To one accustomed to watching ripped movies, watching a Real DVD is like hitting yourself over the head with a hammer repeatedly. We borrowed a few from the local video dump out of desperation & the one we're attempting to start watching is a disney one with some kinda Magic View or simlar. Which means you can't watch it on a PC at all & it runs u thru a whole raft of crapola in some automagical fashion, where your "go forward" button just makes it restart the crapola over & over til u contemplate suicide as you watch the same pups in space trailer over n over.
It sorta makes you shake ya head & wonder how come the people who want to sell these things to ya can't work out that all ya want is the movie. You want to flip quickly thru all the FBI warnings cos u know like perhaps you have SEEN THEM BEFORE, & you want the trailers at the END where u can choose to watch em so u can think about what u might like to see next time.
What tends to occur is you sit down with your dinner to watch a flick, happily thinking you're in for a treat, & buggered if you haven't eaten all your dinner by the time the feature actually starts & you wonder why you tried.
Thats my rant, & it all runs thru my head every time i stupidly try to watch a Real DVD. I got a shelf of em & i usually choose to watch a ripped one instead. I guess thats probably illegal.
BTW we didn't mean to borrow that disney film, they just gave us the WRONG FILM in the case. Awesome service... take a bow, Video Sleezy.
P.s review for the accidental flick we got, Race to Witch Mountain: Did the actors get paid in drugs for this? Its the only explanation.
Monday, August 31, 2009
Sunday, August 30, 2009
Bit of a Rest
Well yesty was not too bad. I did my speech & unveiled the big feller & people liked it okay. I reckon i'm getting better at this lark they look more like statues now. On the other hand maybe that not so good ha ha. Complete denial worked again for the speech, my knees were shakin cos of my flu not so much cos of nerves & i just buggered the end a bit but people said it was Ok. but they always say that ;)
Researching how to do enlarging in a mechanical way so blocking them out large scale is a bit faster & simpler. If i could do an ideal maquette & enlarge it & then just do the finishing that would save acres of time & energy. I don't think its cheating, u still got to end up with something good, either way. Nobody cares how u get there, and in fact its how they did it in the old days & they did some good stuff then eh.
Looking in the papers ths morn & missing dad cos he used to be right there flippin thru the papers, complaining when they didn't name the sculptor, insisting on spare copies of everything. Who's gonna keep the clippings now eh.
Researching how to do enlarging in a mechanical way so blocking them out large scale is a bit faster & simpler. If i could do an ideal maquette & enlarge it & then just do the finishing that would save acres of time & energy. I don't think its cheating, u still got to end up with something good, either way. Nobody cares how u get there, and in fact its how they did it in the old days & they did some good stuff then eh.
Looking in the papers ths morn & missing dad cos he used to be right there flippin thru the papers, complaining when they didn't name the sculptor, insisting on spare copies of everything. Who's gonna keep the clippings now eh.
Friday, August 28, 2009
Speechin
Hmm i'm writing this instead of writing my speech for tomorrow. Hmm does this mean i'm (a) fully confident of making it up on stage or (b) fully in denial that there is anything happening tomorrow at all.
i suspect (b) since thats how i usually do stuff.
Now i'm watching torchwood. Argh!
i suspect (b) since thats how i usually do stuff.
Now i'm watching torchwood. Argh!
Wednesday, August 26, 2009
Back from the icy wastes of Canberra
Canberra was cool, literally, tho beaut & sunny. The wind cut thru ya tho & best wear a fair bunch of layers & a scarf. In spite of not believing u can get sick with just being cold for a bit, i am now sick with a cold & feeling a bit below average.
Bought an art book there, in a top little cheap bookshop in Belconnen, the book is New Art City by Jed Perl, its about the magical time in NYC from the fifties when the place was a wonderland of artists having a great fecund time in studios right in town & the vibrant scene they had then. The writing is so good, you can just open it anywhere & enjoy a sentence, even tho its about 500 pages it seems to ALL be good. I think the guy must have been an art critic or somthing similar, he gets right to the point & can describe an artists ouvre with one & a half sentences. Have even found my reading glasses so i can get into it when my head stops hurting.
Today went to the foundry, the people who commissioned the mystery guy came to see it, and the actual physical mystery guy himself, even. And, thank g-d, they absolutely loved it. I had to admit it looked orright there & the patina was excellent. Thats what u get from actually asking the patina man's advice eh :)
They had poured my 2 little things i made last week, they'd had some emergency castings requested & rushed mine thru with those just because. One was still too hot to hold from being poured that morning, I chipped it out of the mould with a wee hammer & it looked good. The other was poured while i watched & was still orange when i left. Awesome. I love that deep sudden slurping sound a nice hollow mould makes when it gets bronze poured in. This one was a little solid horse he was a nice rounded hollow space.
