Sticks, Stones, and Paper Stew Blog

Burn

How does one represent a major city burn? You burn something, of course!

This morning I had a full flower for the previous piece that I really disliked. Rather than scrap the whole thing, I set it alight and harvested the ashes. The wire frame was recovered with paper #2 and looks lovely. Flower stalk #3 is now underway and dedicated to the major fire that took out the core portion of the city of Halsey in 1903. The fire was started by the local creamery…. hmmm, there is certainly a “cow” look to the buds. People probably won’t even know that it’s ash sandwiched between a couple of layers of paper. Maybe I’ll start adding blue ink to this one.

More progress to come!

Watering Can

I spend a fair amount of time sitting with ice packs on my feet and ankles, 2-3 times a day. Most days I grab the computer and a cup of coffee in the morning before settling in for 30 min of cold. At night I watch something on TV. Why not sketch something instead?! Anything! Put my brain to work in a good way. Even for just 5 min since my skills are lacking these days. A few weeks back I purchased a nice 3 pack of sketch journals, something easy to pop into my bag and drag around everywhere. (Yes Rosie, you’re my inspiration!) I’ve actually been pulling it out during office visits: recording furniture at the dentist, machines that are hooked up to my feet and cause pain during physical therapy, a sunflower bouquet. This morning it was the watering can on the back deck. Nothing earth shattering, but a reminder that I need to water plants today since it’s expected to reach 90F (32 C). Just glad I’ll be working downstairs today!

I’m notorious for not keeping this practice up, so time will tell. Maybe daily posting will help….

drawn in a moleskin book with a pen (nothing fancy).

Second in the works

The second camas has proven to be more challenging. First off, the paper is much stiffer and thicker than the dress patterns. I had to do quite a bit of prep work on the pages to get them softened up enough. I think one would call it “distressing”. When everything was attached and dried, I wasn’t certain the paper would allow any light through, but the wax did help. Some. I’m feeling under-the-weather today due to probably consuming gluten yesterday. Maybe by Sunday I’ll be doing better and able to keep pushing forward.

Yesterday was the 4th and it was plenty festive. Part of the family participated in a Eugene tradition of running (walking) the Butte to Butte. With my foot injury, I was the car shuttle crew. The 4th is also my niece and nephew’s birthday (fraternal twins). Hard to believe they are 29 now! Below is a photo of my niece and myself.

Flowers to come tomorrow!

One down, 11 more to go!

Only 11 more to go before August 31! What an enormous task! I just have to focus on one at a time. The next Camas creation will be made from a 1958 copy of “Douglas Fir Use Book” that belonged to my father. There is a large pulp mill in Halsey and I feel like this book will be about as close to the subject of wood product waste as I can find. It’s mainly structural data and design tables with some photos. Lots of tables! Hopefully the paper will be forgiving enough to stretch over wire forms.

I started experimenting with oil bar on paper and I’m not fond of the look. I’ll have to think more about how to apply color that won’t end up looking terrible.

Camas Flower

Well, here is the first finished flower for Camas Stalk #1. Things are progressing forward nicely and I’m feeling pretty pleased with it. Yesterday was a bit of a battle with all the doctor appointments plus a trip to Eugene in 95 F (35 C) heat. So happy today will be cooler. Today’s push will be to get my flowers attached to the stalk and start work on the next piece. Plus I’ve gotten way behind with my website managing job. Oh, and I’m also late in turning in my artist statement on this project! It’s going to be a busy catch-up day!

A little more work

Sunday afternoon was spent primarily at home wrapped up in futball mania, watching the Greece/Costa Rica game in Spanish. When you don’t have cable TV, streaming internet is the way to go, plus someone in our household is bilingual and tosses me commentaries in English. During this FIFA World Cup I’ve added to my limited Spanish vocab important words like “la pelota” and “balon”, which mean the same thing: ball. Maybe that will come in handy when I need to slip key words without causing dog pandemonium. I can walk around the house asking out loud “Have you seen the balon?” or ” Dave, did la pelota get put back on top of the fridge?”

Anyway, I was so glad to have spent several hours working on waxing the individual parts of the camas flower sculpture. Since this is my first full sized one, I’ve decided to not add color and just work on the form. Color will come with the next flower stalk. Currently, I’m thinking each stalk will be totally different, using different paper, different color applications and so forth. I’m aiming for creating 12, so there should be plenty of fun to come. The next one will be created from book pages. The sculpture is going into a library, so it seems fitting.

After my lovely morning/afternoon of footie and art, I had to pull on my big girl pants and face closing up the family home. I still had to retrieve yet another load of hazardous materials from the basement plus bring home (sob) oodles of shovels and brooms. They will eventually be dropped off at either Habitat for Humanity or Goodwill. The hazardous waste will be called in and delivered to our local garbage company. The left-over shot gun shells and ammunition were picked up by a nice police officer while we were still there. I’m glad my brother called and found out how to dispose of them safely. Our father used to hunt ducks before I was born. Needless to say the ammo has been down in the basement for 45 years if not longer. None of us wanted to touch the stuff for fear of it being dangerous. Since the shells were not leaking, it was safe according to the officer. After he left, I had to retrieve my purse from the locked house. Yes, I had already locked my keys inside the house thinking everything was done, yet forgetting I had actually left my purse inside. I was even joking with my brother about having left my car keys inside, not realizing what I had really done! Thank goodness we had left a ladder for the new owners and I proceeded to climb up the 2 back decks and check doors. One was unlocked and I was able to retrieve my stuff. Whew! Now it’s fully locked down and ready for it’s new owners and a new chapter in it’s life.

