“   Family  ”

This sculpture came about in a combination of trying to get myself motivated and a response to queries of how i went about things. The actual manifestation process was foisted onto an unwitting PCLinuxOS forum i have been part of for many years with enough encouragement in return to continue with the process. The first image is of the the finished work before it went out into the gardens, followed by the text and images pretty much as posted elsewhere.

I had been asked - “How do you go about creating a sculpture, is it planned or do you just create something?”  My reply was as follows - “Well many times I just draw a line on the stone and then just ponder where to take it...... and then.......... uummm..... just remove the bits of stone that obviously should not be there and basically smooth up what is left.......” A simplistic explanation but true enough none the less, and I then drew a single line flourish on the stone as a sort of  demo, a curve and talked a bit more to avoid further questions, but the slab has been sitting there still waiting.........

The stone slab you see is basically an off cut from a quarry that mines a building stone called Hinuera Stone, with Hinuera being a place to the south west of Hamilton, North Island, NZ.  The stone is a form of compressed volcanic ash, of average hardness and quite uninspiring to look at and work with and way too high in silica for my liking as it blunts my hand tools quickly. The line you see on the slab is the original swoop I had drawn and with luck we will get to see how these things develop, but with less wafty words and more images. So this series of postings is a personal challenge to share a bit more and if I am paying attention maybe I might learn something but meantime let us hope it gets a tad more interesting than that slab. Next will be to expand on that original line. ******************

So the line is developing a bit as a few, very few, ideas occur to me, top right is morphing into a Koru form (unfurling tree fern frond), this I use this as a symbol of potential and future growth into what may be. The swing down to the left and up into a wave form, sea of life maybe, and somewhere in there I feel a hint of music possibly but that might be later detail. The slab of stone represents the all that is and might be. That undefined zone of potential the requires participation to fruition...... very much so in this case as I have yet to pick up a hammer and chisel. ******************

So with a general form now outlined it still seems too soon to grasp for more detail over and above the fact I haven’t thought of any yet. So the next stage is to chisel out the drawn lines so they don’t get wiped from memory, and then remove some stone that obviously shouldn’t be there, define some depth. This is where it gets messy and plans can change, I tend to wonder throughout this next stage if anything worthwhile will emerge from the stone. ******************

Having now decided to actually remove some stone instead of talk about it I am at the point where I find out if I have set myself up for a hard slog with an awkward piece of stone or a more mellow block that will not go on forever. This is also the point when visions get blurred in a mess of stone chips and dust and seems to lose any resemblance to something that might be a sculpture..... sigh     Sort of like life really where plans devolve into a mass of bits and pieces that don’t quite resemble The Plan but then again I was never that hot on plan’s. It’s a lesson for me every time, (hehe I just realized that maybe I am a slow learner), this point where something is defined, even if it is only in two dimensions and pencil marks, and there is often a reluctance to mess up the gains so far made in the transformation to three dimensions. So a piece can sit there fore a while or two, I like to tell myself the pattern is sinking into the stone but of course that is a load of BS, I am actually just hoping I remember what I’m doing...... This particular work is reasonably undefined and that allows me to flow beyond the script as new possibilities present themselves to my eye.    So it was a run around the lines with a V chisel for a preliminary “feel” of the stone...... “Hmmmm a bit skiddy”, and then a smack or two in an area of “safeness” with lots of obviously “had to be removed stuff”.   Whack! (with caution) “Okaaaay breakout is suitably random.”   Smack!!! “Well my wrists needed toning up again anyway, but it should take good detail... Phew!! I might get away with this yet”. For me the essence of working with slabs of stone in Bas Relief style rather than blocks is learning to play the stone specifically for the play of light and shadow, and thus detail, in essence I am sculpting with light, that then offers form to the eye and the mind gets something to chew on with the result being yours however you want to see it, again like life really. ******************

Today’s pic is a composite image from two different angles in an attempt to give a sense of depth such as it is, with the deepest bit only being just over an inch (2.5cm) so far. That’s a couple of hours work. Not a terribly exciting process but somewhat a form of meditation interrupted with thoughts of “how am i going to flow this into that” and “which way does this go if i’m going to do that” and then i am back in the zone again. The way i approach a sculpture is to work all over it not really letting any one area get ahead of another and then it just looks not right until doesn’t, and then it’s finished.  Mind you i am known for not leaving well enough alone so it is not uncommon for a sudden change to take place and then it’s back to somewhere nearer to square 1. i am told it is quite pleasant to hear the seeming never ending chink chink chonk of chiseling, adds ambiance they say but i don’t really hear it myself when in the zone but i do suspect that the comment would be truer if phrased more along the lines “aahh so that’s where he is.....” ******************

