Creating with a "Word"!

And He created DNA with a word...!

The trial brought something to my attention. The rapid change and development of the science of DNA. How these small nano particles in our individual cells are a whole amazing world of their own. How they are absolutely unique to each individual person on this planet.

And, I understand we are about to reach 7 billion residents on this piece of real estate floating in space! That means 7 billion unique DNA are in existence!

Nature demonstrates the greatness and awesomeness of our creator. We see this where we live and work. The night sky, the sunrises, the sunsets, the flowers in our gardens, the creatures of nature we see and wonder.

But there is so much just as amazing that we do not see.

As a child I learned that our creator knows the number of hair on each of our heads and notices every sparrow that falls. And I was amazed.

This is another level I cannot even comprehend.

As I create some crude semblance of DNA I cannot believe how difficult it is. Curving strips of clay around and around...keeping them under control while gravity is trying to press the damp clay into my table...

”For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother’s womb. “
Psalm 139:13

Preparations for the Mini-Show

A test run of the display set-up...

Finishing up the pieces is hard work!

Our son and his wife are moving out of the country, long term. Since they will not be here on January 27, for my art show, we are having a special showing for our immediate family this weekend, before they leave this next Monday afternoon. This will be kind of a "Pre-Show" show. This “Pre-Show” will include works that are done and those in progress. It will also include works I still plan to do before the show begins.

Yesterday I finally got to the studio by just before 6PM and began taking each piece off the shelf and placing it before me on the worktable for inspection. Some of them I knew needed some finishing work, others just a final inspection and pass. I lost track of time and before I knew it was 11:30PM and I had not yet had supper!

My philosophy is that if you have a number of frogs to swallow begin with the biggest one so I took a piece that I knew probably needed the most work. It was the "Foxy David", piece I'd declared finished in an earlier blog. Well, since then I have been more and more concerned about it's "look", and now it was time to make decisions. Let me just say, it got a new makeover. It was just too bright for my liking. It also just looked cheap and without depth. In the process of attempting to give it a little depth it just ended up looking like dirty gold. So I gambled and put a lot of brown on it. Rubbed it back and now it looks like a bronzed piece. Much more impacting than the dirty gold. It's got some richness and weight to it now. It feels a lot better. I believe it is now truly finished.

So it went with each piece. A little work here, a little touch-up there.

Then, I had some fun. I took the pieces into the studio showroom and began placing them just to get an idea of how they might be best portrayed for a show. This morning, I had a revelation. Placing them against the wall as in the photo above is not to their advantage. I see that each piece speaks it's own story, needs it’s own space and needs to seen from all angles. I will therefore not place them against the wall, they do need to be seen from a 360 degree perspective. I like that!

Today, this morning I will be giving each piece a name relating to the trial and writing a little blurb about it. Because time is short I will just print it out on a sheet, with the name in bold and the explanation below, then tape it to each display stand under the piece. This will also include sheets for works I still plan to do.

This is a fantastic exercise to do before the actual public show. I am learning a lot. It will be fun to work through this little show with the kids. They are very interested and supportive.

Heartfelt thanks to my family.

"But be glad and rejoice forever in what I will create,..."

Isaiah 65:17-19

Deadlines and Priorities

David's coloring process... also a priority!



My day has gone sideways. There are deadlines that must be met today. We leave for a few days tonight. There are things that need to be done around the house, in the business and in the studio. No way around it, they need to be done today!

Self made deadlines are the worst. Those are the one's we allow to move around...by that I mean they get pushed up. There are also business deadlines and there is no option of letting it slide. They are a priority.

Then there are personal life kind of deadlines. Circumstances of life create them  and they are part of the mix of decisions.

I have work in my studio that needs attention. I have pieces that need to be finished, like the one above. I have pieces in different stages of the "process" and sometimes some of that process has deadlines. It so happens that I've started a piece a week ago and now "life" has arranged for me to go out of town for a few days. I need to shore it up, keep it damp, wet some linen and and place it under the plastic to keep it from drying to a point where I would have to start over. 