Installation of the mystery guy tomorrow nite. Already in trouble over who i didn't invite to dinner after the unveiling. This is just my destiny... there is never going to be a moment in these things when i don't snub at least 50 people, when u can only invite a very small number. Its a drag.
Bought an art book there, in a top little cheap bookshop in Belconnen, the book is New Art City by Jed Perl, its about the magical time in NYC from the fifties when the place was a wonderland of artists having a great fecund time in studios right in town & the vibrant scene they had then. The writing is so good, you can just open it anywhere & enjoy a sentence, even tho its about 500 pages it seems to ALL be good. I think the guy must have been an art critic or somthing similar, he gets right to the point & can describe an artists ouvre with one & a half sentences. Have even found my reading glasses so i can get into it when my head stops hurting.
Today went to the foundry, the people who commissioned the mystery guy came to see it, and the actual physical mystery guy himself, even. And, thank g-d, they absolutely loved it. I had to admit it looked orright there & the patina was excellent. Thats what u get from actually asking the patina man's advice eh :)
They had poured my 2 little things i made last week, they'd had some emergency castings requested & rushed mine thru with those just because. One was still too hot to hold from being poured that morning, I chipped it out of the mould with a wee hammer & it looked good. The other was poured while i watched & was still orange when i left. Awesome. I love that deep sudden slurping sound a nice hollow mould makes when it gets bronze poured in. This one was a little solid horse he was a nice rounded hollow space.
Installation of the mystery guy tomorrow nite. Already in trouble over who i didn't invite to dinner after the unveiling. This is just my destiny... there is never going to be a moment in these things when i don't snub at least 50 people, when u can only invite a very small number. Its a drag.
Saturday, August 22, 2009
Off cross country
Off to Canberra tomorrow. To catch up with old things i hain't seen in a while like the war memorial. Its been updated its probably twice the size of last time i visited it. They got a 3d experience there now apparently that about fighter pilots done by Peter Jackson, who had a bit to do with District 9 wot i saw last night at the flicks. Got to be worth a look & tons more new exhibits. The Lancaster bomber G for George was an old fave & should be back on display. I kinda lost interest in going down there when they took him away for restoration. I got outta the habit of Canberra then.
Then hoping for a leisurely stroll thru the portrait gallery instead of stampede thru it as last time. Then the big gallery there & i dunno what else. A tour of public art too :)
Contemplating war art i been reading The Missing of the Somme by Geoff Dyer, which is a pretty good book in spite of being on the remainders table down the co-op & i just pcked it up by accident. Its about the effect of the Great War & all the remembering that went along with it, all the art for remembering, & the way the remembering affected everything that came after.
Then hoping for a leisurely stroll thru the portrait gallery instead of stampede thru it as last time. Then the big gallery there & i dunno what else. A tour of public art too :)
Contemplating war art i been reading The Missing of the Somme by Geoff Dyer, which is a pretty good book in spite of being on the remainders table down the co-op & i just pcked it up by accident. Its about the effect of the Great War & all the remembering that went along with it, all the art for remembering, & the way the remembering affected everything that came after.
Wednesday, August 19, 2009
Mum n bub
Today i went back to the foundry for another morning of watching the big dude get finished. He got a top coat of ferric to warm the buffed thru bronze & then it got waxed. While i hung round i finished the horse & made a woman holding a baby. The horse just needed a little notch in the leg on the bad side to make it look more like i meant it & then the gravity went the right way & it passed my quality control. The little mum n bub was going to go with a soldier, but i never finished the soldier. The mum n bub is OK tho. I made her first on "pins", like they used to call women's legs, but literal, they were like legs that ended in points. That was to make her look kinda feminine i guess. it worked anyway & i changed them to feet later, with slippers on. The little bub is funny he actually has a face even tho he is very small.
I've almost never made female figure sculptures at all, but hey this could be the start of a whole new area to explore. After all that means there's 50% of the world population of humans that i haven't made eh.
I'm quite taken with the set up they got in the foundry for wax work. In my studio i never have any open pots of molten wax, i just have a hot water bottle. Bit crap, i now realise, and tho i had prided myself on the simplicity & awesome focus & function of my tools, its only in comparison to nothing, hey. I could work *much* faster with a set up like this. 4 open pots of different temperatures, set into a big stainless steel work table, so you can easily scrape it all down, and in fact the table is slightly warm too, just as a side effect of housing the warm wax pots, and the wax comes off it easy with a gentle scrape. Nearby is a huge open container of water to cool things. Bloody lovely.
