yew tree, ants, birds, and a little art

If anyone thinks it's a good idea to build a deck under a mature yew tree that shades 90% of it, let me tell you it's a bad idea. It's not just that it sheds beaucoup skinny little leaves but it also drops thousands of blue berries with the pink gooey shit on them that then stick to the deck, the ones that don't get gummed up in the spaces between the deck boards that is along with the leaves. 

Add in the baby acorns that the overhanging oak has been dropping and it's a royal mess. The leaf blower isn't very effective on the berries because they are stuck to the deck. I love the deck. I love the yew tree, just don't like them together. I'm wondering if I can hang one of those shade wings somehow to catch the berries at least.

Sunday I got out there first thing and thoroughly watered the little backyard and then I pulled the garden cart across the street and emptied it on the burn pile. I've been needing to do that for weeks but it's always in the middle of the day when I think about it. I got as far as the edge of the shade the other day, about 20' from the street on my side, took one step into the sun and nope, no, not doing that now.

I'm trying to be a little more productive so Saturday I managed to get the lower half of the house vacuumed and today, half the upper house so far. Baby steps people. Plus I fixed blueberry pecan pancakes for breakfast this morning.

I did get the rest of the upper house vacuumed on Sunday and cleaned both toilets, yay me, but I am being plagued with fire ants...again. Not inside though, well almost not inside. First the last week some of the fire ants have resurfaced but not so you can see them in the grass that's a little high (we're not mowing because it's really not growing and provides shade for the roots, any grass or weeds in the sun is already brown and crunchy) where I stand when watering the flower beds and I keep inadvertently stepping right there not noticing until they are biting me!

Second, when I opened the garage yesterday morning to let the dog out and go (three guesses) water they had invaded the garage...under the mats, under the boxes of recyclables, a trail leading all the way across the garage. Hauled out all the boxes, flipped over the outside row of mats and went after them with the orange oil spray (it's sold as an air freshener but I use it as an ant killer). No sign of them today.

Third, there were fire ants in my bed last night! Not many but what the fuck were they doing in my bed, how the fuck did they get in my freaking bed! Saw one when I was smoothing out the sheets (because laying on a wrinkle is like laying on a log) and killed it. Turned out the light and laid down and before I fell asleep I felt something crawling on my neck. Killed it and searched for more. Laid back down and one bit me on the back. Really!? Repeat and one bit me on the shoulder. Turned on the light, killed one crawling on the wall, pulled the bed away from the wall and killed three or four more traveling along the baseboard, examined the sheets and pillows, examined the whole room but didn't see anymore, laid there for another half hour with the light, looked around again and finally turned the light off and went to sleep without further mishap.

Sitting here in the mornings watching the birds at the bird feeder. Lots of pitched battles in the air. There's a flock of juvenile cardinals that hang out, 7, 8, of them. Hard to count. They're starting to get their adult coloring, the males looking downright mangy while they make the transition. The chickadees and titmice come and go with their kamikaze hits but there's another kind of little brown bird that won't tolerate others of its kind. Not sparrows I don't think, smaller heads, more slender bodies, maybe a vireo or pine siskin but I've never definitely identified either of those here.

I heard from the gallery after I sent the pictures and she's asking for this one

which is the companion piece for the one I sent in 2021. It's been hanging on my wall so once I pack it up I'll hang the three older magnolia pieces there.

As if the past 6 weeks or however long it's been hasn't bad enough, the next two weeks are going to be even hotter and still no rain.

 

done

I think it's finished. It is, it's finished, I'm not doing anything else to it. I made two minor adjustments today, one to the coral on the top, removing a small piece to create a little negative space and changed the paint on the purple coral of the inlay from gray to white to match the other two.

Straight on view.

Slightly elevated looking down.

Inside.

getting there

That rain Friday and a short burst on Saturday brought us some cooler temperatures, a few days in the low 90s and this week highs in the high 80s! Still humid though and more rain predicted. One thing about the no rain and high temps, we haven't had mosquitoes at all this summer. That may be about to change though since we got more rain last night and this morning.

