Here is the roughed-out shell commission. Having heard Hank Gilpin give a talk at Gallery NAGA two days ago, I've been thinking about what he said about commissions, how they are a great opportunity to do interesting things that he wouldn't normally do (he gave an example of a ten foot long table six inches high). I think this is a good example. There is no way I would have thought of doing a giant sea shell but I'm happy to be doing it and pleased with how it is looking. In this way, it is really a collaboration with the client. I don't mind collaborating; there is no reason I need to work alone with self-inspiration. Although there is always a risk in working with other people - that you may create a camel when you really want a horse - but done right, it can be an opportunity to make something much better than one would otherwise do.
It looks like it will turn out to be 83" rather than the 80" I had in my drawing but I'm sure that isn't a problem. I was able to select curly yellow birch boards with similar figure and all the curls are moving in the same direction so it should look like one consistent board throughout the piece. I'll bleach the heart wood out of the top three sections so it won't distract from the coloring. The section second from the bottom is darker than the rest because I had started shellacking it to get an idea of what it would look like.
Working with yellow birch also has me thinking about Hank Gilpin because he is famous for his use of rarely used species, which yellow birch is. Though, I now have a good understanding of why yellow birch is such an under-utilized wood. Frankly, it is a pain in the butt to cut. The wood is so hard and the curl so intense that you need to make the very smallest cuts on the joiner and planer or the grain will tear out with deep gouges. Then, there is so much tension in the wood that I can't get it through the table saw in one pass; the boards pinch the blade as it is going through so I have to repeatedly stop the saw, pull it out, and start again. A four foot board can take 4 tries to get it through the saw (rough cutting with the band saw might have been a good idea). Although it is extra work, it will be worth it. Yellow birch is the right species for this project and it will look great when I'm done. Besides, cutting the boards is an almost insignificant part of the project. I'll spend so many more hours painting it, I won't have any memory of the difference in cutting time when I'm done.
On Sunday we went to Burlington to say goodbye to friend, artist, and collaborator, Cristine Cambrea. She has had an amazing run as an emerging artist, quickly gaining recognition when she started selling her work in 2004 and maintaining sales large enough to live on on with art alone. However, with the downturn in the art market, the well has run, at least temporarily, dry. As a result, she has left Vermont for less expensive living digs in Florida. Of course, this is probably a great career move in the long run being that the art market in FL is light years beyond what it is in VT, and I know she was getting more than a little tired of the cold (-16 on Sunday morning), but her decision to move was a bit of a shock - coming very suddenly.
Before she left I also wanted to split up the remaining collaborations that we did a year and a half ago. She had been going to Home Depot and drawing on pine planks and plywood, using the grain pattern as a starting point for her art, as I do but in a much different way - so I thought it would be interesting to see what happened when she had some really nice wood to play with. There was a bit of a learning curve to figure out how best to work together so these were in a way, experimental. Hopefully, we will get a chance to do some much better work in the future.
Here she is repairing one of the pieces we did on beech. A gap opened up in the middle so I needed to fill it and then have her redraw over what I sanded off. Behind her is her first (and not to be sold) canvas painting from 2004 - very Hundertwasser-esque - which is interesting because she had never heard of him until people started making the comparison.
The two above are the ones that Cristine was taking, "Double Vision" and "Pondering the Options/Dreamscape"
These are the two that I am keeping, "Parallel Universes," and "Old Soul", plus the one she was repairing, "Head of the Family."
It looks like it will turn out to be 83" rather than the 80" I had in my drawing but I'm sure that isn't a problem. I was able to select curly yellow birch boards with similar figure and all the curls are moving in the same direction so it should look like one consistent board throughout the piece. I'll bleach the heart wood out of the top three sections so it won't distract from the coloring. The section second from the bottom is darker than the rest because I had started shellacking it to get an idea of what it would look like.
Posts
