art is not pretty

I have finally finished the full size art work for the chapel except for a few details.  If I never have to draw another piece of fern it will be too soon.  Fern, fer cryin’ out loud, what was I thinking? (See my post, ‘presentation is everything’.)  Now comes the fabrication and I have to do the fern all over again.  Groan.  ‘It won’t be so bad,’ Marc tells me, ‘it’s just grunt work now.’ and he’s right.  Cutting the stencils is just grunt work.  There won’t be any of the intense concentration, none of the drawing, erasing, drawing, erasing or the dicking around with composition.  All the decisions are made, all the lines in place.  Now it’s just tracing with a knife.  There are 14 panels in this installation ranging in size from 26” x 12” to 34” x 57” so it will probably take me 2 1/2 weeks to get all the stencils cut.  As I finish them, Marc takes them to do the sandblasting/carving.

Lately I dread the sandblasting days when the air compressor is cycling on and off.  Back before gentrification hit my neighborhood and it was a place white collar folk feared to tread, it was no big deal to crank that puppy up.  It makes me nervous now.  The new people in the neighborhood are quick to complain although we personally have not had any complaints so far.  Occasionally I will see someone walk down along the front looking curiously, for what, I can only guess.  Our machines are not visible from the street.  This pressure is one of the motivations for moving the studio, and hence, us, to the country.  Now if we can only get the funds to finish the studio and get the electricity we need for the equipment, we will be gone, baby, gone.

Art is a funny thing.  Everyone likes it but no one wants to live next door to where it is being made.