I headed over to the shop Sunday after our late morning breakfast/brunch. We skip lunch on Sundays since we eat our first meal so late and then have an early dinner. What that means is that I have a large block of uninterrupted time to work. My goal for the day was to fit the inlay of coral on the front of the box. It took about 4 hours but I got it done faster than I thought it would take with that curvy undulating edge. I eventually had to go get a lamp and my 200% magnifier glasses to get the last bit of fine tuning done switching out to smaller and smaller diamond grinding bits. Look close to see where it's hanging up, grind the spot for a second, check the fit, pick another spot, grind for a second, check the fit, over and over. Now I have to pare down the sides and bottom of the inlay so it's flush with the sides and bottom of the box. You might remember I made it a little larger to ensure that it would be the right size. I probably didn't need to do that, just made more work for myself. Once that's done then I can fit the feet, polish the box and whatever else needs it. Really getting close now.

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I didn't get over there at all on Monday. Since I had to get cat food I went ahead and did the week's grocery run instead. Yesterday I did a little more fine tuning on the inlay and pared down the sides and bottom so they are now flush with the sides and bottom of the box and started on fitting the feet starting with the two in the back. One is done, the second perhaps is acceptable. I've decided I'm not quite happy with the top, I'd like to see some extending over the side edges so with that in mind, too late to make a wax model of something I don't have a clear image of and cast it so I'm going to sort through my bag of coral pieces when it gets here and see if I can incorporate some of those. If not, well, then it will be as is.

I think these will be the last pictures until it's completely finished.

 

what I do with my days, the stray, and pink things

Well, it's been 6 days since I last posted but nothing is happening, nothing changes. I spend the time between breakfast and lunch over at the studio filling molds except for Tuesdays and Thursdays when I'm either doing the week's grocery shop or I'm at SHARE. After lunch we spend the hot afternoons binge watching streaming shows. Then it's walk the dog, though we skipped three days in a row because even at 6:30 it was just too hot still to go out, and fix dinner.

Currently we're watching The Boys. We're enjoying it but I don't recommend it if you are sensitive to gore. Almost the very first scene in the very first episode a body explodes into meat grinder mush raining down. They really like this CGI effect and use it a lot. I guess it helps that our TV is small, only 32”. Anyway, it's about a group of people who were 'born' super, 'supes', though it turns out they were made as babies. All their powers are different and/or similar, some dangerous, some just dumb and not really useful, backed by a giant wealthy sinister corporation that manages them, their PR, sends them on missions only there's a lot of collateral damage. They're not all bad but really there's no way to control the most powerful ones and Homelander (think Superman) is the most powerful, mentally unstable, and dangerous of them all. And then there's an underground group of regular humans, if you consider criminals regular, that has pledged to take them out, to undo them with or without government help. Anyway, the plot lines and characters are really good if you can get past the gore. We started season 3 yesterday.

So far I've filled the 6 coral molds, the five I'll use and the extra. The last one I did though I may empty out and redo the volume measure because I'm not sure it's correct for boring reasons I won't go into here.

What else. We've gotten three little rain showers the past week, probably less than an inch all told or just over so not nearly enough. I thought I had found the owner of the little calico or 'tortie' as they are calling her. I posted her picture on a lost and found pet page on FB for the area and a woman responded that it was her cat, they had moved to Houston, had been back a couple of times to find her. I asked where she had lived and she replied with a street that is at least three miles away and here is a woman you can check with to verify. So I had a mutual friend check with the woman who says it's not the same cat. There's more to the story that I'm not going to post here that convinces me beside the fact that I don't think this little cat traveled three miles to my house. I had another lead on a possible owner from the woman who claimed the kitty as hers, saying that the only other cat like this was at a house at an intersection of two streets much nearer to me. So today I stopped there, picked one of the four houses at random and knocked on the door. Are you missing a cat, this cat, and showed them a picture. And yes they were missing this cat but it had run off twice (got it back the first time) and so if I wanted her that was OK because the woman felt like the cat didn't want to stay with them. We talked at length, yes it had on a collar but she couldn't remember what color it was and yes, no tag, yes it is young, less than a year. I'm convinced this is the owner. I gave her my phone number and address if she wanted to come by and have a look. The kitty's name is Lily. So I guess she's mine if I want.

