Xeriscape sculpture garden sprouts ancient MFA figure.

I sez to her, I sez, “What are yuh, 18 years old now? Time to get out from under my roof!”

I had some extra steel in the shop from building out the Rocket Mass Heater and decided to put it toward art’n. Yesterday I welded this cantilever base, bolted her back leg through the metal tube and welded a strap across the bronze between her feet to make sure she stayed put, then set her in the yard with a concrete footing.

She feels like she has always been here.

The aluminum figures around the ponds aren’t sure what to make of a bronze figure.

Furious Branching

The Tree of Furie is grafting a canopy.

The Handmade Handmaids

Ascension of the Furies.

I cast these in aluminum as an aspect of my MFA thesis. They were The Furies then, but now they can go by Handmaids if they like. With the tree falling in the yard, I finally had a reason to break them out of deep storage.

The remnants of hurricane Rosa will arrive this afternoon, but the morning was perfect for fitting the tree top into the footing, then mounting the figures.

This is about 10 feet tall.

 

Ghost Arm

Sequential Casting of Peter, long unfinished with an arm lost during casting- gets a new arm!

Marble arm prosthetic for the bronze figure. I wasn’t sure if it would work, but he says it feels almost normal. He is contemplating whether he wants a Marble foot as well.

The new arm is cast in Marble. 

The marble to bronze fitting took quite a bit of fussing. A casting window on the ball is filled with Marble as well.

Part of both hands and a section of the ball were also seamed in place.

A casting window on the calf gets a Marble plug.

The shined bronze is from fitting the stone; another process mark.

Meanwhile; Spring.

Tulips at the edge of Iris.

Antler Hat and weir weirdness of the Silvered Faerie folk.

She grows antlers only once per millennia, then gathers heavy gears to attract a mate.

She awaits rare spawning males at the headwater.

With the antlers she is often mistaken for the common Eastern variety, but in looking closer one can see the foot extending from the back of her head- identifying her as the variety exclusive to the region West of the Rocky Mountains.

Heavy gears are prized as means to grind with mated cogs.

With the largest gears collected by the dominant female, this juvenile will gather “Like Items” to befriend immature males. These friendly relations are maintained until the Head Foot of maturity emerges. At this point her “Like Items” are discarded and she begins searching for gears as her first points of antlers begin.

The male holds his gearing aloft, signaling his willingness to mesh cogs. Also, the “codpiece”.

The “codpiece” of the male is a subtle indicator of attraction, often missed by the casual observer.

The silvered fairy folk are only amorous where they find a weir and running water. This riparian biosphere is maintained specifically as spawning/rut for the endangered Western Silvered Faerie.

Cast marble figures

.

The resin casting came out pretty well. I blended marble powder at nearly 1:1 with the resin, making these figures poly-marble. I have yet to clean them up; the heat from the resin kicking off in the mold found and bound every bit of clay that hadn’t been scrubbed from the silicon mold, and there is some chasing necessary as there are some areas that picked up air bubbles and etc- but nary a seam line anywhere. At some point I’ll switch up my media and do a set in cold-cast bronze. Now I wish I’d taken these little sketches just a bit further along and resolved some the proportional gaffes / refinement of features /  extension of gesture.  So I may remake them, to push them further toward Rodin’s use of torsion and collapsing v enervation.

the underside of her forearm didn’t cast- probably an air bubble. also- the ball she balances on her shoulder…I’ll give her a glass or a steel marble.

.

.

Rodin’s lost marbles- found!

These two small figures have been coming to life at a snail’s pace. Work small and fast, I thought. Use images from a long ago trip to the Rodin gardens in Paris, I thought. Try a new molding technique, I thought. I am now ready to mix up the silicon and pour the figures, after which I will cut the molds mostly apart. Then at some point I will pick up some plastic resin casting media, and see how that works. It everything mostly works out, then these may act as foundational figures for a mashup of forms I’ve been thinkin’ on- using the new-to-me media of casting resin. Ongoing to all that, I will continue creating new figures at this small scale.

seated female figure with marble.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

This shows the sinuous rhythms I was going for.

.

.

10″ tall figure, when standing, around 6″ sitting- including the base.

Trying a new mold technique, we’ll see if it works. If not, the figures are lost…

Two figures accepted to the Spring Salon at the Springville Museum of Art

It was a rainy drab day, so E and I drove down to Springville through washes of blusterstorms to see my bronze ladies that were juried into the big annual state art show. The museum was closed to prep for their art ball tonight, but they let us in for a quick walk-through to document the sculptures in-situ. The bronze ladies may not be the Belle’s of the Ball, but at least they get to attend without worrying about shoes and makeup.

Captain of the board room table- whoever reaches out to spin her either gets promoted or demoted; all depending on the angle.

Not the plinth one would expect a work to be displayed upon in a fine arts museum, but I get it. Plus, she likes all that mahogany and leather.

To see her in the round hit the hotlink below.

http://dangerhart.com/71557/2661759/studio-art/emily-ball-on-shoulder

She might be on a short plinth, but she gets her own French Doors for lovely natural lighting.

This is a nice angle to see the natural light through the doors. She likes having new art to look at.

Hibakusha detail. HIt the hotlink in the text below to see her in the round.

http://dangerhart.com/71557/618237/studio-art/hibakusha-

Echorce in-progress

Still needs extremities, but core and legs are getting close.

I started this awhile back and meant to get back to it after teaching last fall, but a new series of figures and 10 big trout took precedence. I’ve never done a “flayed anatomy” figure before, so I’ve been looking at the New Masters Academy video tutorial with Eric Michael Wilson. It is painstaking and academic, but an artist is no good without a functional brain- and applied knowledge is the kind that sticks. Memorizing anatomy slips in and out of my noodle, but this echorce is helping cement a lot of structural knowledge.

Long Patina Day