I've almost never made female figure sculptures at all, but hey this could be the start of a whole new area to explore. After all that means there's 50% of the world population of humans that i haven't made eh.
I'm quite taken with the set up they got in the foundry for wax work. In my studio i never have any open pots of molten wax, i just have a hot water bottle. Bit crap, i now realise, and tho i had prided myself on the simplicity & awesome focus & function of my tools, its only in comparison to nothing, hey. I could work *much* faster with a set up like this. 4 open pots of different temperatures, set into a big stainless steel work table, so you can easily scrape it all down, and in fact the table is slightly warm too, just as a side effect of housing the warm wax pots, and the wax comes off it easy with a gentle scrape. Nearby is a huge open container of water to cool things. Bloody lovely.
Tuesday, August 18, 2009
Better
Less grumpy this evening. I feel thinner & more attractive, and its cos i made a sculpture today while hangin round at the foundry while the big fella got patina'd. I aimed to do that, cos i was expecting to be there about 5 hrs hangin about. The wax room was unoccupied, the wax pots were at the right temp (almost solidified) & i made a little horse. I started out thinking i'd make a lighthorse with rider, like from the war. Then i thought i'll just make a horse & rider. Then it was just a horse. A standing horse half asleep. Then it was a wide awake horse. Then it was on a hill. Then one of the foundry blokes said "nice dog" to get me riled and sure nuff i got fiesty & made it a bucking horse. That works OK for passable, i'll stick with that. He is pretty good from one side, not from the other side, but thats what u get for workin in 3d ;) I left him floating in the tub of green water they got there for cooling waxes in, & i'll fix the other side tomorrow.
But the upshot is i feel thinner & more attractive cos i actually done something. And i probably am thinner & more attractive - there's a long way to go, lets face it. At this stage everything helps.
But the upshot is i feel thinner & more attractive cos i actually done something. And i probably am thinner & more attractive - there's a long way to go, lets face it. At this stage everything helps.
Monday, August 17, 2009
Artist
I went in the foundry today to fix the nose on the big feller. His nose had either copped a poke in wax or it had maybe shrunk a bit funny. The wax does shrink when it cools.
Boy am i *ever* gonna make sure i check these things like with a microscope in future... this timing is ridiculous. Its my fault, as i should have been really anal about the wax pattern when i checked it before they cast it. But a slight squeeze in the nose is almost unnoticeable until you notice it - from then its a massive gigantic powerful eye magnet & torture device for the soul.
I think there is some shrinkage that occurs when you cast a life sized torso & head as one massive hollow wax. I'm so gonna be on this in future. I'm going to ask the foundry to cast me a plaster out of the mould as well as the wax just so we can compare the 2 things next to each other. This time was a bit strange cos i made the original in clay, and then there is no original once you remove the mould cos the clay dries up & falls apart or else more usually its destroyed & recycled.
First thing in the morn there was some dude there in the foundry i'd never seen before. We said hello to each other in the tea room & i said what kind of work do you do? And he said i'm an Artist. I'm sure there was a capital letter in it, and a fullstop after it. Ah well nuff smalltalk. I went & did some nose. Life is a bit too short sometimes innit. In my old age now i got more wisdom & less patience. Later i saw his work. Stuff like that would never have got cast in Paree in the 1700-1900's eh, rather the Academe would have had him taken out th back & shot. But then one of my favorite whinges at the moment is the pathetic state of the skills base in figurative sculpture in Aus, & i count myself in there too mind u, i really need to find a way to improve my skills. There's nobody teaching it but, cos there ain't no teachers with the skills either. What u gonna get then? What we got, shote :)
Anyway we sorted the nose out by 2pm & i had a chat with the patina guy about what we wanted. As my stars said for today regarding an important decision (yes the Amsterdam stars, yeah i know, i don't believe in it either), you can make a soap opera out of it or not, and so as i prefer not, i asked the expert & went with his suggestions of a purply-brown then a buff then a light tan-brown, and in the meantime learned a lot about the chemical personality of some of the colours as well. Very interesting & as you would probably expect it really matters a lot whether its outside or inside, what colour it will tend to change to over time & i also learned that sometimes a scratch can be self-repairing, again dependent on whether its outside or inside & what colour it is & whether its been waxed. There is so much to bronze work that really can be a life's work if you want it to be.
Boy am i *ever* gonna make sure i check these things like with a microscope in future... this timing is ridiculous. Its my fault, as i should have been really anal about the wax pattern when i checked it before they cast it. But a slight squeeze in the nose is almost unnoticeable until you notice it - from then its a massive gigantic powerful eye magnet & torture device for the soul.