Lots of pink things are blooming...the begonia, the plumerias, the rock rose, the phlox...

 

model making and the queen of the night

We're finally getting our blue sky back but it's still hot and dry with temps in the high 90˚s. One thing about this dry weather is we have had no mosquitos to speak of so that's something at least.

My days are still basically the same...watering in the mornings and evenings, working in the studio, hiding from the heat streaming, fixing dinner my two nights, volunteering on Thursdays, sometimes yoga.

Here's the two new little corals.

Now I'm ready to compose them all in some sort of cohesive little reef. Either that or work on the feet and I still need to trim down the wax slab for the top so that it fits the bottom. Right now it's a little longer and wider which I did on purpose as it's easier to trim down than build up but I might keep it that way.

So today I arranged 6 compositions with the coral and crab. Turns out I don't have enough room for all 7 corals and the crab. I can use 5 corals and the crab or 6 corals. I put aside the one from the reproduction mold and these are the arrangements (feedback welcome)...

I'll probably play around with them a little more before I decide, before I permanently attach them to a base (and each other) for making the mold. I have to visualize what the steamed out mold is going to look like, make sure I have easy access to all the forms when I'm ready to fill the mold with glass frit.

Also today I worked out my concept for the feet. It's still very rough, still tweaking it, but I think this is it.

Three or four more days and maybe I'll be done with all the pieces and ready to set them up for the mold making process.

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Last week I noticed that the night blooming cereus had 20 buds developing, a few days later 4 had turned yellow and fallen off. Tuesday night two of the remaining 16 bloomed and I missed them. Wednesday night I set a timer for 10 PM and went out to look and they were just opening. I locked up and went to bed. I woke up at 2:30, cause that's just what I do, and laid there for half an hour trying to convince myself that I wanted to get up, throw on a shift, and go out and look. At 3 AM I had to get up to pee so since I was already up and out of bed, that's what I did. I didn't get the flashlight, just aimed my phone camera in the dark and depended on the flash. The flash tends to wash out the flowers but I did get a few tolerable pictures. Fourteen flowers open at once the air smelled provocative, sweet and lemony.

I have other flower pictures but they'll have to wait.

getting some stuff done and a pleasant surprise

Monday...Another day and no rain. Our first best chance is next Sunday. We had less than half an inch in April and none so far in May. The ground is cracking and I have to water every day.

We've been watching a lot of TV in the hot afternoons, streaming Barry on HBOMax, a dark comedy about a hit man who tried to give it up when he became involved with an acting class and also starring Henry Winkler as the has-been actor/drama coach til we caught up to the current season with new episodes now coming out on Sundays. Now we're watching Only Murders In The Building, on Hulu, starring Steve Martin, Martin Short, and Selena Gomez about an over the hill actor, a has-been director, and a young woman whose aunt lives in the building who band together to prove that the apparent suicide of a fellow resident was actually a murder and start a podcast about it to garner interest. There's a couple of others we've started to watch...Jessica Jones, MoonKnight, and Monsterland.

I think I mentioned that the truck wouldn't start a few days ago when I was ready to dump the contents on the ash pile and that Marc hooked the battery charger up to it. I'm happy to report the truck did start today and so I got the truck emptied. Yay me! The burn pile is as big now as it was when Marc burned it last week. I also went over to the studio and got started on making the blanks to construct the new box with. Baby steps but I can construct the body of the box while I mull over the little scene for the top.

I've also started a new watercolor of the yellow trumpet flower, the design with the flower, leaf, and bud but not enough progress to show, just the light pencil lines and a bit of green so far.

