Monday, November 26, 2012

Large forms near completion



Over the past few days, I've made significant progress toward getting this stone to the tipping point  -that is, it's now about to the spot where I can see how the finished piece will look, and it's just a matter of refinement of existing forms. This refinement process is a bit of a grind because of all the details that a piece like this has - surfaces, edges, corners, curves - but is IS a bit less mentally taxing. There's just one crude area left.
As far as what this piece is about, I'm seeing some very strong ties to a machine or part(s) of a machine that has some arcane purpose. In my mind, I can see it rotating at a moderate speed, spring-loaded parts moving up and down as needed, cam-like surfaces pushing against unseen forces. These images, for me at least, cast a piece like this one firmly in the machine age, with the "information age" seeming a distant castle in the air.

Friday, November 23, 2012

Rough top is getting resolved

I worked on several different parts of this piece today, but the most noticeable is the top (it is sitting in what will be its final orientation) that was completely unworked as of yesterday. It began to bother me because it was making the whole piece look awkward. This is probably not its finished shape on top, but is is better!

Thursday, November 22, 2012

Back to the stone . . .

I know, it's been a while since my last post. All I can say is, I've been busy with other things, leaf clean-up for one, a weekend trip to our gallery in Iowa for another. Anyway, the photo shows the current state of the piece I'm calling "Mandala 2" for now. This stone has more color than "Mandala 1", and I'm anxious to spend some time on it this Thanksgiving weekend.