Slow progress. Well I appear to have had my  “awww gawwwd......... why did I start this!”  moment, after which i left it on the work bench waiting....... So when I got it to the point that you see in the photo above i went and did other useful stuff like rake leaves, fetch trailer loads of compost, watch tadpoles and froglets idle around the pond. It is almost traditional to get in a space of “how am i going to save this!!” some time around this stage of the process, the curves were wrong, i couldn’t see how the wave was going to work let alone what the next stage would be. ******************

So today i got back to it by starting with the wave, dived right into it you might say, trimmed it back quite a bit until i hit a point where i can make it work, not that it is all that obvious yet, but i can see some potential in the current rough outline that will develop further down the track. I did a bit of realigning of curves so that when they get to the final cut they do their light shadow thing, at this stage of the game everything is a bit rugged with the challenge being to chisel well enough to see how the light flows without doing too much extra work.  As it happens while considering this very thing, very blunt chisel in hand, the play of light at that moment gave me an idea how i could flow the Koru form into the rest of whatever it is going to be........... I guess this is probably why i decided my works were  “Moments of Movement captured in stone”, different moments and movement as the light changes throughout the day **************** It's a quarter to midnight here as of this writing and i have just been ruminating over the bit of sculpting i had done today. This in itself is odd for me as usually i don't think about it at all until the stone is in front of me again, but having set myself up with these forum postings...... Okay so far i have drawn something, removed stone, did not like it..... all normal for me, but at least i had something that needed fixing/needed making to flow better........ that is basically how i feel it happens for me, make it flow. Some specifics then. The start point for the fix is the Koru form, something definite that is unlikely to change except that it gets finished. So there is the unrolling fren frond form on a thick fairly 3D stem (just like the 10-15  metre high tree ferns on this property) but to continue the flow of the stem around the big left side curve would be too visually heavy and it was always the plan to somehow imply it rather than sculpt it, thus giving a lighter(?) feel to things. I settled on reversing it as you may see in the next photo or certainly one of the later ones to come when detail is better shown. It's the transition point that gets a little tricky as it is done with the play of light as much as anything. Going from something defined in stand up 3D to the equivalent of an imprint of it in the stone. Now this is all very well but two things cropped up...... #1 suddenly remembering the stone isn't all that thick which is not a problem from a sculptural point of view unless i broke right through and triggered a change plan, probably Plan F..........   and #2 what happens when this hollowed out curve arrives at the implied wave form, stage left?? What i settled on was continuing the form coming from under the smaller breaking wave (to be), back in a 3D raised format and thus i started sculpting to that effect and with about half it done..........  “oh no! however i end this it is going to leave raised forms (3D) in a zone that would be normally associated with the curving hollow of a breaking wave............................?” so i changed tack and flipped into hollowed out mode for the rest of it, and then i reminded myself that this work does not depict the usual apparent physical universe ie something "normal" but something new. Of course the astute among you, (no i'm not one of them as this post proves), will realize that the 3D form coming out of the wave sort of doesn't work either so i am going to have to get creative......... call it art, a subject for which i have little affinity, but fudging muck ups, i am quite good at fixing, i hope. That will do for now, when the light is right i will take a photo and post it so you can see what i am on about. In the finished sculpture i am feeling it is going to be the choice of finer detail that makes or breaks it as a sculpture. ******************

