Hungry Art

As a working artist, teaching and making art, it is true that many times one must make a choice as to what is most important. We all work at balancing our lives, family, health, studio work, (not necessarily in that order) but they all can compete. Even so, It seems to me that no matter what's going on when my studio work beckons I will drop everything and come running.

When projects stretch out due to engineering complications (or other reasons) the hardest part can be holding my interest so that I solve the problem well and can keep going with as much energy and excitement as when I started. All artists face these issues. I also find that it's one of the biggest issues with art students- how to keep going when it gets tough, or boring, or you run out of money, etc. I find it funny that they think they are the only ones to suffer from this and they are often times surprised when they hear I go through the same issues and do my fair share of struggling, and on a regular basis too.

I am not sure what my point here is except that to the casual viewer, this new series I am working on may seem long and drawn out, but really it's just a blip in the bigger picture. To really be an artist one must work at it all the time, give everything and let the art devour you. The smallest ideas become giant and worth every second you spend on them.

OK. So now onto what I am working on.

The pictures I showed in my previous post showed the sculptures complete in form and put together. However, they were not secure and I want them to be very secure. In fact I want the pieces to be so sound that I can turn them as whole sculptures in any direction and not have shifting or something falling off. This is hard to do, and my years of being a furniture builder have made my conception of this hard. Traditional furniture construction has rules, and that is not how I work. I compose my work. As I build I change it, shift the parts around or make new ones until I get what I like. I am not a planner (unless it's a commission) and want, no, need the option to be flexible in my building. So, my pieces are often times made of parts that are interchangeable and that means they move easily. In theory. In reality some have to be bludgeoned on and off while other parts slide too easy. To the naked eye all the joints look nice and tight, but if you work with wood/plywood you know it doesn't take much, even the humidity will make a joint impossibly annoying to work with. But beside all that at some point, when my symphony is constructed I have to secure the parts. What you don't see here are pictures of the weeks of torture spent trying to figure how to do this and then finally executing it. Ironically, I ended up using the same process as used in furniture; pining with dowel rods. in some cases it was extreme, construction or wood glue in the joint and then 1/2" or 3/8" rods that went very deep and at extreme angles. A good drill and new super sharp bits, one of them 12" long made all the difference. Each sculpture still retains one larger joint that will remain unfixed, as I need to break them down somewhat to get them through doorways and for shipping. Amazingly enough it all worked great, I can turn them in all directions and they are super strong and sound.

Right now I am working on finishing and that always takes forever. The color is super important to me and this time I am taking a new route to a more subtle conversation between the colors, planes, and volumes. Really it all came from me observing that in my studio, with halogen, incandescent and florescent lighting, that the white painted sculptures changed color from side to side depending where the lighting was in the room. This is not my first time doing this, but it is the first larger scale work. The color is not meant to be in your face, but more of a hint, one that keeps the viewer looking and guessing. I have tried to show some images here and you can see it a bit, of course it has more impact in person.

You can see the warmer white on the left faces and the cooler white on others.

 

One of the pieces with tags so I don't loose track of what color goes where.

 

As you can imagine this part of the process takes a lot of time. In the meanwhile I have started the next sculpture out in my freezing cold shop. Of course I want the next ones bigger, and now that I am much more proficient in fabricating them that should not be an issue. I am also adding voids. Holy cow! This is much more exciting that I thought it would be. Scary too, as I have no idea what I am going to do with them.

 

Hopefully the temperatures will be on the rise soon, (this has been the coldest weather in all 15 years of living here) so I can be out in my shop working on a more regular basis. It's OK to bring stuff to my house studio for painting and sanding, but the big power tools live outside in my (unheated) shop.

Almost There, But Not Quite

I have made progress. It's been over a month and I am sad (sort of) they are not finished. However, they represent a whole new body of work and for me the language is exciting and new, I want to learn it thoroughly as I progress into these new works.

I won't bore you with all the small problems, both physical and design related, that have manifested (and are expected), but suffice to say as one problem is solved it often reveals another to deal with. A thick lamination made to solve a scale problem means a physical weight shift that requires another solution. Solving these types of engineering problems are fun but weigh on me after a while. The brain can get tired easily. I have learned how to use Sketch Up and this program can be very handy. Rendering parts on my computer and trying out different solutions virtually has helped me not to waste plywood when working. It's very good for figuring out color too. Drawing is still a constant though and a very immediate tool that I still use, always.

Yesterday I had one of those BAM! moments, and the fun times ensued. The work flowed, the solutions flowed, the whole session was productive.

So, as of this point, I have my forms, I have several laminations to complete, some connections to make, sanding and patching, more sanding, and then gluing and pining pieces together. A few weeks of work for sure.

Some pieces will be glued in place and others will be pinned so they can be attached when installing the work. These works will remain largely intact though. As far as color, right now I have no idea, I have a gallon of good sandable gesso and that will be the start.

In Progress, Forever.

The hollow forms are progressing well. These new works are labor intensive and there is lots of problem solving to do. As I workout one solution others present themselves and I realize I could be working on this series for a long time. I have to work hard to keep my mind on one theme and not wondering off on all the possibilities for new pieces. I do some sketches, take some photos, whatever so that I don't forget all the exciting options I am being presented with.

The last work I showed progressed to this-

But I knew it wasn't finished, still felt it was lacking something. So I made some dummy parts that progressed to final glue ups (solid laminations)-

 

And now I feel satisfied I have the right form-

 

 

I have started on the next forms, which are of course even bigger-

 

I am getting better at making them and faster too, although I did learn that our local hardware store, Economy Supply, sells bendy plywood! Amazing! So much easier and cleaner than making all those kerf cuts in that crappy and cheaply made luan-

 

 

Next I have to start working on finishes. I know what I want I just to have to experiment and find where to get the right stuff. Finishing will, no doubt, be a big adventure in itself.





Color

Construction of my daily compositions, as a friend calls them, has slowed down a bit, as expected. For two reasons; our summer semester started, and I had to slow down as I needed to start doing more composing of the forms.

The first group of works were kind of like 3d gesture drawings, I jumped in not knowing or really planing where I was going. As forms, commonalities, and relationships began to develop I knew I wanted to slow down and make deliberate decisions about where to go next. The hard part is not losing the freshness and spontaneity apparent in the first works. So far so good. I started adding larger laminated sections and fabricated parts that required clear decisions and planning in the construction phase. I like how things are going, and they are getting bigger and stronger. I also decided it was time to start experimenting with finishes. Hand painting was not going to work, too may inaccessible spaces for a brush and many of the works will not come apart to paint individual pieces. So I tried spray paint and although it requires great patience the results have been very pleasing, and I am getting the bold saturated colors that I want. I have an excellent spray system, but right now I am using too small a quantity of paint in any one color to justify the expense of the paint itself, and there are so many excellent spray paint choices.

Right now I will be doing more of my daily compositions in clay, mainly because my intense summer teaching scheduled will keep me in the USM studio pretty much 40 hrs a week straight for the month of June. I will have several hours a day to work side by side with some of my upper level ceramics students and so far it has been rewarding, and they seem to be getting a lot out of seeing me work too.

I'll still work on the wood ones, but at a slower pace and probably on weekends. My goal with the clay and the wood is to get bigger.