Today, all of this has converged. Suddenly, I have a busy day of activity so that an unmovable deadline can be satisfied.

So, I have to look past today and look at this as another opportunity. As I travel, I can read about the art world. There's an article entitled, "The Function of Criticism" which I should read. There are articles about artists and their work, the process, their source of inspiration and the results of this inspiration, which I would like to read. All very instructive and informative for one who is on the eve of his own art show!

I have to get at it now....

May we all be wise in juggling deadlines today.

"...the one whom God has chosen, is young ("old," my insert!) and inexperienced. The task is great..."

1 Chronicles 29:1

A Time to Dance...

"Dancing David" is done!

My studio seems stranger all the time. I have more completed figures on the shelves and it's looking different.

The figure of Dancing David has been there for a long time, in the different stages of development. I remember those days and I always felt for him, being so vulnerable and incomplete. It took a while for him to realize his full potential as a finished figurine in my studio.

In real life, that was his journey also. It took a long time for him to finally experience the kingship he’d been assured was his when he was still a teen. But when it all finally came together the day of dancing came, and he did it with all his might!

I don’t think we dance enough. I don’t. I grew up a “Mennonite” and that killed it right there. In the last few years I have been learning to enjoy victories and blessings with a little, let me say “movement of the physical” and I have to say that I enjoy it. Even just the physical movement itself brings a smile. In my case, it’s not pretty, but it does feel good.

I am happy for David!

Join me and David in a dance of celebration.

That reminds me, I should really talk to Wilma about dancing lessons this winter!

“...a time to weep and a time to laugh, a time to mourn and a time to dance.”

Ecclesiastes 3:3-5



"Evidence of Presence."

Rough work, but it is

"Evidence of Presence"

There is something about DNA. Since the trial I have been mulling over what DNA is all about.

    - I have googled it and found articles, studies, experiments...it is a new language to me and I cannot follow...

    - I have googled "images" of DNA ... and it is a new world wild in the extreme...from grids to wild and crazy forms with no apparent organization, color, circles, curly streams, strings, formations...

    - I have attempted to get my mind around how to represent it...

    - But finally, mostly I have been thinking about what it means to  me...

DNA was the foundation of clearing a 27 year mystery in the life of our family. It represents justice. It represents a clearing of the mind of suspicions, questions, doubts and mystery. It is a tiny tiny thing in the world of the cell that has had a very large impact on our lives. It is a world of mystery that has solved a huge mystery in our lives, and is solving mysteries in many other people’s lives.

I began making an independent piece of DNA just to see what problems I would encounter in the making.

This DNA thing is a new frontier in discovery. Man has only begun to travel into this world. We are only in the very beginning of our exploration...I know that my attempts to understand it are useless. I know that my attempts to replicate it in any artistic way will be so feeble and inadequate as to be useless.

But I do have something...I have good feelings about what it means to me and my family. And so, like David dancing, I can just express my joy in the mystery. My joy that DNA is for me, "Evidence of Presence". Presence of a maker who created this new world of the cell we are only beginning to explore. A "Presence" who's own DNA permeates the physical world, the spiritual world and the world of my own personal soul.

The only adequate way to represent this "Evidence of Presence" is not with perfect replications that are impossible for me to do, but with something that embodies and exudes my wonder, appreciation and joy of the "Presence". Only that kind of work, though crude in representation, is the only way I know that might make it acceptable.

"Then I was the craftsman at his side. I was filled with delight day after day, rejoicing always in His presence."

Pro. 8:30 

"Twisted Steel and Sex Appeal"!

First layer of undercoat going on...

(Looks like me just few years ago!)

No wonder his wife was upset

with his dancing in public...

So I got to my studio and gingerly placed my next piece to finish on my work table. "Dancing David".