Playing Early

Sunday morning I really needed a quick art fix before heading back down to Eugene. I still have a final hazardous materials removal from the house for sale. I pulled out the wax pot and cranked the heat. A few days ago I created a total of 14 flower buds to work through. Each wire form received a covering of dress pattern tissue paper, and now a wax treatment. I can certainly see a major difference between the 2 surfaces. In the above photo, the bottom form is just the paper covered wire without wax. The above form is waxed. There is a dramatic color change and surface shift from matte to glossy. The under-layers of paper containing text and lines become more clear with a wax application. Certainly an interesting change to ponder. I’m looking forward to utilizing different papers for each flower stalk, making each stalk very individual but part of the whole installation. I’m already thinking of using pages from books too…. appropriate for the venue it will eventually occupy!

More fun to come!

Getting started

Finally, I have a break to seriously start work on the Camas Project. It’s taken several weeks to accumulate supplies, with glue being the last to arrive. Some parts are still missing but that’s ok for now. They won’t be necessary until August, but I’ll start gathering in early July. Wire forms are slowly getting covered with dress pattern paper. All the dress marks, arrows, circles and lines are adding a fun quality to the forms I hadn’t expected.

One thing I didn’t anticipate was what to do with the drying parts. The individual flower/buds require a long drying period with the new glue. Depending on the weather, which happens to be cold and rainy, it could take several hours to days (and I’m guessing days right now!). I’ve resorted to hanging the finished camas buds on a wood frame to avoid damage by dogs or husband. It’s always a challenge when working in small home studio spaces!

I’ll continue to crank out a wide variety of bud sizes and also start work on constructing open flower petals. It’s all assembly line process for the moment. I’m kind of looking forward to playing with the encaustic wax once we get up into the 80’s!

Brewing up good stuff

It’s Sunday and time to brew up a wax concoction. I started with raw bees wax (below image) and added lots of chunks of Damar resin (above image). For those of you who are new to the blog, I’m in the process of creating an installation artwork to be placed in a rural town 20 miles south of home. The wax will be used to coat a wire and paper sculpture.

This was not a quick cooking process. Fortunately, I was able to entertain myself with 3 world cup matches as everything melted. It took several hours to brew it to the right consistency.

melting2

Eventually, it reached the correct melt zone.

And then it was placed in containers to cool. It kind of looks like beef broth with a big old fat layer solidifying on the surface.

I’m not certain if I really did it right because the color is fairly dark, but I don’t think it will make a bit of difference with the final sculpture. I was impressed at the change of clarity in the molten wax: once the resin was fully melted, the wax became transparent when dry. Now all that I’m waiting on is the glue. Guess I should clean the electric skillet out and get ready for the new wax. Also high time to start twisting wire into pod and flower forms. More to come this week! Or so I hope!

🙂

Resin, Wax & Owls, Oh My!

Friday I had a fun field trip south. First stop was at Queen Bee Honey, a local apiary. Their bee boxes travel around the mid-valley utilizing clover, meadow foam, and other fields for honey production. Many boxes spend time around Brownsville and yes, even Halsey! That’s why I want the local stuff! My mission was to purchase wax, but in addition to the wax I received a wonderful tour of their facilities. A big thanks to Karen for hooking me up with so much beautiful wax. Interestingly, the honey harvested is consumed locally: restaurants and breweries being some of the biggest purchasers. If you would like a taste, they sell bottles at the Corvallis Farmers Market. Below is my 22# block of wax:

Karen also passed along a lobe of wax. She explained that in the wild, the bees create multiple lobes inside tree trunks (or other locations) to store honey. Lots of interesting history to look into.

Looking more closely:

Next stop was Carol & Harry’s farm. Carol has been working on encasing vole bones in resin. And no, she isn’t out lopping off vole heads. The owls do all the work: owls are unable to digest the bones, skin and fur so they regurgitate it all up in a nice pellet form. Kind of like a cat hacking up a giant fur ball. Anyway, outside the studio we examined dead remains from a mystery rodent (dropped by the owls or kestrels nesting on site). It’s always difficult to identify a dead critter by one hind leg plus a bit of fur.We guessed it was a Pack Rat. Below is one of the juvenile Barn Owls taking a look at me. They are already flying, but still use the box during the day. You can see it’s heart-shaped face in the round door opening.

Along with the nature tour and bird watching, I received a multitude of snow peas, kale, and a beautiful onion. Oh, and a huge box of old dress/shirt patterns! The paper will become part of the camas project.

While I was off doing all this, the dogs were graciously greeting the FedEx guy. Yes, the Damar Resin has arrived! I now have a 5# bag of rocks that are supposed to melt.

Saturday is a bit too busy, so I’ll be cooking up a batch of encaustic wax on Suday. Outside. On the side burner of the gas grill. Did I mention the fumes are toxic?

My glue is expected to arrive on Wednesday. Things are really coming together!