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Tuesday...Mail came early today and in it was a check from the gallery. Both trumpet flower pieces sold! And to the same person which makes me happy because I intended them as a pair. Also good because the framing turned out to be such an ordeal and to tell the truth I wasn't best pleased with how they came out. And ironically enough, the last time I talked to Barbara late March when she called about wanting a box for the anniversary show in the fall I asked her if those pieces were getting any attention. She paused and sort of hemmed and hawed before saying plainly, no, not really. But it just takes the right person, she added. Well, I guess the right person came along.

Out in the yard the purple coneflowers are in full bloom

and the butterflies,

gulf fritillary

and pearl crescent,

and some kind of bee 

are taking advantage.

The Easter lilies are in bloom but these are the fewest I've had since we bought this place, besides last year when I didn't get any due to the arctic vortex that sat on us for two weeks.

And then I saw these two swallowtail caterpillars on the parsley.

The altheas (rose of sharon) were just starting to come out when we got the first hard freeze and then we got another one and so they were all very late leafing out (and one has apparently died and a big portion of another died off as well) but this one is starting to bloom.

And here's Minnie with her 'aren't you forgetting something' look (it was either past her dinnertime or she was ready for a walk). 

sketching out some ideas

The past week the squirrels have been chewing off the growing ends of the magnolia tree branches, especially in the last couple of days. There are 67 in this picture and that's not counting the half dozen or so that are already completely brown. They have never done this before, at least not to this extent. A few here and there, yeah but not like this. Are they determined that my tree won't produce a single bloom?

I finally sat down Monday and drew my rectangle and then stared at it for 30 minutes with not a clue about what to try and draw. Then it was time to go to yoga but that night I got a glimmer of an idea with a bird in flight on the front and a nest on the top with broken eggshells, sort of a reliquary for an empty nest, babies raised, nest abandoned so I wrote down a brief description.

Tuesday morning I posted on FB one of the boxes I did several of years ago, a Reliquary for Memories. 

I liked the concept but wasn't that pleased with how it came out aesthetically. I like the box very much. Inside it holds 9 or 10 faded and grainy images supposed to represent memories and the top is constructed so that it can hold one of the 'pictures'. The problem is, I don't like the way it looks when it's holding a picture 

and with the exception of two, the images don't represent any specific memory for me so it's sort of fake. Anyway, Tuesday morning I posted the box sans the memory pictures on FB and asked people what came to mind when they saw it in an attempt to get some ideas to repurpose the box. One response was simply...zen. Which triggered another idea for the new box...an Ode to Tranquility.

So after I did my weekly grocery shopping I sat down and did a rough idea sketch of a koi on the front with a lily pad and lotus flower on the top.

Then I sketched out the Empty Nest idea.

And then I started thinking about the reliquaries I've done that represent the destruction wrought by humans like Reliquary for a Shade Tree and Reliquary for a Night Sky and I started thinking about what else human activity is destroying and I thought of coral reefs. And I think this may be the one. A colorful inlay on the front of a coral reef with dead bleached coral on the top and maybe shells for feet. So I did a very rough sketch of that.

And then it was time to start working on dinner, smothered steak with onion, garlic, mushroom gravy; short grain brown rice; and pan fried squash patties. No picture I'm afraid but it was really good.

Now I need to do more precise, working drawings of the ideas, bird's eye view of the tops, think about how I might make some of the components like the bird nest, and ultimately pour the wax slabs to make up the basic shape of the box and decide which idea to pursue for the gallery.

 

the newest work

Thank you all for all the kind words about my little show off. Looking at all that past work I feel like I had a better grasp of color and the technique in general then than I do now. Or maybe it's that nearly two year break I took.

I'm just not happy with the Luna moth piece. Beside that big clear spot behind the caterpillar that I managed to only partially allay by using a diamond bit to rough it up on the back and then spot paint with white, the only color I think I got right was the pink in the wings. The moth is just too blue. It was a combination of juniper blue and spruce green equal parts when I should have used maybe 1 part blue to 2 parts green. And it's too pale, needed a much thicker layer of color. And I'm not that happy about the color of the leaves either. I used a mix of a lot of different greens, leftover frit from previous castings that I label 'miscellaneous green'. The intensity of the color is good, just too speckled. I'm unhappy enough that I'm thinking I might try it again which would entail making the model again. We'll see how I feel after I do the next two models in the queue.