I think there is some shrinkage that occurs when you cast a life sized torso & head as one massive hollow wax. I'm so gonna be on this in future. I'm going to ask the foundry to cast me a plaster out of the mould as well as the wax just so we can compare the 2 things next to each other. This time was a bit strange cos i made the original in clay, and then there is no original once you remove the mould cos the clay dries up & falls apart or else more usually its destroyed & recycled.
First thing in the morn there was some dude there in the foundry i'd never seen before. We said hello to each other in the tea room & i said what kind of work do you do? And he said i'm an Artist. I'm sure there was a capital letter in it, and a fullstop after it. Ah well nuff smalltalk. I went & did some nose. Life is a bit too short sometimes innit. In my old age now i got more wisdom & less patience. Later i saw his work. Stuff like that would never have got cast in Paree in the 1700-1900's eh, rather the Academe would have had him taken out th back & shot. But then one of my favorite whinges at the moment is the pathetic state of the skills base in figurative sculpture in Aus, & i count myself in there too mind u, i really need to find a way to improve my skills. There's nobody teaching it but, cos there ain't no teachers with the skills either. What u gonna get then? What we got, shote :)
Anyway we sorted the nose out by 2pm & i had a chat with the patina guy about what we wanted. As my stars said for today regarding an important decision (yes the Amsterdam stars, yeah i know, i don't believe in it either), you can make a soap opera out of it or not, and so as i prefer not, i asked the expert & went with his suggestions of a purply-brown then a buff then a light tan-brown, and in the meantime learned a lot about the chemical personality of some of the colours as well. Very interesting & as you would probably expect it really matters a lot whether its outside or inside, what colour it will tend to change to over time & i also learned that sometimes a scratch can be self-repairing, again dependent on whether its outside or inside & what colour it is & whether its been waxed. There is so much to bronze work that really can be a life's work if you want it to be.
Friday, August 14, 2009
On site
Today went to see the site for the new dude. I wanted to see what colours were around so i could choose the patina. It was all concrete & dark silvery reflective glass windows. the windows had such serious reflective tinting that it was like the sky & clouds were inside the building. But it was all big & concrety around the windows & all the stairs & walkways were grey concrete. The foundry guy was discussing the drilling they were gonna do. The concrete was "post-tensioned" which means there's cables inside it that holds the structure in tension. If you cut one while drilling it goes "ping!" like buggery and thats not at all good for tha structural integrity. So they need to be sure where the cables are in order to avoid drilling em. Of course the placement is that the sculpture's legs straddle a cable. Gonna need to be pretty careful eh.
Anyway in discussion with people who cared, it was put to me that the new dude needed a "bling" patina cos of him being a modern kinda guy. Old fellers can be very serious in dark patinas, but the youngsters maybe should be brighter. OK i might go with a dark red with under buffing so it kinda glows.
A matched pair of furbys arrived in the mail, off ebay, a replacement for little coco who shit himself with his battery acid. I was quite attached to him & he entertained many visiting kiddies. He sacrificed hs eyelashes to small children, and then when left alone a little too long his batteries rotted. But i can probably replace his battery holder, eh, so some future project will be pull old coco apart.
These furbys (furbii) have camo pattern blue coats with pink fronts. just where blue camo is gonna work is mystery but i guess furbululand someplace maybe. Old coco was a ratty brown one, more like a real animal. I dunno that i can bond with the blue camo twins here but anyway they will keep visiting kiddies amused, which is essential.
Anyway in discussion with people who cared, it was put to me that the new dude needed a "bling" patina cos of him being a modern kinda guy. Old fellers can be very serious in dark patinas, but the youngsters maybe should be brighter. OK i might go with a dark red with under buffing so it kinda glows.
A matched pair of furbys arrived in the mail, off ebay, a replacement for little coco who shit himself with his battery acid. I was quite attached to him & he entertained many visiting kiddies. He sacrificed hs eyelashes to small children, and then when left alone a little too long his batteries rotted. But i can probably replace his battery holder, eh, so some future project will be pull old coco apart.
These furbys (furbii) have camo pattern blue coats with pink fronts. just where blue camo is gonna work is mystery but i guess furbululand someplace maybe. Old coco was a ratty brown one, more like a real animal. I dunno that i can bond with the blue camo twins here but anyway they will keep visiting kiddies amused, which is essential.
Thursday, August 13, 2009
Disenmarked
I found that most of those marks i spent the day making on the big fella didn't really make much mark. Its a funny thing, foundry work. Once you sandblast the whole thing you suddenly realise the marks u made are not what u had thought they were. The extra shine it gets when you whack it tends to double the intensity of what you think u did. Sandblasting knocks it back to matt & there you have half -or less- of the mark you thought you had made. Eh, life's hard innit. Theres a metaphor for it in there somewhere as well.
