with a mosaic on it. I am building the bench in the rough outline of an alligator (though without legs) out of stainless steel. Someone else is doing the mosaic and I will install that later.

I am a great planner and can get just about anything organized, but I knew I would need help with building so I hired my good friend James Davis to work on the project with me. I also want to get the job done fast as I have a couple of other projects waiting in the wings that I need to start. So far things are going well and I am learning a ton of stuff from James. We have two full days of work in and now have a good plan for the final construction. It's hard for me some times when building new things, you can make a lot of plans for how you think you are going to build something but eventually that changes as you work out problems. I like to have everything figured out beforehand, and that just doesn't work in art making.

James working on cutting some stainless steel for the aligator bench.

As far as my own commission for the Museum goes right now I am working on the new location in the garden. I did a bunch of drawing and plans that were sent out just before the holidays and will soon probably have to do a model of something similar to what I presented earlier for the original location. Right now I want to get the alligator bench done and then my mind can be free to work on the Garden Boats.