...is the title of the only recent Peter Gabriel song I can find. It's the theme song for WALL-E, not my favorite movie but I kinda like that song. If I had to pick music that matched the kind of work I do, it'd be Gabriel's (or maybe Kate Bush, which is sort of the other side of the same [...]
When embarking on a career as an artist, it's important to have a well-traveled kiln. And so Oliver Wendell, my new kiln, appears to be taking the long way home.
Normally, I craft my mother molds out of plain old plaster of paris. It's cheap, relatively quick and the cleanup is easy. But the resulting shell is also heavy and brittle, hard to store and prone to chipping off in exactly the spot you need it to be whole. Smooth-on's Plasti-Paste promises to alleviate at least 75 percent of those problems but costs about $17; plaster costs about $3. To work, the Plasti-Paste shell needs to be VERY light, VERY rigid and VERY easy to get off the mold. So...here goes.
"It breaks my heart, the things people don't care about," said Jashawn. We were standing outside the storage facility where she worked, testing my new security code. (Long story here that involves my new kiln accidentally shipped out long before it has a home --and contrary to the order I placed--so it'll now cool its heels at company expense until I'm ready for it).
The mechanic leaned out of the window. "Excuse me, ma'am, but could you move your car?" she asked, "I need to get this van into the bay, and I need that space to maneuver." I'd only just found the parking space, the last remaining in the lot, so I grumbled as I moved out and parked on the street. She pulled the van into the garage and I pretty much forgot her until she dropped off my car.
OK, really not going to get too awfully philosophical here but over the weekend a realization was slammed home that should have been obvious and somehow was not: Once you get art into your head, one way or another, it's gotta come out. ;-) ....
Boy, did I have a great time. I'd promised to give two lecture/demos on color and transparency control in casting and pate de verre. Between Dad's accident, economy shifts and the sad, sad state of kilnlessness, I just didn't see how I could keep that promise... BTW, guys: There's an updated casting resources list--just check the link at the top of the page. ...
There was a different guy by the side of the 205 ramp yesterday, and this one was doing a kind of dance with his sign. He swept it out front, twirled it, pulled it back behind his head and then, dodge-parry-THRUST, shoved it out at the waiting cars. From the looks of it, he'd torn the sign from an old cardboard box, hastily inscribing this message with colored markers: BET YOU CAN'T HIT ME WITH A QUARTER!!!!!
The guy in the brand new Lexus pulled up to the curb. He wasn't supposed to park there, but he got out, left the car running, and used his cardkey to slip inside the building. He emerged a few moments later with a box full of office tschotkes, shoved it into the back seat and turned to grab another. I nodded and smiled; he didn't smile back. He stared fixedly at the ground, groped blindly for the keys and finally drove off. Layoff day. ...