Anyway times short so i surrendered the big bronze man to the big foundry man, bless his heart, who took it on & killed it in short order. I went back today & there he is, finished.
Reckoned he was fine but then I picked his nose as a bit i wasn't sure about (i have a distinct aversion to looking these big sculptures in the face & only do it at the last minute to find usually some drastic bloody issue i should have dealt with a month earlier. Argh.)
So i went & got his face from my studio, its the only surviving bit, since i did the face in plaster. Currently I have 2 faces in a bucket in the boot of the car & i'll take them to the foundry & compare to the bronze. Heh its funny to have 2 faces in a bucket. Heh.
It looks like i left it too late to choose some junk & cover it in silver foil to enter the Crap Small Sculpture Prize by 5pm tomorrow, unless they have some online entry form. Doubt it. Anyway i guess not having the Trouble Ahead is probably just as well. Who wants to live in interesting times?
I did find the junk though. Seek n ye shall find, the Lord provides. Just now, in a huge dumpster, while i walked down the shop, i found some wood offcuts in there, about 3m long. Like fence palings. But anyway i can fix the backyard fence with them, so they won't go to waste.
Anyway times short so i surrendered the big bronze man to the big foundry man, bless his heart, who took it on & killed it in short order. I went back today & there he is, finished.
Reckoned he was fine but then I picked his nose as a bit i wasn't sure about (i have a distinct aversion to looking these big sculptures in the face & only do it at the last minute to find usually some drastic bloody issue i should have dealt with a month earlier. Argh.)
So i went & got his face from my studio, its the only surviving bit, since i did the face in plaster. Currently I have 2 faces in a bucket in the boot of the car & i'll take them to the foundry & compare to the bronze. Heh its funny to have 2 faces in a bucket. Heh.
It looks like i left it too late to choose some junk & cover it in silver foil to enter the Crap Small Sculpture Prize by 5pm tomorrow, unless they have some online entry form. Doubt it. Anyway i guess not having the Trouble Ahead is probably just as well. Who wants to live in interesting times?
I did find the junk though. Seek n ye shall find, the Lord provides. Just now, in a huge dumpster, while i walked down the shop, i found some wood offcuts in there, about 3m long. Like fence palings. But anyway i can fix the backyard fence with them, so they won't go to waste.
Tuesday, August 11, 2009
Waste moulds
Spent yesty in the foundry again. The big bloke swinging longways on 2 hoists & flipping him over to get to the gnarly bits. I get to a certain point where i'm just get too tired to figure out what kind of mark i'm sposed to be making. Get to this point before 4pm & shoot thru about then. Maybe with practice i can go the whole day. But luckily don't need to push it that hard at the moment.
Regards this new proposal i got some quotes while i was there. For @metre high figures cos i'm thinking about that size or smaller. I learned about making plaster waste moulds to give wax impressions & i think i want to go that way for this next thing if i get the project. What a great idea, if you are only doing a one-off why bother with rubber anyway, you're just going to chuck it out after one impression. I can do some finishing in the wax too, & there you are. Can save about 20 grand in mould making for the project i'm contemplating, so that means that could go into making the sculpture bigger & more exciting which might help get the job.
Or else i can quote for the moulds too & just means i have 20K to play with if something goes wrong, or i run outta time & the foundry do the moulds anyway. Like would have to happen if i go back to my real job. This project is basically the first 6 months of next year, in which time i'd have either gone back to my real job or quit it altogether. How tempted i am heh heh. Anyway tempting's nothing, the numbers are the thing eh.
Regards this new proposal i got some quotes while i was there. For @metre high figures cos i'm thinking about that size or smaller. I learned about making plaster waste moulds to give wax impressions & i think i want to go that way for this next thing if i get the project. What a great idea, if you are only doing a one-off why bother with rubber anyway, you're just going to chuck it out after one impression. I can do some finishing in the wax too, & there you are. Can save about 20 grand in mould making for the project i'm contemplating, so that means that could go into making the sculpture bigger & more exciting which might help get the job.
Or else i can quote for the moulds too & just means i have 20K to play with if something goes wrong, or i run outta time & the foundry do the moulds anyway. Like would have to happen if i go back to my real job. This project is basically the first 6 months of next year, in which time i'd have either gone back to my real job or quit it altogether. How tempted i am heh heh. Anyway tempting's nothing, the numbers are the thing eh.
