Today's progress

More refinement happening here. I am in the part of this work that I like the most - making up the forms and their various interactions on the fly. It is just plain exciting to see the shapes emerge from solid stone in a matter of minutes, made possible by my pneumatic hammer. I thought initially that this tool would speed up the work so much that I'd lose control of the process and make mistakes. Happily, this has not happened, and I'm able to continue with my normal methods. It's just faster. As can be seen in the photo of the other side, I've not done much with that yet. I'm still working out how to manage the fact that the main features of that side are oriented in the same direction as is the stratification of the stone - a happy accident. My task will be to exploit that while creating a piece that has unity and coherence from side to side. A challenge!

Problem fixed . . .

I think I've got the "chicken" problem solved, at least partially. The changes I've got planned for the next session should ban birds from the stone once and for all. A side benefit of an opening is that it makes the stone significantly lighter - a very good thing!

Next step

The photo above shows the piece in what I think will be its final orientation. The piercing at this point is small and looks like an eye, which in turn makes the piece look something like a bird head. Since I try to avoid visual associations that are that blatant, I'll be working today to diminish that effect - first by enlarging the pierced area, then by other means if necessary.

Ongoing . . .

On day 4, I decided to go ahead with my plan to saw off part of this stone, though the piece sawed off was not as big as I thought it would have to be. However, it was enough to change the awkward, chicken-like shape of the original stone. Now I can turn my attention to figuring out the basic character of the remainder. The photos above show the start of this work.

Acadian Arc - finished

Also this week, I put a very dilute coat of ivory black and iridescent copper acrylic on the Acadian Arc, and it is now finished. Again, it's size is 34" long.

Next alabaster piece, March, 2012

Freakishly warm weather here in Illinois for March! It's been in the 70s and 80s most of the month and that made me decide to open up my outdoor studio about 1-1/2 to 2 months early. The photos above are a record of the first three days of work on a stone of about 100 lbs. It has, overall, a kind of awkward shape and I'm planning to cut a good bit of it off to defeat that ungainly quality - perhaps I'll get two pieces out of this stone.

New piece in February

As soon as I finished preparing for my exhibition, I got going on an idea that had been bugging me for a couple of weeks. It's in a new medium for me and I was anxious to find out if it would work. The piece (shown above) is called "Acadian Arc" and has a foam core covered with a couple of types of wood and then some texturizing acrylic gel by Golden. It is painted with pigmented acrylics and the color scheme you see above is preliminary - I hope to be able to subtly add color to make it somewhat more complex.
The piece is very light - much less than a pound - and could hang on a wall, but most likely will sit on a surface as in the photo.
It's about 34" long.

Feb. 17th Exhibition Opening

My exhibition with printmaker Josh Bindewald of Peoria, IL opened the evening of February 17th in Monmouth, Illinois at the Buchanan Center for the Arts. Director Susan Twomey did a superb job of hanging/arranging the show, and the event was well attended. One of the most frequent comments of the evening was regarding how well Josh's and my work went together. We both have angular aspects to our work and as a consequence, we called the show "Intersections". Again, putting us together was Susan's idea! Above are some photos of the opening as well as a few taken the day before.