Jay's View - an artist looks at Life: May 2010

Some Swinging Jennys on a "rock" base. There is something fun in
casting the rock base. What is reality after all? Now that I'm
thinking about it, all sorts of possibilities open up. The main
problem is that actualizing ideas generally takes time and money. I
have some time since my cancer seems to be growing pretty slowly. I
don't have much money, but I have built up a bunch of assets and was
smart enough to have gotten a decent line of credit when I didn't need
it. Makes me think of the song my paryents used to sing: "When you
got it, you don't need it. When you need it, you don't got it. Funny,
funny, funny what money can do."
So really there is nothing stopping me except myself.

One of the "chasers" who is working on the "Family" put the Kneeling Kid on the Dog while he was working on one of the other pieces. I thought it looked funny.

Doing the patina on the Mermaid Door Knocker. The fishy part of the mermaid where she is greenish is covered up with aluminum foil so that the chemicals for the flesh part don't ruin it.

I didn't make this thinking it would be a door knocker, but once it was cast in bronze it naturally hung from the round arms so it obviously wanted to be a knocker so I made the "knockee" part out of wax and had that cast.

It is a wonderful experience to to have a professional fine art bronze casting foundry at your beck and call for a couple of months. Peter Woytuk showed me how to use it be example. Many thank Peter.

Now I've just got to figure out how to fund ding some big pieces.....

A base looks nice under Story Time.

I think I'll make a rug for a base, and as Somboom sugested,, put a
Dog and a Cat lying on it to fill out the family scene. Since, as
Sophie said, it turns out that it is the Hodges, I'll need to make a
new Dog with a fluffy curly tail and pointed upright ears.

Lots happening on next to last day of work

Sophie' Giraffe came out quit well I think.

The "Family" get their flags. It was fun trying to make a waving flag in bronze. I dipped some cloth in the liquid wax and then after it cooled I was able to shape it.

"Story Time" I like it and I am having them make molds so we can do an edition.

Getting the edition of Swinging Jennys to be just right. It has been so hot (over 100F) that the waxes sagged a bit in the heat so it took a lot of work to get the cast bronze back into the. Right shape.

Before dinner I climbed the eight flights of stairs in my Hotel eleven times (plus one extra flight for 1868 steps and 1868 steps down. I felt stronger, maybe because I was feeling in a good mood from the way things are working out at the foundry, maybe from not having climbed yesterday when Pan took me out for dinner and several beers. Together with swimming a mile in the pool every morning I'm feeling pretty good and trim.

Dinner, Failures, and keeping upwith the Times

Thai version of Japanise grilled mackrel. With a large Singha beer. It tastes good after climbing 1,680 steps.

Here is one ceramic shell that broke after "losing" its wax Swinging Jenny girl. I used to think that the lost wax process for bronze casting had been used by the Greeks and Romans and then was "lost" during the Dark Ages.

Will this become quaintly obsolete when we read everything off of electronic tablets?

Finishing up at the Foundry - three days left

Four working days left. Starting to pack pieces. Dogs.

Dogs, Running Girl, and a Baby

Here is a comment I made on Frank Rich's Op Ed piece in the NYT.

I have always wondered how conservatives could be against such obviously good things like cleaning up air pollution; don't they and their families breath the same air as the rest of us? But is starts to make sense when you see the strong sense of self loathing that must exist in people like George Rekers. If they can't accept themselves as they actually are, in his case as a homosexual, so why should they be able to accept any other realities that conflict with their ideological views of the world.

Here is a link to the piece.

Patinas and Babies

I like the way the light plays off of the texture of the base. I think it works well with the brown patina.

For a friend I have been thinking of adding a baby to the Family (one of the advantages of making multiples).

It is always good to try out several ideas to see what works out best. Any comments are welcome. Chris has suggested having the baby on the Mom's hip.