Sunday, August 9, 2009
New Project
OK i got in the mail a brief for a project. This means i got to finish the last big guy, do my tax by wednesday for my tax appt & make a proposal & get ready a presentation for this new project in the hope of being so awesome that i get the job. So looks like i'm thrown back into real life again, which is probably a very good thing.
Tomorrow back in the foundry with my 1.0mm cutting blades & a bad attitude :)
Sadly we were watching Dancing w the Stars this evening for a few seconds. My sis thought one of the guys was blind who was dancing. He wore sunglasses & seemed to be looking at nothing. She said look at his legs, he must be blind. I sez just cos his legs are spastic doesn't mean he's blind. She had to agree. He wasn't blind actually, or spastic, just crap. The compere flattered the bloke afterwards by telling him his new chest waxing made him look "ripped". My bro was bemused that being called stoned was a compliment. I had to explain that since he's been living overseas, "ripped" has come to mean "muscular" rather than "off your face on drugs". Anyway the new chest waxing was completely covered by a singlet so why a chest waxing would make your arms look stronger is a mystery.
Trying to find a piece of junk to cover with silver leaf for the Crap Small Sculpture Prize. Another 50 bucks entry fee down the toilet? Well only if i can find a good piece of junk. Tempted to follow the asstrology instructions to the letter, and get some actual silver leaf. Tho i might get "trouble", as well, as was profesied, i can't imagine WTF kind of trouble an art comp could get you in that wasn't also funny.
Tomorrow back in the foundry with my 1.0mm cutting blades & a bad attitude :)
Sadly we were watching Dancing w the Stars this evening for a few seconds. My sis thought one of the guys was blind who was dancing. He wore sunglasses & seemed to be looking at nothing. She said look at his legs, he must be blind. I sez just cos his legs are spastic doesn't mean he's blind. She had to agree. He wasn't blind actually, or spastic, just crap. The compere flattered the bloke afterwards by telling him his new chest waxing made him look "ripped". My bro was bemused that being called stoned was a compliment. I had to explain that since he's been living overseas, "ripped" has come to mean "muscular" rather than "off your face on drugs". Anyway the new chest waxing was completely covered by a singlet so why a chest waxing would make your arms look stronger is a mystery.
Trying to find a piece of junk to cover with silver leaf for the Crap Small Sculpture Prize. Another 50 bucks entry fee down the toilet? Well only if i can find a good piece of junk. Tempted to follow the asstrology instructions to the letter, and get some actual silver leaf. Tho i might get "trouble", as well, as was profesied, i can't imagine WTF kind of trouble an art comp could get you in that wasn't also funny.
Friday, August 7, 2009
Working day
Spent a day at the foundry working on mystery guy. With the top outstretched arm with large object attached welded to his stump he suddenly was extremely tall & a pain to tip over & work on him longways. Walking around him is a long way. There's a fair bit o pain in it all anyways as i removed 3 fingerprints on the cheese grater wot is his inner thigh when i tried to shift him around & my hand slipped. Ough i said. He was silent as u would expect, tho he thought it an apt payback for me calling him those names.
Did a lot of fine work with a cutting blade on a 5" grinder, 1.something mm blades... it gives step 1 of a multi step procedure to end up with the same texture as what he had originally. 1.something is OK ... but I *know* i got 1.0 mm blades at the studio so once i realised that i realised i *needed* them & i would not be happy to go on without them & i will have to go back for another big day Monday with my blades to tangle with the big guy again & this time he's gonna get a big can o' whup ass.
The foundry is nice & quiet on a friday. I soon fixed that but, with my grinding & hammering. It is good to be jolted back into the real world with a hard physical day like that. If only i could run with it. Sadly my next 2 days are sitting about at lunches with family friends. So who wouldn't want to blow a weekend doing that? well anybody whose got anything better to do, thats who... even me.
Picked up 2 little casts they did for me on the side. Perfect casts & impeccably finished & they had flattened the bases & even drilled threaded holes up the legs on both to be used for mounting them to bases. They have never done that for me before... i never even knew they did it. i think there must be a real bit of quiet time round the place at the moment.
Did a lot of fine work with a cutting blade on a 5" grinder, 1.something mm blades... it gives step 1 of a multi step procedure to end up with the same texture as what he had originally. 1.something is OK ... but I *know* i got 1.0 mm blades at the studio so once i realised that i realised i *needed* them & i would not be happy to go on without them & i will have to go back for another big day Monday with my blades to tangle with the big guy again & this time he's gonna get a big can o' whup ass.
The foundry is nice & quiet on a friday. I soon fixed that but, with my grinding & hammering. It is good to be jolted back into the real world with a hard physical day like that. If only i could run with it. Sadly my next 2 days are sitting about at lunches with family friends. So who wouldn't want to blow a weekend doing that? well anybody whose got anything better to do, thats who... even me.
