Ready for paint . . . umm, maybe not . . .

I finished this metal piece yesterday and am now faced with the question, "Is it done, or not?". This usually does not surface in my work, but this piece is made of such thin aluminum that the surface is somewhat distorted by some of the screws, and I also dented it in a few places during its construction. I'm either going to have to rough it up overall - a prospect I don't find too appealing, or I'll paint it and then abrade edges, screws, etc. with coarse steel wool in the manner of my piece "Armored Low Rhombo" from two or three months ago. Most likely, I'll paint it. After that is done, I'll post a final photo. Then, I've got to get back to the stones I was working on before I got the idea for this piece.

On another topic, I was pleased to receive the "Best of Show" award last evening at the "64 Arts" Exhibition at the Buchanan Center in Monmouth, IL. The winning piece was the alabaster "Sound of Ice", the same piece that won the grand award at the Galex Exhibition here in Galesburg a little over a year ago. It is shown above.

What I did on summer vacation

Seriously, there is no summer vacation - this is what I got done this weekend. Lori and I both had a rather amazing creative spurt this weekend so we hit it pretty hard. I did the limestone piece in about 2 hours and I think it's a seminal piece. It's only about
6" in it's largest dimension, but I just had to sketch this out. Already, the next iteration is forming in my mind. The aluminum piece is one I started last week, but only barely. It also represents a new technique that holds great promise. I've been looking for a way to make medium-sized pieces from aluminum and have them be light in weight, yet rigid enough to hold their shape. This is the first of that type and the structural elements do just what I expected and hoped. It is about 38" long but I think I can use this method to make structurally sound pieces two to three times this size. I used inexpensive aluminum that is quite thin because I was unsure about the outcome and didn't want to use the good stuff, but I will on the next piece. This one will probably be painted and roughed up a bit.

Working inside

We are having some new windows installed in our home so due to traffic through my outside studio, I've moved my two current stones to my inside one. This also gets me cool for a while which coincides with the hottest weather we've yet had. Another advantage is that my metal studio is right outside the stone-working area and I've got a couple of metal pieces in the works too. Above are a few photos of the most recent piece, currently known as "Solid Geometry #6". As you can see, I've started the refinement phase, to be followed soon by finishing.