As promised i have a picture for you. In this case it is the low morning light that is best at showing the broadest range of light and shadow within the various aspects of the form.  First thing i saw was the amount of adjusting of various curves/lines that will be needed as i work the piece into something a bit more coherent if somewhat unusual, but it’s early days yet. The space i work in is an old geodesic dome with a semi clear cover hung over it and a tree above that which blocks a fair amount of the “from above light” leaving the main light sources from the sides thus giving me more of a directional light for checking the flow of things. A key point while sculpting is also remembering to rotate the sculpture from time to time and so changing the play of shadow, what can look right from one direction can be totally out from another........ A question that may arise is about the nature of the stone itself a particularly relevant point when it comes to finishing. It has a twofold nature, for removing larger lumps/chunks/mass removal, the stone is tough and progress can be quite slow, there is obviously good adhesion within the stone......... and yet it can be "shaved' with sharp tools, creating lots of fine dust quite quickly. The attraction of this aspect is that it is relatively easy to fine tune the finish without the need for large quantities of abrasives, although the stone is never one to take a polish. ****************** I will post a photo as soon as the light gets up enough to create a good image, it is 6.45am here and i have yet to deal to my first coffee, i'm running a little late today considering the time of year. Yesterday's work was a day of "cleaning up" the sculpture as it stands and detailing the Koru, the finer detail tends a bit slow and tedious as the stone is just not built for it really........  i would love to have stone that held fine detail like the bone i used to carve, does anyone have any viable dinosaur bones they want to sell?? Now the thing about the cleanup period is the empty head space that often results as the eye looks and the hands trim the stone, it's a quiet space amid the tap of hammer and skid of chisel over and through the stone. Also it's a time when ideas seem to randomly float into view. In the centre of the sculpture there is basically a question mark as to what to do with it, or rather this was the case for a very simple design, a pondering, popped into view with regards another section of the sculpture, along with assorted mental ramblings of imprecision about using it, which then somehow became something else which will be explored today to see if it will work in the centre of the sculpture and it is really not complicated and could be akin to a sun but of course it won't but............... ahem That last sentence, if you take the obtuse nature of it with it's dose of wafty nothing definite and condense the feel of it into something vaguely coherent............  and that indescribable feel is sort of how ideas drift into creation. Now that hasn't made it any easier i do reckon, so you will have to wait just like me to see what comes out. Light's changing enough, i will now take a photo of yesterdays work.

That worked well, just caught the light right. ....... and of course now i look at it there is a whole new selection of adjustments required, but they can wait. Mind you i subscribe to the idea nothing should be finished, always something to be left that isn't defined.  When anything within creation is finished to perfection it essentially can't grow or change anymore and thus no longer has a place within the evolving joy of this universe we choose to be in, when it is finished to perfection it is dead............. Fortunately i don't tend to suffer from the perfection syndrome and ultimately all "things" do change on some level so all is not lost but there is always a spot somewhere i reserved for "potential".  Aligned with this is the reason i don't sculpt really hard, enduring, stone (over and above the laziness department), any statement made or seen within a work is a momentary thing that changes depending on the viewer and very much a "in the now" experience and i am not generally the one to dictate things like that.......  As always the problem is how to create/induce the "sunbeams in the morning mist" thing so i guess i am trying it by capturing "moments of movement sculpted in stone" i have just read the above.......... i think the coffee was a bit strong this morning. ****************** The latest update for you.

Obviously more detail showing now along with degrees of cleaning up on the general flow of the work. i have a little more specific detail in mind but in the main it seems a good time to leave things and come and look at it from time to time, get a feel of how to bring it together and finish the design(?).  Over and above that there will be endless sanding and similar to refine surfaces and edges, lot's of little chiseling's here and there in a somewhat vain attempt to achieve some imagined level of refinement that maybe i am supposed to achieve. As i said previously it doesn't pay to think about things........... At the beginning i mentioned seeing a "hint of music" possible in the design.......... well i let that go but it has just been pointed out there is music there and quite specifically at that.............. i never saw it Update of insight: As a way of creating a sculpture my process of draw something then see what happens doesn't seem to be the most flowing way of doing things and yet my goal is to get the final result to "flow" in some way, odd really. A few minutes ago i was burying a dead possum (ie; turn into fertilizer to flow into the fruit trees..... ahem) and my thoughts turned to the sculpture with a noticing that at it's simplest it's a swooping form that contains stuff, but there is an opening, an entry of exit, thus the contents require a flow from/or to containment......... or something. That will be the next job along with trying to bring together the various disparate parts. How? i have no idea. This sort of thing happens quite a lot with me and i end up reminding myself  "stop thinking about things and have a little trust" <<< yes i read that and duly noted. ****************** Well with the exception of a bit more cleaning up here and there and a protective coating of some sort, and assuming i can leave well enough alone......... then i can, to all intents and purposes, call it finished. What does it mean/is it/does it signify??  i have no idea that is the viewers department. In a sense i am too close to it for comment particularly as i now tend to start thinking "i could have done this and that better"  in a few months i will know if i like it