David came by his physical prowess and physique honestly. Living and working outside with his herd of sheep. Killing animals like lions and bears to protect them. As a teenager, presenting the head of a giant he'd dispatched to the king. Hired by the king of the land to join his army and quickly moving up through the ranks into leadership through amazing exploits. Like, for example, successfully killing 200 men of the dreaded Philistine military machine as a dowry for a wife.

This guy had a lot of stuff going for him including an amazing physique that made such exploits possible.

Because of this, I had such fun imagining the "atlas" type male body for David. The joy to freely go nuts and make a male figure with all the physical attributes every male dreams about.

You know that a lot of my stuff is "autobiographical" right? It's just that I have not had a chance to "dance in the street" like David did where the "twisted steel and sex appeal" would of course become obvious! (I would also, in this day and age be arrested!)

I just took my wife out to celebrate our 42nd wedding anniversary....

"I made you grow like a plant of the field. You grew up and developed and became the most beautiful of jewels...."

Eze. 16:7

"The Hand of God"

If you have read the book, "The Shack"

you will know were I'm going...sort of maybe...I hope...

So I went to my studio and checked out "The Hand". Removed the plastic covering which was allowing it to dry, slowly, and did the "dimple" test!

Now you have to know I have never done this before. I am reading about other artists and am absorbing the techniques they use. For larger items such as this hand (which is twice the size of my arm) it is advised that you simply create the work from a block of solid clay and do the hollowing out later, after, and this is the important part, it is dry enough to hold it's form through that process. Hence the "dimple" test! This is the test that will tell you if it indeed is dry enough to go through this process.

This is a very subjective concept. It means putting pressure in the surface with your finger/thumb and "presto" you will have your answer! This reminds me of checking watermelons for ripeness. Think of the unknowns in this...maybe I have a "heavy thumb", like some guys known for their "heavy foot" when driving a car. I mean I could create a "dimple" if I wanted to regardless of how dry it is, really.

I am realizing suddenly how much about "art" is exactly that, "an art". It's something like grandma who could make those amazing buns, no one else, even when using the same recipe could make them like her. For her it was "an art" that could not be described or explained.

And so it is with this, I cannot tell you how much pressure to put on the surface, but I will put some unknown amount of pressure on the surface and make a decision based on my best "new" untested "art sense" and go for it.

As you can see above, it worked out. I dared cutting it into three pieces and removed the access clay. The hand above is hollowed out and "welded" back together. In this case the Psa. 63:8 verse below certianly applied to me.

Next is finishing the detailing, you know, giving God a manicure etc. :-)

"...your right hand upholds me."

Psa. 63:8

 

A Warrior Emerges...

He was all white, looking a Little "washed out"

Even with this first coat he's looking stronger!

The transformation continues...

I am finally back at my studio. It is month end, and my business demands my time at the end of each month. So it is good to be back.

It is also an experience to begin to see a row of "finished work" on my shelves. I keep wondering, for example, "is this color OK, did I do the right thing? With that comes a feeling of satisfaction that "for now" this is acceptable. I am learning to trust myself for having followed my feelings....

Above, you see the "Resting David". This is a sculpture I'd done a while back before I came to understand how I was going to finish them. So he just "sat" there (literally) waiting for me to come to my senses. I am discovering that what I once feared I am now actually enjoying! My sculptures have become in effect like a painting or canvas on which I can express my emotions even further from the actual formative process of the figure. The trick is that the sculpture and the finished surface (for me) match. Other's might think differently but that is OK.

David is my favorite Biblical character and so I will be doing more of him later. For  now though, I will finish this one and continue to pursue works having to do with the theme of our art show coming up at the end of January, 2011.

On completely another subject, today I got an amazing invitation to do a presentation to children on "The Art of Cartooning". Wow, this is exciting and sounds like so much fun. How can I say "no!"

OK, back to David, he's wearing armor, do I put blood on it...?

"...whenever Saul saw a mighty or brave man, he took him into his service."

1 Sam. 14:52

(David was one of these men!)