Wild Thing

I was just talking to my boss about the music of our young days...




This pre-dates us - we were 9 & 10 (or 11)  in 1966. But damn, this is a fun video... the clothing, hair styles and attitudes and passion.

Dragon Mosaic

I've progressed far enough on the websites to devote a small bit of time to the dragon mosaic. Tonight I finished the dragon's beard. I might do just a bit more on its mane, but for now I'm going to concentrate on its underbelly. I'm using the lighter olive green that you can see in this image for the underbelly. The pieces here are not glued down. I'm just getting a feel for the color and how it will work in regard to the shape...

Jumpers

Laughing out loud funny - in a weird way...



Pringle of Scotland
Really expensive clothing, but some interesting designs.

It's a WTF day.

I'm having one of those days. Being prone to apocalyptic visions is not what it's cracked up to be. Tends to make one surly in the mornings, overly bright and sunny by mid-afternoon, and agitated and sleepless in the wee hours.

Actually I think I'm a bit overwhelmed by the political/religious/public/media circus... going for the lowest, meanest, grubbiest, most contentious, most degrading, irrelevant, disrespectful, hateful, hurtful... available 24/7

We have become a nation of people, nay a world of people, where someone like Pat Robertson actually gets air time with the same old blame the victims song and dance - earthquakes caused by deals with the devil, what idiocy - a nation of people who live to disagree, who think compromise is a sin, who accuse those with different viewpoints of being evil, or ignorant.

Ad hominem rules the world, followed closely by the red herring, straw man, post hoc and biased sample.

I'm disappointed in us. We make me think of a three-year old child having a tantrum fit. Someone needs to swat our collective bottom and make us think about what we're doing to the world and each other.

Sketchbook p1

Not exactly what I should have been doing, but...

[pencil on paper]

Temptation

The smalti (glass) order arrived today. Gorgeous glass, absolutely gorgeous.

So much for wrapping up all the website/portfolio tasks before it arrived... I wanted to use the weekend to get all the web stuff I need to do for my own website and for all the sites I do (free... unfortunately) for other people/organizations before the temptation of getting back to the dragon mosaic...

Now, I'll have to be ultra-disciplined... damn.

The “year of citizens’ rights”

Going to try not to buy goods from China anymore. That will align with my ecological views and my political views...

In Sentence of Activist, China Gives West a Chill

By ANDREW JACOBS

Published: December 26, 2009

Human rights advocates said the punishment for Liu Xiaobo was intended to send an unequivocal message to others who might agitate for political reform.


But this will make it hard to do...um, make that impossible.

Earth-Friendly Elements, Mined Destructively

By KEITH BRADSHER

Published: December 26, 2009

Some renewable energy technologies rely on a group of elements called rare earths, but they mainly come from environmentally damaging mines in China.

New Website Address

I've put a new website up at http://montagaelmay.com.

It's the same design with new galleries of my visual art work added. There are four galleries: mosaic work (which if you've been reading this blog for very long you have seen most of the mosaics); sculpture; Interstices (a two artist show I participated in); and a gallery of encaustic Artist Trading Cards.

There's also a selection of my written stories, and a bit more about me and my art practice and my views on sustainable living.

Hammer & Hardie

The hammer and hardie have shipped (notification came at 8:30pm tonight - thanks Di Mosaico). I should have them on Thursday.

I've been waiting on the tools before doing any significant work on the dragon mosaic. I'm also still waiting to order some more smalti - a result of the Great Debit Card Debacle...

Once our new cards arrive I will probably order a few more pounds of smalti in a few more colors. They've mailed the cards, but we haven't had them arrive yet. Hopefully they'll arrive soon (so I can spend more money on glass).

A Step Toward a More Manageable Life

Tonight I deleted over 3000 emails from my Gmail inbox (over 500 of them were unread emails...) and canceled subscriptions to a great many email newsletters and distribution lists. I feel liberated

Now I need to do the same with my work email...

Dragon Mosaic Progress

Haven't posted a progress update for a while - here's the mosaic after tonight's work (at approximately 24 hours of work):

The photo was taken at an angle to avoid excessive reflection from the studio lights and the flash on the camera. I really need to build a set up for photographing mosaics - some photo-floodlights with diffusers and some sort of stand or prop - I don't add the hanging hardware until a mosaic is finished.

I'm still waiting on the hammer and hardie. The company I ordered them from was out of hardies, but expects them to come in on Monday or Tuesday. They promised, when I spoke with them last night, to ship the tools as soon as the hardies come in.