Anyway, here's a quick snapshot I took and it looks fine I guess except for all the things I don't like about it. Glass only approx. 7"w x  8"h.

And I decided not to try and take a new round of pictures of the trumpet flower pieces. I just don't have a good setup for wall work and these are good enough for my purposes, to document the work, though probably not for professional use. I've only had a few pieces professionally photographed with the right lights and backgrounds because it's expensive. They take awesome photos but just not in my budget. So here they are framed and I'm not completely happy with that though my brother made them to my specifications. Too much black, should have only had about ⅛" of space around the glass instead of ¾" between the glass and the frame. Guess I'm feeling very critical today. I'll start packing them tomorrow to send to the gallery. Glass only approx. 5"w x 8"h.

Now comes the hard part which is trying to determine a price. Calculate the cost of materials, guess at the number of hours and come up with an amount I'd like to get for it, come up with the least amount I'll take for it and double those numbers (remember, I only get half what the gallery sells it for), get input from the gallery and try to find a happy medium. Most people don't know this technique and have no idea how much time and skill is involved to justify the price but I'm not willing to low ball my work just for a quick sale, not right away anyway.

I'm staying out of the shop today, planning on seeing the baby whom I haven't seen in at least 3 weeks. 

a few favorites

Robin of The New Dharma Bums asked if I had any favorites of all the work I've done and the answer is yes so I thought I'd do a post of some of my favorites. There's quite a few actually. Most of my boxes, several of the cups, several small sculptures. I was planning on finishing the luna moth piece today, well, the cold work as I intend to use some oil paint to add a few tiny details I couldn't do in the glass, but it turned cold again Thursday night and thankfully it stayed above freezing but it never got out of the 40˚s out there and no heat in the shop so I worked on this post instead.

Here's a general overview of the evolution of my work in this technique. I started out doing small sculpted bowls 6”w x 3”h x 6”d. We made a reproduction mold of each design so I could pull duplicate waxes. By the time I tired of doing them I had 11 different designs with the intention of doing 25 of each but in different color palettes. Some only had a few made as they didn't prove to be good sellers, some I got about halfway through, and some I completed before I put them all aside to do different, one of a kind work. Next came the tall vases and larger bowls but after a few successes the failure rate finally made me abandon vessels. After that I did the cups until I ran out of ideas for that series. Then I started on the boxes completing the last one in 2019 and those may have run their course as well as I don't have an idea for a new one right now, well, I do but we'll see if I pursue it. I also started doing small botanical sculptures during this time eventually moving to framed pieces for the wall or in stands which is where I am now. Those include the Botanica Erotica series and the Drowned Feather series neither of which has resulted in any sales save two. These bodies of work were not necessarily sequential as I would work on one series or another as I was inspired and then there are the individual pieces that don't fit into any series.

So here's a few of my favorites. This is the first design I did for the small bowls, 6" x 3"x 6".

There were 14 vases, 6” tall. 

I did 12 in the Cup series, about 4" x 4" x 4".

I've done 12 boxes and it was hard to pick just these two because I really like just about all of them. The heron box is the most recently completed and by far the most ambitious; 8.5" x 9" x 4.5". Bee box 5" x 5" x 4".

Small sculptures, first two images longest dimension 4"; last image about 6" x 8" excluding the stand.

For the wall, 1st picture 4 of the Botanica Erotica series (19 pieces), 4.5" x 4.5" x 1.5" and 6.5" x 6'5" x 1.5". The Robin is 6" x 6".

The Drowned Feathers (10 pieces), top 11" x 11", bottom long dimension 4".

And of course, my newest work is the trumpet flower pieces which you've seen and the luna moth which isn't finished yet. If you are interested in seeing a larger body of work after this, you can visit my Pinterest page. I have a website that is woefully out of date but the link is on my sidebar. I do need to update it soon.