I have had the weirdest  and most humorous experience...trying to work a twist of whatever degree, you know 20% or 35% into a rectangular tube!

As some of you know, I am working on the subject of "Suspicion". This particular piece has several pieces, one standing atop another. The fun I'm having now concerns the second rectangular tube which will be placed atop the first rectangle.

The idea is to give this piece a twist. This I learned is not as easy as it sounds. I did mull this over for a while and came up with a solution which, as you can see in the photo, did not quite pan out the way I had expected. You see, this is one of the continual aspects of art I've spoken of before. The continual challenge of dealing with new problems to achieve the results one envisions in the piece. It is one thing to see it in one's mind but quite another executing it and making it reality!

I have goggled this of course, but it seems this is such a deep dark secret that I have to actually pay membership fees to organizations and engineering companies for this bit of mysterious and apparently very valuable information! Lovely, I think I will figure this out on my own.

I have read somewhere that "learning" is to be human. Boy am I human!

My first effort was to dry the four side panels of clay to the leather hard state piled on one another with the one end angled at about 30%. Each of the four sides of the rectangle then being the same angle. This did not work out well. For they were much to bent all the way up along the edges. Also my top piece of the rectangle did not work with that angle at all.

When it came time to put this twisted material together, to my surprise, nothing fit. Nothing at all! I could not believe I was so "all thumbs" all of a sudden. No matter how a tried and struggled it just would not work. My mind refusing to accept the fact that the pieces just would not fit. After-all, in my little mind it had all seemed so reasonable!

It is hard to see in the photo but I finally used only two of the twisted panels, one on each of the opposite sides and made the other two flat. I had to make adjustments cutting parts away from the top panel and making triangular additions to fill out the gaps on the two straight sides. Also, since the edges were not straight, more cutting needed to be done on the flat side panels to make them match all the way up. All in all, I got the affect I could for now except, but it was not quite the "wholesale twist" I had expected and really wanted. Let's say I got a "distortion" going on, but not really a twist!

Now, if you don't mind, I'm going technical here for a few minutes.
 
This is my idea for the next time I try the twist. I have the two end pieces of the rectangular (or square) tube, one for the top, the other for the bottom. I begin with one above the other, squared up with each another, imagine them 15 inches apart, one above the other.  Then I draw straight lines from each corner to the corner above it. It would now be a straight rectangular tube. Then I turn the top of this tube whatever degree I want, lets say 45 degrees. The connecting corner lines from the bottom base follow the turn and you can see the twist of straight edges from the top to the bottom, each corner edge straight and sharp all the way down. Now it's easy to see that each side panel becomes a twisted template that would now fit together, making up the twisted rectangular tube. This simple visual mental image tells me that my initial attempt went wrong because the edges were not straight from corner to corner.

So what do you think? Will this actually work if I try it this way this time?

Anyway, had a few good laughs going through the process.

"...You imagine what you desire, 
You will what you imagine,
And at last,
You create what you will."
George Bernard Shaw

Some of you might have been wondering, like where did he go? Why is he not writing blogs? I know that possibly, maybe a few of you, were worried and I thank you for your concern. I'd like to take this opportunity to set you at ease. I am not sick! I might be tired, bent a little out of shape, but not sick. At least not yet!

Allow me to clarify. The whole dilemma I have to say is that my life has kind of taken off in some weird kind of ways. I know that the "I've been busy" line is most everyone's excuse when they don't show up when they should, but this is actually rather true in my case. If fact it has been a combination of things that have been the reason. 

My business, which I do my best to ignore has been interrupting me more than usual. You know, calls for quotes, having to actually to out there and check out the locations visually and so on, all of that takes a lot of time and effort you know. 

In addition there is this "assistant to an artist" role I took on when this artist wife of mine got this commission, and turned to me saying, "You'll help me with this won't you?" to which I nodded in the affirmative. The deadline to complete the five large pieces is Sept. 21 a few days less than one month from now. These pieces involve such interesting things as drywall mud, stucco, paint, glitter and such! Each application needing the 12 to 24 hours to dry between applications. At this writing we have completed one and a half of the two smallest one's of the five! No pressure eh? 

Interesting thing is I had already started work on a simple idea like "suspicion" working on a work of art consisting of several pieces. The second "twisted" piece of this work is pictured at the beginning of this blog. This to must be worked on before the clay actually gets totally dry!

Besides this there is normal life that continues, grandchildren, church, men's group, children, board meetings, social engagements, birthdays to celebrate, meetings, sleep and so on.

Am I busy? Yes I am. Am I sorry, no way! Think about it, at my advanced age I actually have a full and exciting life. And I don't even feel my age! What an amazing thing! I am exhilarated! And best of all I feel full of life and fulfilled. 

Tonight, I'm taking my wife out to a musical called "Wicked" as her birthday gift. My grandson asks me "Are you a happy man?" and my answer always is, "I am a very happy man, thank you for asking!"
 

Funny thing about being an artist is this, I am not really sure of what I'm doing! I wrote about suspicion last time and have come up with some ideas about how I might express this concept in visual form. But, the crazy thing is, I am going were I've never gone before. The subject is huge and complicated. I did not really understand it years ago and I don't really understand it much better now. And to come up with a physical piece of art to express it is really a shot into the dark. I have to admit, I am not really sure of what I am doing. So, I will "play" with it and see what happens.

There is a quote by Eric Cantona that expresses it quite well, "I am searching for abstract ways of expressing reality, abstract forms that  will enlighten my own mystery."

That's the second thing, I'm also going "abstract!" The other day someone told me he was so happy he could look at my art and recognise the what I had made. This will not make him happy.
 
So I am moving ahead in blind faith that I'm wondering in the right direction. You can see from the photos, that I have formed something that will hopefully express some aspect of what suspicion might be about.  So, for me this is really stepping out into the unknown for all to see as I explore my own mystery. This could go several ways, In my dreams it could be a breakthrough or, more likely just another piece that has an "iffy" life and come's to an end sitting listlessly on my shelf, or ends up in the garbage. Either way, I will have chipped away and revealed something of my mystery going forward.

What do I want to say? How do I express the feeling of suspicion we might have of others? That others have of us or me? How do I show that suspicion makes us watch and observe others so we can know for sure if they are guilty or not. Watching to see something, like their  movements, body language, activities, demeanor, whatever so we can see if in fact they deserve being suspected. We back off, coming close only to watch and see how they relate to others. We want to see if how they live will give it away, guilty or not guilty. Time will tell they say, so we have to scrumptiously watch, peeking into the lives of the people we hold suspect.

"Searching is half the fun: life is much more manageable when thought of as a scavenger hunt as opposed to a surprise party." Jimmy Buffett