Picked up 2 little casts they did for me on the side. Perfect casts & impeccably finished & they had flattened the bases & even drilled threaded holes up the legs on both to be used for mounting them to bases. They have never done that for me before... i never even knew they did it. i think there must be a real bit of quiet time round the place at the moment.
Thursday, August 6, 2009
Its Off
Have some sort of feeling, could be virtuous, could be just tired, but i did manage to fill out the online form to apply for a Paris residency yesty. It took (not counting a few hrs the day before) from 10am to 5pm with 5 mins for lunch. The worst part was the 2000 char limit on what you write in there, which doesn't apply itself or be described in any way til you have paste in something longer than 2000 chars & then tried to modify it in the box & then it goes all RED & cuts off the end. I had to then remove 1500 chars from my lovely BS which was a very time consuming process since u want it to make sense in the end & you cannot do it in the box there either cos the end is missing since it cuts it off. Its not the same as Word char count either, its a bit LESS, dunno why, but WTF its bloody frustrating. Then the powerpoint set of 10 pix that was problematic cos of not having Powerpt installed on the PC, der. But anyway finished it all, on the dot of 5pm it was in & in spite of putting in the same sort of app now for 3 yrs running, "i want to study sculpture in Paris", i guess its doomed like usual. There must be some hope there tho cos i still did it, and i got a secret tip from a mate on something to pop in there to spice it up (ask me how!) so let's keep fingers crost this year eh.
Then went in to the studio very late to drink cider while filling the dumpster next door. i suspect cos they not allowed to put tyres in their dumpster, tho they usually do, they haven't been doing it lately so there's been more room in there for my crap. Anyway there was so much room i chucked 3 boxes of clay & a massive amount of used & unruly chicken wire & foam & broken glass bottles from previous cider evenings & a big bag of garbage in there. And still room! Damn hate to waste chuckin out space but there u are... tempted to throw out good things & if i'd only cut the broken coffee table in half i could have chucked that in.
Speaking of doomed things my sis got some asstrology from Amsterdam on the net & it says "the 14th... covering a worthless piece of junk in silver leaf equals trouble ahead"
The 14th is the date of the close of entries for the Crap Small Sculpture Prize. Heheheheheh.
Then went in to the studio very late to drink cider while filling the dumpster next door. i suspect cos they not allowed to put tyres in their dumpster, tho they usually do, they haven't been doing it lately so there's been more room in there for my crap. Anyway there was so much room i chucked 3 boxes of clay & a massive amount of used & unruly chicken wire & foam & broken glass bottles from previous cider evenings & a big bag of garbage in there. And still room! Damn hate to waste chuckin out space but there u are... tempted to throw out good things & if i'd only cut the broken coffee table in half i could have chucked that in.
Speaking of doomed things my sis got some asstrology from Amsterdam on the net & it says "the 14th... covering a worthless piece of junk in silver leaf equals trouble ahead"
The 14th is the date of the close of entries for the Crap Small Sculpture Prize. Heheheheheh.
Tuesday, August 4, 2009
I'm Baaaack
Hey i got back to the studio today... i did a bit of preliminary neatening the other day but today i went in & hit it hard & finished removing the clay off the last big guy & stacked it into boxes & swept up so much that i can't breathe thru my nose its all clogged with dusty carcinogens.
Tomorrow nite is dumpster nite for the peeps next door so i'll do the midnight chuck & pop it in there. i'm keeping so much recyclable clay that my clay recycle box busted its wheels off already, its now on bricks & full to the brim. so i give meself permission to chuck some out.
i cleaned the desk & sat there drawing in my new notebook til my pen shit me to tears & it wasn't worth continuing. Biro's are no good when your paper might be a bit dusty or whatever they just can't hack it.
So anyhow i didn't do no *actual* sculpture but getting closer.
Tomorrow nite is dumpster nite for the peeps next door so i'll do the midnight chuck & pop it in there. i'm keeping so much recyclable clay that my clay recycle box busted its wheels off already, its now on bricks & full to the brim. so i give meself permission to chuck some out.
i cleaned the desk & sat there drawing in my new notebook til my pen shit me to tears & it wasn't worth continuing. Biro's are no good when your paper might be a bit dusty or whatever they just can't hack it.
So anyhow i didn't do no *actual* sculpture but getting closer.
Monday, August 3, 2009
Rejection Email
Got a rejection for the Blake entry i proposed. They send it by email which is a fresh new marvel of progress. Its nice though they write it like a real letter.
