When I met with Lin Lisberger over vacation she had expressed concern for me getting my entire piece carved in time but that I struck her as the type of person that will get it done anyway. I agree, but when there's a deadline I get the project done. One thing she suggested, to move the process along a little faster, was to try using a grinder. I was a little apprehensive about this because the grinder wields so much power and could easily take off a chunk of unfinished piece or a completed detail that I didn't intend to remove. Last week in the studio my Dremmel quit on me, the last thing I needed at this point. After taking it back to Home Depot and getting a new one, they were very nice about it and understanding that I did not have the time for it to be sent out for repair, I got back to work. After a little prodding from Russ on Thursday I finally got gutsy and decided to use the grinder... I have used one before, when I took the welding class, but grinding steel and grinding pine are two very different things. It was a little daunting at first because the wood is so soft and the grit of the grinder just eats away at the material, but after a few minutes I got into a groove and I must say it really does the job! I can't wait to get back into the studio tomorrow and get some more work done!
Something I have been thinking about is what I'm going to use for supporting materials with the display. I feel like my best option is a book. If you can recall from my revised artist statement, I talked a lot about process and materials and my interaction with them. I went into this project with a basic plan but not a vision of the exact outcome, rather than forcing the wood to become what I want it to be I have a conversation with it... I tell the wood what I'd like it to do and it tells me how much it will take. Please keep in mind that I'm not actually having a verbal conversation with my materials...I haven't jumped that far overboard yet! :) What it's really about is the intuition with which I carve and the fact that combined with my coaxing, I allow the material to do what it wishes and become an end product much like a collaboration.
My plan is to create a blurb book for my support material. In this book I plan to use images and text. The images will contain different portions of my process from start to finish. I haven't yet decided exactly what I want the text to depict yet. Somewhere in there I plan on having my artist statement. Other than that I'm not sure what would be intriguing for others to read about.
So here is my question for you...if you could ask me anything about my piece, process, direction, statement, etc. what would it be? If you were to look in this book of image what might you hope to walk away with as far as information?
I would simply like to see your process from start to finish, with personal comments along the way as if we were inside your head, feeling what you felt, wondering what you wondered, etc etc along the way.
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