For this update I'm going to let David do most of the storytelling with his camera. Working on the upper, kinetic part of the sculpture is repetition accompanied by patient focus. As the structure builds attention must be paid to setting each element in proper relation to other moving elements. As it grows in height the trips up and down the ladders become frequent adding time to each step. It's satisfying work, each step accomplished with it's own inventive problem-solving riddle of invention: like making telescoping stands to support the rings while I devise the armature to hold them in place, like turning a light hoist into a mobile plumb bob to mark the center line in space above the initial tiers of the largest spinning element so I can keep the additional tiers in proper alignment. But what it doesn't do is make for rapidly developing visual drama. |
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photo by me |
photo by David Poulos |
photo by me |
This week while I worked I let Alexandra Styron, via audiobook, tell me the story of her father in Reading My Father. What a mixed blessing to be raised by such a man. On the one hand there are the obvious exotic perks of being exposed to a glittering world of outsized personalities bearing names readily recognized by most of the world, and on the other there's that reality of dealing with a particular man whose mercurial idiosyncrasies would have been very difficult to acclimatise whether by adult family member, or child. Then there is the torturous process of writing. I've witnessed it up close now with my own wife, Clay Carmichael, whose process is long and slow, but her's is a sprint compared to William Styron's. I'll have been at this current sculpture for several months by the time I'm finished and will be ready for projects involving the instant gratification of days or a week to complete. This is my War and Peace length effort. |
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photo by David Poulos |
photo by me |
photo by David Poulos |
| Clay has a good quote from a former English professor at UNC who when asked whether he enjoyed writing replied that he, "enjoyed having written." This distinction seems easily assimilated by many of our writer friends, and a version of that response can be found in the musings on writing by many authors. I would say that for me and many of my sculptor friends that idea gets turned on its head. I often get the most pleasure from the process of making a sculpture that, once complete, I will view with differing degrees of satisfaction and pride. But it has a different mission at that point from actively fueling my on-going creative adventure. It may suggest or inspire further directions in my work, but primarily it goes off into the world to inspire and delight others. My own enjoyment in "having sculpted" will be short lived, and the itch to move on soon inspire some goosebump-inducing scratching. | ||
photo by David Poulos |
photo by David Poulos |
photo by David Poulos |
| Available Sculpture | ||
| Murmuration Ch 2 | Mid April - Done | Public Sculpture |
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