You will recall that I received hippie funding to upgrade the 3 Old Men labyrinth from this…
…to this (artist’s conception)…
I am here to tell you that while the sewing is not difficult, it is tedious in the extreme. I am blogging at this moment in order to avoid going downstairs and prepping yet another bolt of muslin for washing, cutting, and hemming. Yes, that’s right, I split an entire bolt of unbleached muslin in twain, then handkerchief-hem both sides of both strips. It takes an hour to do each strip, mindlessless folding 1/4″ hems and stitching them down, yard after yard.
Then the actual sewing starts. I’ve been working a couple of weeks, off and on, and here’s where I am as of yesterday afternoon:
Oy.
What you see there is about two bolts of muslin. I bought two more yesterday, and they might be enough to finish the four long walls.
I keep talking about the “long walls” with dread and horror and I’m not sure everyone understands what I mean. Here is one of the long walls:
It’s over 100 feet long, and it’s one of four. And while the lesser walls are all symmetrical and made of panels of identical size, the long walls are a mishmash of lengths as they meander inwards across the octagons, ending with those little 9″ panels at the inner entrances.
Oh well. I knew the job was dangerous when I took it.
So I went shopping for ideas for materials from which to make the symbols of the four elements on the surface of my new endpoints.
The first idea:
We could set glass beads into the concrete in either the circular or triangular patterns, or…
…since it’s unlikely we’re going to be able to see the colors at night anyway, just use black glass, or…
…just plain black stone.
Next idea:
A 7-inch mirror, which I’d trim to fit the top. I’m thinking we’d want to use the surface to etch or otherwise attach the symbol, then pour…
…a clear resin on top.
If we want metal, we could use…
…aluminum channel. It would hold its place and be weather resistant. With this option, we’d be looking at the triangular symbols only, of course. (If I chose to go to Hobby Lobby, I think they carry metal sheets; we could cut the symbols out of brass or copper.)
Next idea:
Oven-baked clay—we could make any of the shapes, any color we wanted, including…
…glow-in-the-dark! There’s something weirdly appealing about making the symbols out of this stuff, then putting them on the mirror and covering them with a clear resin.
Next idea:
The simple, classic mosaic.
And finally for now:
This could be exciting. This is the stuff that I used on my 3 Old Men staff for my lizard’s eyes, and there are many more options here than just that one product. Have a look here.
More:
Clear resin, and…
…some other stuff. Who even knows?
So if we used this, we could have several objects of interest embedded in the labyrinth itself. Hm.
You would think after eight years I would be done with the basic structure of the labyrinth. You are wrong, of course. It’s never done. The trick is not to overload the space.
You already know that the classic seven-circuit labyrinth is basically four lines, each of which curves its way around the center and then ends, forming a turn in the path.
Viz:
Until recently, I capped each endstone with a small wooden block that was painted to look like stone and which had a circle cut into it—I sometimes would place cans of Sterno in those endpoints as little lamps along the way.
However, people kept tripping over them, particularly the southeast one by the firepit, mainly because I had drilled holes in the stones and staked them to the ground with rebar. So I got rid all of them earlier this year and life has gone on.
I kept thinking, though, that the endpoints needed to be more pleasing visually, and that’s what I’m working on now.
Basic idea: replace the square paving stone at the endpoint with a round paving stone. Naturally, no one manufactures a round paving stone, at least not in the size that I needed, and so I am casting my own.
Here are my alternate designs:
Pro tip: in Pages, create a layout document, then a circle and a square with white fill. You can control the size of the circle in the Inspector, and Pages is very helpful about showing you when you have things centered, both on the page and with each other. Above you can see my templates for circles of 6″, 7″, 7.5″, and 8″. I decided to go with the 7-inch circle.
Here’s what it looks like in situ:
And from another angle:
Just big enough to tie off the end without being too much big.
Now let me introduce you to a fabulous material:
RAM BOARD! It’s rough, it’s tough, it’s a huge role of heavy duty cardboard for about $30. I think builders use it to protect floors as they truck stuff in and out of a site. I bought it to use in art projects.
Cut out the base of the mold:
Use your handy flexible ruler to measure the length of the arc:
Measure strips for the sides of the mold, remembering to add a one-inch tab at the end:
Use your painters tape to form the sides, then attach to the straight edge of the bottom:
Finished:
All four of them:
And here we pause. It’s begun to rain, and I have some æsthetics to work on.
The simplest plan is simply to insert these into the ground and fill them with concrete. The cardboard may or may not disintegrate—who cares?
But wouldn’t it be neat if I embedded something in the surface? I’m thinking the symbols of the four classical elements: fire/water/earth/air, just like the sculptures at the four points of the compass are now.
Here are two versions of the symbols:
One choice to make is between the triangular and the circular versions. The problem with the triangular ones is that they are reversible—the seeker would never be quite sure if the turn he is making is around fire or water. That is a problem, right? The circular ones at least remain the same no matter which direction you’re approaching them from.
However, depending on what materials I find when I hit Jo-Ann’s, the triangular ones might be easier to make. (My original thoughts were to use brass or some metal items.)
Also however too, it occurs to me that it might be the best thing ever if I were to make the circular ones out of resin of some kind, glass even, and let those be the absolute top of the endpoint stones, i.e., you wouldn’t see concrete, just the glass symbol.
I finally remembered that I wanted to make a serious effort to find out what the two vines are that grow so prettily in the labyrinth.
This one:
…with its delicate little stems and beautiful, fern-like leaves, is actually a monster: Lygodium japonicum, an invasive climbing vine that—from the photos in that second link—is every bit as bad as kudzu or ivy. So far, it has shown no inclination to take over anything other than the wire structures I have provided for it.
The other:
…is Clematis paniculata, also known as Sweet Autumn Clematis. It is also invasive, and I have to say that I have found a strong cable of vine running through the ivy. I took the remaining seeds and planted them over by the fence in the hopes that I can convince the plant to take part in my eventual privacy fence. I will harvest more seeds next fall.
As the weather warms, little green things begin their return to the labyrinth.
See that tiny little fuzzy, curled shoot? It is the reappearance of the fern-like vine—no, I don’t know its name—that appeared a couple of years ago. All those brown sticks are the remains of last year’s growth, and it’s already put out more tendrils since I took this photo. I had set up a wire cage for it to climb on, but this year I bought it its own home:
That should give it plenty of room to express itself.
Another vine that just sprouted last year has returned, this one sending out new growth from the old:
Now that I know this, I can cut it back a little bit next year. This doesn’t look like much, but it puts out hosts of delicate little white flowers that have the loveliest smell, and then the flowers turn into these ghostly seed pods:
Those dry into fluffy seeds waiting to be carried away by wind and rain, although most of them are still in place. (If you’d like some to start your own vine, let me know.) I don’t know the name of this vine, either.
Ferns are beginning to return, including some male ostrich ferns I planted late last fall and which promptly succumbed to the cold. I was very pleased to see them make it back:
I’ll post more photos as they mature.
The only place where growth is not happening is in those pesky bald spots in the labyrinth. A couple of weeks ago, when it began to warm up and before it rained, I targeted those spots with specific loving care, raking out the areas and sowing fescue. So far? Nothing:
OK, so I’ve not been very productive. But I have accomplished some little bits.
First, you must know that I’ve been working on re-orchestrating A Christmas Carol for next December’s re-premiere. I haven’t shared any of that because it’s not very interesting, but here’s a taste:
This bit of underscoring takes us from the chimes of a neighboring church to the Ghost of Christmas Past’s teasing appearance, to their transportation to Scrooge’s past: the countryside, Martin and Oliver having a snowball fight, and then fading into the schoolroom.
The process of preparing sound files for December is not at all the same as simply re-orchestrating the show from an 11-piece ensemble to a full orchestra. Because I’m not actually working on documents for live musicians, there are lots of shortcuts and omissions. For example, if I transpose a harp sequence up a octave, I don’t bother moving it from the bass clef up to the treble clef because who cares? No harpist is going to have to decipher what I’ve written, and the computer doesn’t care—it will play the notes exactly where I’ve put them whether they look correct or not.
Repeats are another area: many of the pieces have vamps (bits that loop until the scene moves on) or repeated verses/choruses. For live musicians, repeats save paper and are easier to read. But the printed repeat signs are irrelevant to a computer program that I’m going to instruct to “loop this waveform until I tell you not to,” and so I’m leaving those out. In the above sample, there is a vamp on the flute part that you won’t hear because that will be taken care of in QLab, the multimedia sequencer I’m still exploring.
I’m in the middle of pondering whether it is going to be better to try to “slice” the repeat (with varying degrees of smoothness or accuracy) in QLab or to export each section of a piece separately so that the repeated section is clear and easy to click on. This may become critical in rehearsal, of “A Reason for Laughter,” for example, as we try to get Mr. and Mrs. Fezziwig in and out of their verses, or in “Country Dance” when we’re trying to learn new sections of the dance.
I also have been taking repeat signs out of pieces like “Country Dance,” where it’s just easier to string all the jumpbacks (from A—>B—>A—>C—>A) out into one long piece rather than deal with all my quirky repeat signs. In fact, I’ve stopped working on the music to blog here because the challenge of untangling “A Reason for Laughter” makes my eyes cross.
Anyway, as far as slicing vs. exporting multiple files for each pieces goes, I have lots of time between now and November, so I can play with all my options. (Who am I kidding? I’ll take the complicated way because it will make life much easier in rehearsal.)
I have gained an assistant:
She is currently trying to keep me from typing—WHAT IS THE DEAL EVEN I SHOULD BE PETTING HER ANYWAY—and did you know that pencils, pens, and erasers make great rolly toys, especially if you knock them to the floor?
She’s been with us for a couple of weeks now but has so far refused to divulge her name, and she is the only cat I have ever met that, when you pick her up, goes limp in your arms and settles in for a cuddle. She’ll shift, turn over even to get more comfortable, but ask to be put down? Nope.
This is not the cat I was looking for—I prefer tabbies—but she is such a sweet-tempered beast that we were afraid to tempt fate by giving her away. I’m trying to get used to cat hair everywhere again. The turbo-purr helps.
Rehearsals continue for Into the Woods. You will have to believe me when I say it is not bragging to claim that my performance will be a tour de force—it would be for anyone handling the roles of Narrator, Mysterious Man, and the Wolf. Generally, the Narrator/Mysterious Man are combined roles, but the Wolf is played by Cinderella’s Prince. My playing all three requires some very quick changes indeed, and so the audience can not help but be dazzled by my facility, speed, and grace. There is one moment where I—as the Narrator—facilitate Milky White’s escape from the Baker’s Wife, only reappear seconds later as the Mysterious Man; I expect it to provoke laughter.
I am quite enjoying the chance to sing “Hello, Little Girl,” however. It’s delicious, nasty fun.
The show opens March 19 and runs for two weekends, