Dear Art Lover,
Okay, despite the title of this post that
I found amusing, no, I did not force feed any ballerinas! I have returned to the Cava Nardini (Nardini Quarry, in English) to start to
carve stone again. Last fall I started
to carve a piece of green marble with white veining that I bought in
Pietrasanta, Italy, from a friend of a friend while I dropped off a new composition at a local bronze
casting foundry. http://www.borsheimarts.com/sculpture/2016/RockTowersFrogGardenSculpture.htm
I wanted to learn how to stay at the abstract
level, perfect for a stone with a busy pattern of contrasting tones. I saw a ballerina throwing up a large piece
of fabric above her and her flowing gown.
You may see images in one of my blog posts about this stone carving
here:
While the doctor told me that I should not
try to carve stone until four months have passed after the removal of the cast
on my broken right wrist, he also told me that after two months I would feel
mostly back to normal. I do not. I do not have the flexibility back and when I
try to push the hand to stretch it, there is pain still. The cast was removed on 30 June. My first thought was that if I am not “normal”
after the two months, maybe it will be six months instead of four before I
should attempt to carve stone. The vibration too much, too soon, could ruin my wrist for the rest of my life. I do not
want to screw this up since my knee has still not healed. I am nervous about
why things are not getting better.
Still, I am not the sharpest tool in the
shed, although I might be the one with the hardest head. The symposium at the quarry is mostly over and the weather
has cooled dramatically from this summer, to what I would call perfect carving
weather [now that it has stopped raining]. I recently began returning to the quarry to start
work again on my ballerina and the other black crystal marble piece I bought at
the same time. I justified that now that
I have a car, I am not obligated to spend an entire day there if I need to call
it a day sooner than the others. I also
brought more of my die grinders from Texas
this past spring and decided that I could grind these chippy rocks, since a
hammer and chisel will only destroy them anyway. I have been using my left hand mostly, while
trying to exercise my right a bit more than I was at home.
I had been watching a crack that was
obvious in one section of the dress of the ballerina where a white vein met the green, but we
all thought that it MIGHT be a small section since the crack seemed to fizzle
out. One seasoned carver asked me if I
wanted to put some glue into the stone, but I am old school… if I know there is
a crack in the rock, I need to remove the dead stone and redesign. Glue seems to me to be just a Band-Aid.
And then it happened: the
rock separated. The section was where I
imagined, but deeper. And, once I pulled
off the piece you see in this first image, you may see in the second image that
there was now exposed the larger issue [see the crack where I put the red
arrows]. The original bottom for the ballerina
sculpture is the plane on the right [not visible]. Her billowing fabric is the curve on the
left/top edge of the stone.
It was not difficult to remove the
rest. This was about one-third of the
stone! I was upset, even though I knew
the fear was a probable reality. But
then, I justified that my intention was to learn something new and to push
myself into abstraction a little bit more.
Ok, so the idea changed, but the exercise is still the same. Imagine my delight when I looked fresh at the
larger piece of rock and saw a whale! In
fact, the leftover tool marks from my diamond disc reminded me of teeth or at
least the mouth of the sperm whale… hahah. Do you see it here? I am not so great with Photoshop, but tried
to draw a thin red curve to follow the flow that made me feel the ocean.
 |
| Do you see the whale form? No longer a ballerina in any event. |
The shape is not perfect for that, by any
means. Nor is there enough rock to
create accurately the form of the whale, but that still was a bit of the point,
no? I turned the stone to other views
and other positions. I got a kick later
at home when I saw the tree coming out of a fish-shaped form, as if it were a
vase. I was so busy looking at the
marble that I did not compose my shot other than trying to find something dark
behind the marble to show me the form.
 |
| Fish Vase? ;-) |
From the viewpoint in the image below, I
actually saw a standing figure – with a triangular neck and head, short
triangular arms, and carrying some sort of a pack on his back. Do you see that also? Or something else? Or nothing promising?
 |
| Figure carrying a sack on his back? |
 |
| vertical jumping whale, maybe? |
In my lips series of stone carving, [see
the Zebra Lips as an example here: http://www.borsheimarts.com/sculpture/stone.htm
], I tried to create other
shapes on the back side of the lips. Not
sure that the transitions were all that successful, but the morphing idea
intrigues me still. How to start? Well, I remembered my friend and mentor
Vasily’s voice, “Start with a line that shows your idea. Make everything else support that line.” And so, I leave you with my note-taking on
the green marble to refine the curve of the whale form that I showed you
earlier. Happy weekend!
In addition, I recently published my
September art newsletter with the theme, “Wind, Water, and Wisteria” because
alliteration is just fun. You may read
the whole thing online with lots more images here: http://www.borsheimarts.com/news/201709_Artnews_WindWaterWisteria.htm
Peace,
Kelly Borsheim, artist
P.S. IF original art, while
affordable, is STILL a bit out of your budget, or the piece you adored has
sold? Or do you like arty things in
different formats, to surround yourself with art? Looking for a gift? See my store online for pillow, phone cases, shower
curtains, towels, tote bags, and yes, even prints on metal, wood, canvas, and
so much more:
