A Wonderful summer day

July 5, 2015

I got a call this morning that Allen had some sheep ready for me to pick up.  Dashiell came along to help and to learn the ropes.



 Dash was very impressed with Allen's no nonsense handing of the sheep
The sheep were happy to come live in Chilmark at the Wild Island Sculpture Garden for the summer

El tryed to hand feed the sheep, but they don't trust us yet

The clap pit is like quick sand, but fortunately not very deep

A new sculpture - one of my Sentinel Series. 

Hard to Imagine a finer place for sculpture

    After a delicious family dinner cooked by Marianne we all watched the USA Women win the World Cup.  Way to go ladies!
First Snowdrops in the Wild Island Sculpture Garden

The temperature is over 40 for the first time since I got back from Thailand.


The fog has moved in

A very good day in Bangkok starting with the Superbowl win over breakfast

It was a bit strange waking up before dawn so I could watch the Superbowl.  Yes, that's right, the kickoff was at 6:30AM here in Bangkok.  I walked over to The Sportsman Bar and was very lucky to get a nice comfortable seat at the bar.  They had been selling reservations for the seats, but the owner of mine was a no show.



    Somehow I couldn't see starting to drink beer at 6:30 in the mornings so I ended up drinking coffee and having breakfast.  What a game!  Wow! and with all the ups and downs, lead changes and interceptions we WON!  Hard to believe Seattle with 2nd down on the 1 yard line wouldn't just hand the ball to Marshawn Lynch who had been powering right through the Patriots all day, but who cares, we won.

    Now I'm in a cab on my way to the foundry to put in a half day's work.  I'm feeling pretty tired, but at least I'm pretty much over the jet lag from flying half way around the world.  It has been a busy time so far.  Besides working at the TMC Foundry a couple of days I have had two dental appointments: one to fix a chipped tooth and get my teeth cleaned, and the second to make the molds for the crown that goes on my dental implant.

    At the foundry they are making the molds for my Peeing Dog.  I'm getting better at chopping up my original models and packing them up as luggage for the trip to the Foundry.  This time there was no damage.  It worked to first wrap the fragile ends in bubble wrap and then cover that with a layer of plaster soaked burlap (pieces of Todd's coffee bags).  That way the plaster shell can absorb any damage without the piece being hurt.  Turns out we should have done something like that with Jen's wax pieces because both of them broke into several pieces from all the pounding that the luggage goes through.  It didn't really matter, however since all the breaks were where Jen had put large solid pieces together with just a little wax around the outside edge.  So everything fit right back together and the Wax Ladies had no trouble making it as good as new.  They did have to put some supports in to keep everything in position because in The Thai heat the wax, which was almost rock hard in Jen's unheated studio, was pretty soft.  I just got the quote on the cost of casting these pieces so now we can go ahead and make the molds off them.

    What I have to work on now is getting the final details right on the Dance and Dogs.  ---------------------------------------------


    In the photo above you can see the Peeing Dog's head from underneath.  The white stuff is the latex rubber inner part of the mold.  It catches all the detail, down to fingerprints.  Great stuff that Michaelangelo and Rodin never had.



    Above you can see the fiberglass "Mother" mold that holds the flexible latex rubber inner mold in place.  Those are the four legs of the Peeing Dog.



    Those are Jen's two wax pieces "taking a bath".  It being so hot over here the wax is soft and can sag and loose it's shape.  The water both cools them down, making them harder, and "floats" them so the have no weight to cause them to sag.

    I had a nice lunch with a new friend.  I have no idea what it is called.  I just pointed at what someone else was having and asked to have it with pork rather than the chicken feet like in his bowl.






Later, heading back to the hotel.

    I was feeling pretty tired and beat after the Superbowl but I revived and even though I only put in a half day at the foundry I had a good day.  First we solved a problem with one of Jen's wax pieces.  Because of the heat and the way it was constructed there was a sag that we had to fix.  Hopefully they will start making the molds tomorrow.  For now there is no longer the problem of sagging because they are now floating in water.  That helps in two ways; first the water is cooler than the air so it cools down and hardens the wax, secondly they are floating so they basically don't have any weight to cause them to sag.

