The Ship Mosaic

Tonight's efforts on the ship mosaic:

I think I'm going to like the way the rolling waves are going to come out. It was hard to stop tonight. I'd like to have a full day to work on it (or a week...).

It's really different working with thinset instead of Weldbond glue. The thinset adheres much tighter (nearly impossible to pull off misplaced tiles without breaking them) and it dries much faster, which taken together means I have to be dead-on certain about how the tesserae are cut and where they are going.

Drew first blood tonight when I was cutting strips of stained glass for the water (you can see some of them at the right side of the photo). The glass that got me was so shapr that I did not even feel it, I just noticed, all of a sudden, that there was blood all over the place. It's not a cut, just a puncture, but man, did it bleed.  Tomorrow it will likely be pretty damn sore...

Starting another mosaic

Tonight I began working on the first of the Ships mosaics. This one is of a 17th century sailing ship in rough waters, with antique maps on each side.

The mosaic will be 37.75" x 44.5". The odd size is so that the finished piece will fit a specific spot where the person commissioning this piece will hang it. This panel will be one of four that make up the finished work.

This image shows the beginning glass work. You can see the mermaid figurehead as well as some of the other glass laid in. The large gray item just left of center is a large pastry/cake decorator bag that I've filled with thinset mortar (since this moasic will be displayed outdoors it needs to be put together with thinset rather than Weldbond, which is not totally weatherproof). I cut the end of the bag to dispense a 1/8" stream and use this to apply the thinset to the fiberboard. This helps conserve thinset and it makes far less mess than trying to use some sort of applicator to spread a small amount of thinset to the back of each tessarae. It's also much, much faster.

Swarm

Abelisto's bees swarmed today. It was amazing. At first I was sad that we did not "catch" them. But then I decided that it was cool that we contributed to the wild bee population!

Abelisto has photos of the swarm in a neighbor's tree.

Why I don't post images anywhere but here and my website

Here's a good reminder to READ the agreements you authorize over the internet - even if they are 20 pages long... and why I don't load my images on Facebook or MySpace or any social network or gallery site.

I hope Blogger hasn't changed their agreement since I last read it. I guess I'd better check.

www.austinkleon.com/

FASEM Show

FASEM is the Fine Artists of Southeast Minnesota. There's going to be a show in June & July here in Winona and one of my mosaics are going to be in it - Mackenzie in the Garden with Bees.


From the Prospectus:

Exhibition Dates, Receptions
The exhibition will open Friday, June 19 and continue through July 26, 2009. Receptions at both galleries are scheduled for June 19 from 6:00 to 10:00 pm.The artists and the public are invited to attend.

Juror
The exhibition will be judged by Theresa Downing, former curator at the Minnesota Museum of American Art in St.Paul (2004-2008). Her exhibitions there include: George Morrison: Finding Abstraction, Coming of Age: Photographing the Journey, Crate 1 of 2: Paintings and Sculpture from the Collection and Hot Ink: Comic Art in Minnesota. Downing previously worked for the Weisman Art Museum in Minneapolis where she curated The Artist & War and co-curated the permanent collection reinstallation for the Weisman's 10th anniversary in 2003. In 2006, Downing proposed the concept for and juried a national call-for-entry exhibition, SUPERvision: Responding to the Rise of Surveillance Technology, sponsored by the Foster Gallery at the University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire. Originally from Wichita, KS, Downing holds degrees in German and Art andDesign from the University of Kansas.

Awards
Cash prizes of $1000 for 1st, $500 for 2nd and $250 for 3rd place.

*************************

I have volunteered to help install the show. Walking around looking at the artwork it seemed, at a quick glance, that 90% of it was 2-D work. There were a few sculptural pieces, but most of the work would be hung on the walls. That's okay with me. I can hang a show fairly quickly.

The work is going to be divided between two galleries - the Watkins Gallery at Winona State University, and the Lilllian Davis Hogan Gallery at Saint Mary's University.

Single-payer Health Care Plan

I have to admit that I was behaving irresponsibly in regard to the Single-payer Health Care Plan. I was relying on the fact that people I trusted politically said it was a good thing and wanted it, so I should think it was a good thing and I should want it. I just did not want to do the background research about it.

Well this youtube movie gave me enough information that I will go ahead and research it a bit. If the claims in this slideshow are correct, I wholeheartedly want single-payer health care.



So how do we convince our government that we NEED this health care policy? How can we make our voices heard over and above the insurance companies? I think I need to be writing some letters.

Transportation

Today I rode my bicycle to work for the first time this year.

I'd wanted to start doing that when school let out and Abelisto would not need to be hauling books and papers back and forth. But between the weather and other things that were going on, it did not happen until today. I almost did not do it today. I was running later than I like for biking. I like to go early enough that the traffic is less (and early enough to take a shower before sitting down to work).

I am always amazed as I start biking each year, at the intimacy with your surroundings that bicycling brings to you. You're intimately aware of the wind - it's either helping you or holding you back (and it always seems to be blowing down the hill as I ride up to the university). You're intimately aware of the surfaces around you, the textures and colors. You're especially aware of the gravel and sand since those things can cause you problems.

You notice sound and smells - cars driving up behind you, kids yelling and laughing and crying, sirens wailing, some nearby construction, newly mown grass, vehicle exhaust, the city swimming pool, french fries and grilled burgers at the local pub.

You are intimately aware of your vehicle - you notice the smoothness of the shifting (or the roughness, perhaps), the feel of the brakes engaging, the sound the chain makes running over the gears and derailers, that strangely compelling tick-tick-tick that multi-gear bikes sometimes make. You actually notice the energy drag that improperly inflated tires create. You notice the placement and comfort level of the handlebars and seat. You notice the relationship between sprocket size and ease of pedaling and speed and distance covered with each rotation of the pedal crank.

You become intimately aware of your own body - burning muscles, tight breathing, sweat trickling down between your shoulder blades, the tenderness where your posterior meets the seat, the trembling muscles in your thighs and calves, the giddy disconnect of exercise endorphins, the feeling that you are powerful and sleek (even when you're not).

****************************************

A few days ago I told Abelisto I'd like to live in a car-free town.

Winona is small enough that you can get around on a bike or walk - at least most of the year (it's a bit rough in the winter when you've got either lots of snow or a bitterly cold wind chill or both). Unless you need to go up on the bluffs it's fairly flat riding/walking, something easily done even if you're out of shape.

If the neighborhoods had more of a mix of housing and commerce you could actually live without a car at all. Some of my kids have done so, one is doing it now.

We have bike bags on our bikes. Between Abelisto and I, we can get probably 6 or 8 bags of groceries on our bikes. Someday I want to get/build/rig up a bike trailer so that I could do more of my intown shopping on bicycle.