I can sorta see its not quite a finished work, not totally resolved, tho i seen far worse shite in Blake shows in the past i'm sure. Anyway i was chattin with juz & she finished the sculpture for me. (Another marvel of progress since she is on t'other side 'world.) Re sculptures, an unfinished attitude is often a "feature" of my work. I kind of like leaving things open-ended but i can see that joining up the cycle or the circle would give a 'work of art' feel to it instead of a 'half-finished work of arse' that they can have. Anyway she gave me the awesomest idea that was just totally perfect... so perfect that i'm going to get the extra piece cast & weld it on there. So if life was fair she should be getting a % if it ever sells & maybe get to scratch her name in it somewhere as well. Lets work towards a fair life!
I can sorta see its not quite a finished work, not totally resolved, tho i seen far worse shite in Blake shows in the past i'm sure. Anyway i was chattin with juz & she finished the sculpture for me. (Another marvel of progress since she is on t'other side 'world.) Re sculptures, an unfinished attitude is often a "feature" of my work. I kind of like leaving things open-ended but i can see that joining up the cycle or the circle would give a 'work of art' feel to it instead of a 'half-finished work of arse' that they can have. Anyway she gave me the awesomest idea that was just totally perfect... so perfect that i'm going to get the extra piece cast & weld it on there. So if life was fair she should be getting a % if it ever sells & maybe get to scratch her name in it somewhere as well. Lets work towards a fair life!
Sunday, August 2, 2009
Trannies & Magic
Well twas a good thing we checked out that tranny, as it had a blocked filter. Any tranny will tell you that this something to avoid, it sounds painful, & as far as my car goes it almost certainly would have shit itself in the mountains.
So my bro sailed off to the great unknown in what is hopefully a reliable bomb & i be at home mostly now cos there's only 1 car & lot of ppl want to use it. There seem to be all manner of appointments & things to do for or with other people & i'm lazy as fuck so i just roll with it, rather than cracking out the motorbike from its icicles. I been a bit sick & sleeping bad & having nightmares like the ones you have when u think there was something you should have done. I tell it to my sis & she says my subconscious is very imaginative. The latest one is the magic wand one, which by harsh light of day is of course insane but in a dream its so obvious innit. U see if i had read the instructions & learned to use it, it would have been helpful. It wouldn't have cured him though, my subconscious is surprisingly realistic in that regard. But it would have made things much easier.
FFS.
On one hand its a nonsense sourced from the latest harry potter (which we did go see last week), or if u like asstrology, tarot, jung, dream interpretation & BS then u can say this wand stand in for a number of things i didn't do that i start to feel terrible guilt about cos i got too much time on my hands.
In the end u left with what u did do, & u done your best at the time, 110%.
My Subconscious is very childish though, it doesn't get it. And no, i don't talk to it, & it don't talk to me - ain't neither of us crazy.
Good news is that telling it to my sis has knocked it on the head & i slept ok last 2 nights. Hooray.
Have done one page in the new notebook. The lady next door gave me an article about the Crap Small Sculpture Prize from the Paddo news & i glued it in as page 1. Talk about a dearth of inspiration.
But could i be tempted to try for this stupid time waster again? Stay tuned...
So my bro sailed off to the great unknown in what is hopefully a reliable bomb & i be at home mostly now cos there's only 1 car & lot of ppl want to use it. There seem to be all manner of appointments & things to do for or with other people & i'm lazy as fuck so i just roll with it, rather than cracking out the motorbike from its icicles. I been a bit sick & sleeping bad & having nightmares like the ones you have when u think there was something you should have done. I tell it to my sis & she says my subconscious is very imaginative. The latest one is the magic wand one, which by harsh light of day is of course insane but in a dream its so obvious innit. U see if i had read the instructions & learned to use it, it would have been helpful. It wouldn't have cured him though, my subconscious is surprisingly realistic in that regard. But it would have made things much easier.
FFS.
On one hand its a nonsense sourced from the latest harry potter (which we did go see last week), or if u like asstrology, tarot, jung, dream interpretation & BS then u can say this wand stand in for a number of things i didn't do that i start to feel terrible guilt about cos i got too much time on my hands.
In the end u left with what u did do, & u done your best at the time, 110%.
My Subconscious is very childish though, it doesn't get it. And no, i don't talk to it, & it don't talk to me - ain't neither of us crazy.
Good news is that telling it to my sis has knocked it on the head & i slept ok last 2 nights. Hooray.
Have done one page in the new notebook. The lady next door gave me an article about the Crap Small Sculpture Prize from the Paddo news & i glued it in as page 1. Talk about a dearth of inspiration.
But could i be tempted to try for this stupid time waster again? Stay tuned...
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