    The molds for the Peeing Dog are coming along.  They have finished the first half molds on some and the rest are close behind.

    On Friday I went over the stainless steel Dance and marked all the problems I found with a magic marker.  Since we have already solved the problems you can easily see, almost all the things I marked I found by feel, running my hands over the piece like I am giving it a massage.   While I was in Bangkok going to the dentist to get the mold made for my implant (molds, molds, everywhere!) they fixed most of those.  So today I gave The Dance another massage to find those places where it don't feel quite right and could use a little building up or grinding down.  I also went over the stainless Swinging Jenny and the Hi Five Dogs.  The Dogs have my troweled on texture which looks like it would be difficult to recreate where the separately cast parts are welded together.  But they are cast in bronze which is a lot easier to work with and the the foundry is used to doing difficult things in bronze.  Bronze is also malleable  and a lot easier to work.  They seem to have a lot more trouble working the the rasped texture that i have on The Dance.  In the future I think I'll just go with smooth.  They can easily make the waxes smooth and it a lot easier to not have to worry about texture.  Or I could go with my troweled on texture if I want texture.  Now that I think about it the foundry had no problem with the troweled on texture of the stainless steel Reading Dog so the problem is really just with the rasped texture. 

   

    Karn had a big meeting at 3pm so I left a little early at 3:40 and we have had a very fast ride back.  Usually we are stuck in rush hour traffic, but today I've completely missed it.  Spending the ride writing also makes the time fly.  Time for a beer down by the pool.  Yesterday I was almost feeling depressed, but today with the Patriots winning and a good day at the foundry life is very good.

Love to all,

Jay

   
    

	--   Jay Lagemann    www.jaylagemann.com  http://jaylagemann.blogspot.com/  http://www.facebook.com/artistjaylagemann  http://www.facebook.com/WildIslandSculptureGarden
--   Jay Lagemann    www.jaylagemann.com  http://jaylagemann.blogspot.com/  http://www.facebook.com/artistjaylagemann  http://www.facebook.com/WildIslandSculptureGarden

1/5/2014 Ride A Beautiful Winter Day

Most of the time when I take off on my mountain bike I first head up Middle Road.  One of the reasons is the wonderful view of the Keith Farm.   I never get tired of it.


I headed into the Fulling Mill Land Bank Preserve.  They made the bridges too narrow, but I won't complain too much.


One of my favorite places is where the brook breached the old dam.


I stopped by to see the progress on the house where "The Dance" will play in their field.



Chilmark Pond is still beautiful, but the small boats are all put away for the winter.




Here is the Ride (or at least the part before my battery went dead) on Strava.

After I got home and did some more work on the Peeing Dog.  

Booked a One Way Ticket to Bangkok leaving January 27

Now that I've got the Peeing Dog close enough to being finished I finally booked my flight to Thailand.  I'll be taking the finished Peeing Dog in my luggage.  He would never fit, so I'll have to chop him up into the pieces that the TMC Foundry will make molds from.

Yesterday I finished working on the foam that i had molded over the steel armature.



I put on a first coat of Silpro FSB that I had tinted red.


After the first coat had set up enough I built up the paws in solid Silpro and then put on a second coat tinted with the brown.




A great property of Silpro is that it cures quite slowly so that this morning it was easy to rasp.  You can see how the different colored layers show where the foam was high or low.


I  picked up some Diamond Mesh which I'm making into the ears.  Once the top part has hardened I'll be able to bend the ears into the right shapes.




I got out for a short ride as it was getting dark.  




Sculpture Garden Party this Saturday, August 12, 4-7pm All are Welcome.

 I am having an open studio at my sculpture garden on Saturday August 12 from 4 to 7. The address is 18 Wequobsque Road in Chilmark. Turn l...