I need to get a bit more smalti - I had intended to get some yellows and yellow-oranges, some black and some dark indigo blue. I thought I might get a pound of the yellows/oranges each and then maybe skip the black and get several pounds of the dark indigo blue. If I do that I'll pull up the black background and do the background in the blue. The dark indigo blue has a considerable amount of black in it and I think it would give the piece much more depth than doing it with the black and a random smattering of the indigo blue and the really dark green.  But I'd need at least 5 pounds of the stuff, which, at nearly $20/lb (when you consider the added shipping costs), would make the next purchase over $150 if I got the indigo blue and the necessary yellows and yellow-oranges...

Still, I think it will make the piece a much better one.

Dragon Mosaic Progress

This weekend's progress:

Approximately 15 hours so far.

Dragon Mosaic Progress

Tonight's progress:

I also received some more smalti today - dark lapis to mix with the black and the darkest green for the background, and more of the dark olive green for the dragon's body. I might order a hammer and hardie - I need to get accustomed to using one for cutting the smalti. I think I might end up wasting less glass if I master the traditional cutting method. It's hard to cut the smalti straight with the Leponitt wheeled cutter. I keep getting slanted cuts, and those will definitely not do. Only problem is that a good hammer and hardie runs at least a couple hundred dollars...

Next Mosaic - A Dragon

Today I started a new mosaic. I'm using smalti for this one. It's 12" x 36". This is about 3 hours work. Smalti makes for slower going. Perhaps I'll get faster.

Update: That's not Elmer's glue - that's Weldbond in an Elmer's glue bottle...

Clean Water, Clean Air

When I hear the "Green Jobs, Green Jobs" mantra I wonder about a couple things.

First and foremost is whether or not the so-called green jobs really are "green" or if they're simply being repackaged - like changing the name of Kellogg's Sugar Smacks to Honey Smacks... without changing the nearly 50% sugar content (see Consumer Reports - Health.org)...

I also wonder how we're going to convince the public to buy/use green alternatives since they're bound to be more expensive (I've a suspicion that the greenwashed products will be even more expensive than the actual green products since it's marketing behind the green, instead of an actual product revision... but that may just be my cynicism surfacing).

Even when there are real green alternatives, there is often great resistance to implementing them.

I listened to a MNPR story this morning about the proposed Prairie Island power increase.

Xcel Energy has made the decision to increase production at the Prairie Island plant - beyond what the plant was built to safely produce - instead of choosing to use renewables to meet increased demand, because it was CHEAPER.  In reality, the expansion of nuclear power is only cheaper when you close your eyes to the environmental effects - the unsolvable environmental effects.

The most chilling aspect of this increase is the increased waste problem. Nuclear waste isn't like other waste. It isn't feasibly recycled; it cannot be filtered out of the air or the water; it lasts as near to forever as matters to any who are alive now...

The proposed increase in power at the Prairie Island facility would not only cause significant stress on the structure of the power plants (think - higher pressure, higher heat, pipe corrosion, pipe cracks...), but also would generate many more casks of spent nuclear waste. This potentially increases the risk to anyone living near or downriver from the power plant.

Currently waste casks sit on a concrete pad next to the plant, on an island in the Mississippi River which is the source of drinking water for many communities downstream. There currently is only a small amount of leakage of radioactive materials into the air and water - in an amount that is deemed by some to be safe for human exposure. Others have concerns that the monitoring may be insufficient, and still others wonder if any additional exposure to radioactive materials, beyond what occurs naturally, is really safe. The proposed increase of power is expected to increase the radioactive discharges into the air and the river by 10 percent.

The Minnesota Public Utilities Commission has already approved this "uprate" at Xcel's other nuclear plant at Monticello. The federal government is expected to approve it. Next on the docket is the Prairie Island decision.

It's up to the Minnesota government to stop this risk. We should be telling our representatives and senators to vote no on this expansion. Make a real commitment to our health, and our planet's health. Keep us safe from this kind of risk. There are alternatives to nuclear power and its deadly waste.

Next Mosaic

I've drawn out the cartoon for the dragon mosaic and picked the colors I want to use. It will be a smalti mosaic. I do need to purchase at least 5 more pounds of smalti before I start though. after receiving my order from www.smalti.com, I realized that liked the dark olive green (438B) better than the dark green colors (439 & 439D) that I also bought - especially when combined with the greenish gold limited edition smalti that I also bought. I'll need to get some additional blues for the background, unless I want to use black - which might be a good choice...

I'm going to set up a camera and try to do some stop-action photography as I create this mosaic. That should be interesting.

Ship Mosaic Finished

The ship mosaic is finished (except for attaching the hanging hardware). It now has a name, albeit a tentative one: To Sail Beyond... And Back.  I finished it Monday night. These photos are a bit dark, but they show the finished piece fairly well.

I've entered it in the Mosaic Art Now "EXHIBITION IN PRINT" competition. We'll see what they think sometime in the next month or so.

Title: To Sail Beyond... And Back
Dimensions: 35"H x 44.5"W
Materials: stained glass and glass tile
Price: $3,000.00 - sold
Statement: As an interdisciplinary, visual artist I am intrigued by process. Fascinated by the gradual revelation that occurs as a mosaic grows beneath my fingers, the task of creating a mosaic becomes a meditative praxis – a mind and spirit exercise that creates more energy than it expends, leaving me refreshed and energized. I prefer to create mosaics that are representational rather than abstract, even though the rest of my art practice is based primarily in abstract imagery. “To Sail Beyond... And Back” was commissioned by a prominent tattoo artist who became interested in the mosaics I have done and wanted a work that celebrated the history and heritage of tattoos and tattooing. The image of the tall sailing ship battling rolling, splashing, foaming waves, sails taut in the wind, is iconic in tattoo culture and became the central element of the piece.

Ship Mosaic

Finished with the glass work on the ship mosaic night before last. 108 hours so far - not counting the research, trips to get glass, and sleepless, late-night planning...

Tonight: a grout color study - mixing the various colors of grout that I might want to use (and keeping precise records of the recipes for each). I'll make up a couple tablespoons of each color mixture and spread them on scrap wood. Once they've dried I can use them to determine which colors I want to use for this mosaic.

Tomorrow: grouting the mosaic - first the sections (if I decide to use more than one color grout - which is very likely) will be isolated.  I will decide which color I'm grouting first (I usually go from dark to light), mask off the not-to-be-grouted areas with some heavy duty tape and plastic left over from putting plastic on the windows. I'll be using a dry-grout method that I've had great success with lately. It's a great way to grout glass mosaics and it's what I now teach in my classes.

This is the part of the process that makes me anxious - what if, after all those hours of work on this piece, I choose poorly and the grout colors don't work well with the glass? I'm going to test several shades of light grays, blues and tans and some medium blues and tans. The blues and tans will be hand-mixed formulas.

Wish me luck.

Music & Mosaics

Very cool music. Very cool house.

Ship Mosaic Progress

On Saturday Nova & I went up to the cities for the day. First we went to the MAEP meeting at the MIA. It was a meeting for electing the new panel members. Nova went browsing around the museum while the meeting went on since she's not a Minnesota artist, but rather a Nevada artist (and therefore not eligible to vote).

After the meeting we did a quick retracing of Nova's steps to see the exhibits she thought interesting. Then we went to lunch at a little cafe on Raymond street called Jay's Cafe. We originally were planning to have lunch at Key's - also on Raymond street, but they close at 2pm and it was just after 2 when we arrived. Jay's is just up the block, so we walked there and had a great lunch for under $20.

We got to J. Ring Glass at 2:55pm and started looking at beads first. The clerk came over to us at a few minutes after 3pm and told us they were closed, and that we would have to come back on another day. When I explained that I live 2 1/2 hours away she let me grab the stained glass that I needed. The blue piece that I got was exactly the color that I wanted - I had the sticker off of a previously purchased piece. The tan is too light, too butterscotchy, but perhaps the shop in La Crosse will have the tan that I need so that I don't have to go back to Saint Paul before I can finish this mosaic.

After J. Ring Glass, we went to Mosaic on a Stick where Nova selected a few special items for the mosaic she wants to make. I got tan and blue grout for the mosaic. I also mentioned that I was planning a mosaic made of glass scavenged from the Mississippi river. The owner of the shop said not to grout it, that grout will get into the scratches on the glass and ruin it. It was great to get that advice.

After Mosaic on a Stick we went to Wet Paint and selected some papers for making books. Nova wants to make a book or two. She's making one using a technique she's done before, and later I will teach her the long-stitch book method that I know.

On Sunday I worked on the ship mosaic using the blue and white swirled glass I got on Saturday. Here's how the mosaic looks right now:

There's a bit of glare on the glass, but for the most part this is a pretty good photo of the mosaic.

It's getting closer to being done... Now I need to set up a photo space and the lighting for photographing mosaics without glare on the glass.