Call/Response

 I'll tell you one thing, I write much better in my mind at night then when I put it on paper.

I had my first show as a water colorist at the Emigrant Gallery Oct 30 and 31st.  I didn't have a single visitor.  Not only it was my first show as a water colorist but at the same time a retrospective of my complete seven day career as one.

I showed early career, as a mid career artist and one in late career.  Not one visitor could find the show a few miles off into the desert of Death Valley.  You'd have to first find the faint trail and then when you hit the big arroyo, go straight across rather than going to the left.  Also, since there are no walls out there, I had to hang the pieces on the ground.  Hard to see that unless you saw my backpack on one of the rocks to help find it.

 I can see why, because this year there was not one person that left the campground to walk into the surrounding land.  They came to Death Valley but would not venture out into it.

Sean El Jewell was going to be my one and only visitor to the show.  I didn't have any white wine or cubes of cheese to serve like at other more established shows but I thought about it.  Sean's motorcycle broke down on him 40 miles away and had to turn back to Arizona.

For the seven days I painted in Major Chords and Minor Chords.  Always the Major Chord was on the left side of the page, always thought and planned out somewhat before.  The Minor Chord on the right was always in response to the Major.  Unplanned, executed without thought.  

Call/Response.  

Balancing one off the other, allowing the Major to feel dominate by size and strength.  The Minor complimented through a strength in acceptance of itself as more quiet and introspective.

And it was here, in the desert in Death Valley that I co-founded along with my partner M. Mushroom the art movement known as Neo Paleolithic Modern.

My -en plein air- brush cleaning towel.  They were also the pants I wore as well.

Just now hung selected pieces in the 3003 Bathroom Gallery.   Second show

 

 

 

 

Curator came and hung the synopsis later.

Bonus Pic

 

 Morning Light

This is the Story about This.

 

Seems a lot of my best stories begin in a bar.

Tony and I went to Bar Shiru to listen Lyz Luke play a vinyl only evening of her choosing.

I knew her from being a music producer here in West Oakland where she  would gather bay area musicians to interpret a single track from an iconic older record.  Each group/person got one song to do and then she would record them doing their track in order of the original. I have maybe a half dozen CD's she's done.     Undercover Presents

Bar Shiru is a listening bar, a monumental record collection along with a very worthy H-Fi system.  You can talk in there and still hear the music exquisitely.

Sitting at her table I met Aakash.  His story is he got together with some other like minded people and as a group, they started gathering/acquiring old electronic analogue music instruments, restoring if needed and then used as a community resource in venues around town.

Keys to the City.   Absolutely love the name.

Cool as hell I thought.

This story is getting too long so I'm cutting it off here.  I said I would make some organ benches for him.  And that's the story about this.

I turned the apron of the bench into sheet music of sorts, a little bit. Maybe a bit too much?

I'd say 85% of the making of the bench was spent on the f-holey looking member.

I could have cut it out of one piece of wood on the bandsaw but thought I wanted the grain lines matching the curve somewhat.  So I did bent laminations.

Probably didn't need to use steam as the layers were pretty thin but rather than risk failure I did a pre-bend on them heated and wet.

The jig.

The steamer.

The pre-bend in progress.

The resulting groups.

The glue up.

Ok so here's an egg crate shot of the cross members.

 How I held the curving member so I could WoodRat the joint in them.

Various stages of joint fitting.

Used the WoodRat as a crude lathe to make the bottom part of the leg round.

Aprons held with dowels.  80 of them.

Gluing of the aprons and then those onto the legs.

Leather top.  That's analogue.

To reverse design something, the corners are mirroring the f-hole members.

Last night we had a "one for ages" jam and tried to inject some first music into the bench before it leaves.

I hope you follow the links at the top.  Those are why you go to a bar to find a story there.

A Tree becomes a Tree, again

 This platform, Word Press, is not suited for an encompassing narrative.  Photo size especially and I'm all about photos presented in the best light.

A few posts ago I mentioned that I was starting a build of a cabinet but wouldn't show anything until it was done.

So it's done and delivered.

Delivery day, Sausalito, California 

The bush as a temporary drawer holder

The cabinet it's replacing.  Once a hero, now a forlorn free object.

And Nick showing real battle scars from the touch and go journey up the stairs.

All of this to say IF you want the full narrative with the big photos and the whole experience then go to a more suitable platform.

GO HERE

How May I Direct You?

 

 A teaser photo of no relationship to below

 

I have chronicled a table I built already on this here blog of mine although I have not shown the finished table in one piece in the room it's residing in.  A large walnut table for a winery in Paso Robles.

So I'm directing you to another place on the internet to see it in it's glory!

Go Here

This and That

 On the way to pick out some wood at Aborica in Western Marin

A spin the bottle post on unrelated topics.

First up is the short trip to pick out the wood for Taylor's furniture piece.  It's just a wonderful drive out there through western Marin. I'm thinking I won't show the wood or the progress to the very end to keep it all nice and tidy.

I will show some of the sawdust from the wood I picked out.

F.O.G had another meeting.  The Fraternal Order of the Glass.  F.O.G. is an informal getting together to taste alcohol, always one specific type.  We drink what we brung.  Sometimes formal with writing of tasting notes and comparing this and that, sometimes it's more just shoot the shit and drink some.

This meeting was all about Armagnac.  Held up at Tony's design studio so I blurred out client related stuff.

Frank is a new addition to the band. Frank walks in with his guitar and a 6' long board of special effects pedals and without much ado we launch into a two hour jam.  Two-three times we may stop to breathe and refresh. And then he's gone.

Tony with Pick in Mouth

My hand on the housemade 4' long rattle stick

A couple decades ago I decided to scratch a line on the table saw to show me exactly where the saw blade cut.  Worked great but over time it became illegible from other scratches so I thought I would try a different method.

With a end mill I routed a very shallow groove on the iron surface of the table saw in front of the blade.  It's about a 1/64" deep by 5/16" wide.  It runs from the front of the saw to the blade, so about 11" long.

In that groove I put a strip of white tape and pressed it down real good.  With a piece of wood clamped to the miter so it won't move, you run it through the saw.  That will show you exactly where the blade cuts.

Then take a marking knife and hold against that piece of wood and pull the miter back, scribing a line in the white tape.

Do the same for the other side of the blade, then peel off the middle section of the tape.  You now know exactly where the width of the blade is .

The tape is below the surface of the table and thusly out of danger from getting torn up with material traveling over it.

Here's a piece of wood with the knifed marking ready to be cut.  The pencil mark is there just so I can find the knife mark more easily.

Bonus pic.

I visited my brother, he's an architect.  Deciding what color to paint his old office as he remodels it into a family art gallery.