Sticks, Stones, and Paper Stew Blog

Camas Installation: day one

Today was the easiest part of the install, delivering the camas. I gently placed them in the car, removed all the honey bees wishing to tag along (always an issue with bees wax) and off I went.

It is a breezy afternoon and I almost had a camas incident when they were all leaning against the wall. Fortunately, I happened to be there, captured the ones attempting to escape and lean them all against the railing. Whew!

They are all in the building and waiting for final placement once the backdrop is delivered. I took along a measuring tape to make sure the wall of hills would fit. We have 1.5+ feet to spare!

Off to finish the mural!

Mural: Stage 5

Above is about half of the mural (and the most completed section at this point). More to work on. Lots of spray fix between layers of pastels and charcoal. Whew, I can’t wait to be done with this thing!

Materials: book paper, charcoal, tracing paper, pastels, acrylic ink, glue, recycled doors and latex wall paint.

Installation in Halsey: Tuesday afternoon.

Mural start

Above is the 19.5 feet of background mural/collage. It’s started, but still a long ways to go (but not too long!) Yes, I’ve decided to do some of the hills in collage with paper used in the project. It seemed appropriate to incorporate paper in some sense. It’s been a crazy hectic week and I’ll possibly fill ya in later… or not depending on my schedule. Oh so much work completed! Two days until installation!!! I’ve got to put my nose to the grind stone and keep the momentum flowing.

Below: Mary’s Peak in the drying stage. I spray fixed the charcoal drawing then overlaid tracing paper with a glue solution. Drawing on matte finish latex paint is great!

Cheers!

Gale

Sticking Seed

Attaching grass seed securely and keeping it from falling off the forms during wax application ended up being a challenging task. I could imagine the wax bath becoming clogged with oodles and oodles of loose seed. A cleaning nightmare! First idea: sandwich seed between 2 sheets of paper, similar to what I did with the ashes. Downside: it creates a lumpy texture and possible air bubbles when saturated with wax. Second idea: utilize the same “glue” (but a tad thicker) that I’m already using and apply a second coat to secure things in.

I opted with the second idea since the concept of extra texture was appealing. Once the experiment started, I worked through all the forms without much difficulty (except for how dense the seed became on the form). They did have to be thoroughly dried before adding additional coats of sticky stuff. Hmmm, what about color? I probably should have added color BEFORE attaching all the seed. Bummer!

In the end, the color leaned towards light aqua, similar to the Ledger Camas.

Seed Camas, without flowers. Hopefully none of the grass seed starts sprouting! Wow, now there’s an idea for a completely different work…

😀

Productive day

It was quite the day. I worked on finally finishing off part of the purple flowers with gold stamens. Now I need to create more stamens and cover them in gold leaf.

The doors started receiving some drawing tests. That’s Mary’s peak on the right. It happens to be the highest peak of the coast range. The unfinished purple stalk rests against the doors for perspective.

I worked my way through paper treatment for two ledger book flowers. Tomorrow they will receive color. Also, 11 camas buds received paper for the next stalk. They have to dry before taking on the next layer of goodies.

So what will the next theme be for stalk #6? Your clue is below!

More fun to come tomorrow! 🙂

Painting

During childhood, my sister caught me drawing on the walls and curtains of her bedroom. I was probably only 5 or 6 years old. In my brain, they needed color (which happened to be an orange crayon). Big sister wasn’t terribly fond of me after that (but she got over it). I even pushed my parents buttons by scribbling on a lamp shade in the living room. Talk about being in major trouble! Not a wise move on my part and I never did it again at that home. Now, I’m getting ready to scribble all over used hollow core doors for the backdrop of the camas project.

This evening the doors were prepped. Yep, it’s exactly what it looks like, rolling paint on a door. Nothing too special about this stuff except it’s flat paint and colored a grey-blue. Tomorrow I’ll start sketching the first section of landscape using vine and block charcoal. I’ll try to keep it simple to not compete with the flowers. The backdrop will separate the exhibit from the rest of the room.

I used the car as a drying rack. 🙂

During the morning and early afternoon, I spent several hours working with my assistant to complete a bunch of flower buds. We used baskets to hold the twisted wire forms. Tomorrow I’ll work like crazy covering as many as possible. She will return on Thursday to accomplish more tasks. I have 2 books I want to utilize plus 3 lbs of Oregon grass seed. Still debating which to start first. The grass seed might win!

😀

Wrapping Wire

2 weeks to go until installation of the Camas project in Halsey. Tonight, I managed to work all 10 “flower buds” onto a length of rebar. Not too impressive, but with the hand injury it was monumental! We will see what my hand thinks of it later on. Today was spent primarily in Eugene working on family issues, which means basically no art. Oh well! Tomorrow my official “Igor” comes to help! Igor, also known as my good friend and crazy art buddy Suzanne, has agreed to assist with creating buds and petals. I still need flower petals, stamens, and pistols for a bunch stalks. I’ll work on gold leafing parts for the purple dictionary stalk (camas #4) and covering forms she creates. The project is still lacking a grass seed connection and more books! We will see what emerges with the assistance.

Ledger Camas

I acquired a wonderful 1967 ledger book while clearing out the parents home after their death. The business name wasn’t included, but I highly suspect it was from the one my dad worked for. After ripping out several back pages and torturing them like crazy (and boy, did I torture them!), I determined they couldn’t be used to create a full camas plant. The pages were too darn stiff and thick to manipulate. However, after thinking more about it, I decided to incorporate small portions of pages to the blank forms.

An essence of the ledger book! Camas 5 is getting closer to completion once I figure out a color and flower parts. I still need an assistant to bend, cut and twist wire for the petal sections. Assistant #2 (Hubby) has finally offered to help, but I’m not certain I can pin him down to do it. Assistant #1 comes to bend and twist on Tuesday. I’m so excited!

To check out the upcoming installations, please visit Art in Rural Storefronts 2014 click HERE

Love in a brown paper bag

I thoroughly enjoy print exchanges, especially when the package arrives! Oh, the excitement of opening the envelope to discover the new goodies! About on par with childhood memories of Christmas morning. This year I feel so lucky to have received work from my Idaho friends, Welsh friends, and several from other locations around the US and world. Amazingly, I received one from an old university professor! What a surprise!

A big thanks to Amy Nack and all the supporters of Wingtip Press for making this exchange work. You all are incredible!

The above prints were created by: (clockwise starting at top left)

Mary Donato, Melanie Ezra, Rosie Scribblah, M. Knight Leury, Maria Moses, Lisa Flowers Ross, Marsha Shaw, Diane Tarter, Karl LeClair, Cassandra Schiffler, Kyoko Imazu, Larissa MacFarlane

Right to Left

I think the time has come to start focusing more on what can be done with the backdrop for the upcoming installation than on producing more camas plants. I need to accept that my body will not allow me to create more camas sculptures at this stage. It’s just not physically possible. In fact, typing this post is pushing my finger joint abilities. I’ve been trying to place more emphasis on using the left hand, but it’s very difficult with 44 years of training. Things are so automatic, from picking up the tea kettle to opening the refrigerator. The thought of a hand injury hadn’t even occurred to me when applying for the Art in Rural Storefronts project, but there it is. Hopefully I can get a referral for physical therapy to work through the problem.

Today I’m anticipating the arrival of the kayaks. Then it will be off to Habitat for Humanity to start dragging home hollow core doors for the background. The garage has space and the temperatures have dropped dramatically. The weather folks keep saying we will get rain today, but I’m not holding my breath. I’ll keep pushing forward!

Oh, below is a photo of my pudgy fingers, with the pudgy sections noted. The darn things can hardly bend!