Before the Art Director Walks In

The calm before the food stylist, clients, art director arrive.

Fight

Keeping Still

52

Keeping Still. Keeping his back still

So that he no longer feels his body

He goes into his courtyard

And does not see his people.

No blame.

I have no idea where I'm going with this although I've written it a hundred times already in my head. Riding my bike, sweeping the floor, drinking with Tony, sleeping at night, watching dinner being made.

I cry every time I do.

It wasn't hard really.  This thing wasn't.  Now I have some things about me that I just can't stop from doing.  Over and over.  But this thing was easy.  

I turned it all off.

Just can't listen to the shit anymore.  No more 24 hour pusher.  Turned it all off.

Stillness is a state of movement.
Movement is a state of stillness.

I couldn't look at my people anymore. Everyone is/was suspect. I was let down.  Stay in the courtyard.Don't move.Stay.Be still.

Still.

When I heard people talking about this or that, I had to turn away.  Too much.
Be Still.

When it did creep in like it does from the side, from just outside the peripheral, it jumps on the back of the neck.  It aims for the back of the neck.
Or right exactly at the center of the center.
But when you're still, it loses interest in you and like smoke just goes into the air.
Don't listen, don't pay attention.

Love.
Do my art.
Make.
Think.








A Robin called out one rainy night in Chicago.
Move now.  It's time to move.
With beeswax and yarn, it's time to move.
And bits of string.
Shout when you see something
Point when you see something
Be the Vocal Witness.
Of the unspeakable horrors.
Lose something if you have to.

January 20, 2017

Minor Completion

Companion piece to the post below.  Made a tile for the square hole in the middle of the marble top.

Gluing up the end grain Chechen.

The square was very rough and uneven in the bottom so I filled it with self leveling epoxy.  The hunk of aluminum foil was holding down some filler I used in a deeper recess so I wouldn't need so much epoxy.

 

Planing the tile flat.

Nothing like when the finish hits the wood for the first time.   Lacquer.

Rubbed out the lacquer to a matte finish.  Glad the square came pre-chipped (and not square) so I would not need to be so precious in my fitting the tile to the opening.

This is how this came down

The place next door before the present owner was a marble and granite fabricator.  They left stone behind when the building was sold.  When the holes in 3003 were revealed see here there was this marble piece near to one of the openings .  It looked like it was damaged somehow when they were fabricating it and they abandoned it.  I asked Joaquin, the "foreman" of the building if I could have it.

"Sure, but you won't be able to move it. I've been trying for a year and I've gotten it an inch so far."

It was large, later the internet marble weight calculator app said 744 pounds,  it was sitting on dirt precariously balanced against some large heavy somethings that were in turn wedged between other large heavy somethings.  It was very difficult even to gain a working space but through clamps, crowbar, rope, a come along, apple boxes, car jack, large dowels, every swear word in the book several times over and a whole day I had it in my space.

Joaquin couldn't believe it when he came back at the end of the day.  He attributed it to me being younger than him.  I scoffed.  We figured out I was ten years older than he.

Big food job coming up so I needed a kitchen island for the food stylist to work.  Made a philosophical adjustment.  Decided to not be so methodical in work habits.  Worked more from instinct that knows when something will go.  Worked from an approach of aiming for the center of it once.  And once only.  Worked from a trust in myself.

Thank god I'm not a structural engineer, man would that take the fun out of things.  But I knew I would need quite a bit of shear strength, what with that marble sitting on a frame that would have wheels so I could move it. (Always put as many things on wheels as you can in life.)

I had most of this big timber already so that's what I used.  Combo of Douglas Fir and Poplar.

Big through dovetails held the posts and the rails together.

 Striking quickly to the center, trusting in the years you've put in.

Did most of the saw cuts on the band saw.  What the band saw couldn't do I did by hand.

Oh look! Twin Tenons!

Shelves were egg crate construction.

Once again.  The car jack and apple boxes.  Lifted the marble up to a certain height, then suspended using the come along.  Took away the apple boxes.
Rolled the base under and let the top go down using the ratchets on the come along.

Unfinished at the moment, still deciding what finish and or color to do.

There is a square hole that must have been cut for something to place in it.  For the moment, it too is still undecided.

Maybe a tile made with the Chechen end grain......