June 2010

Wow, middle of June already and I am way behind on everything, except artwork, the latest as shown here. Well I guess I am way behind on the art as well, since the ideas keep coming and time is never sufficient to get it all done. Perhaps that is the problem, finding a balance between work, life, and creativity.

For those who don't know I am employed as a locomotive engineer with Canadian Pacific Railway, which aside from brief moments of terror is a fundamentally boring job. Oddly though I could write a blog just about the train trips I go on although it may have a very small audience since much of the content would mean nothing to non-railroaders. Although the wildlife section could be interesting; once you chase a grizzly bear at 30 miles per hour, the bear not really looking like he's flat out or even concerned, you become very thankful for the steel box you're riding in. On the flip side grinding up hills at 12 miles per hour for hours does allow for some creative thinking which is what this blog is all about. So lets get back to it.

Oh, but before we get to that; wildlife trivia: a dragonfly's top speed is 11 miles per hour, a raven can not maintain controlled flight at less then 13 miles per hour.

So included in this post are pictures of 4 dramatic candle holders and my first fish titled Fin. I used a technique I borrowed from my songwriter wife and her friends to create them. Being that I needed smaller low cost items to sell in our Co-op gallery in Revelstoke, Art First! now on Facebook and http://www.artfirst.ca/ , I dug through my scrap bin's looking for scraps of steel plate 1/8" thick or thicker, with interesting profiles. By limiting the content I hoped to find an opportiunity to stretch my imagination and get rid of some pre-conceived design ideas. I dumped them on my table and started sorting and cleaning them up waiting for my muse to show me how to put them together. I also had 4 scented candles I had intended to use for the Christmas Art Fair, 2009, which so far had gone unused. Mybad.

Eventhough I have scads of other interesting bits I wanted to limit the designs to plate steel, this eventually got tossed out the window when I remembered one of the candle holder designs, 'Earth' (from Christmas) used big mill chain, so I went sideways there, bollocks to rules, but the rest came out of the original intent. The names came at dawn after they were done, except for 'Air', partly based on the candle colours, which all came together rather serendipitously. A word I always wanted to use in a sentance because it reminds me of chocolate cake and good friends. 'Air' because I was down to the white candle, which I din't like, turned out to be the best, and here again I had no idea what it was going to be when I sat down. The rays of the sun are from some woven wire mesh I got from our shed 3 years ago and if you notice the sun looks suspiciously like the head of 'Fin' it is because they are the same part, that I cut for a coffee table this winter, that oddly isn't finished yet. Hmmmm.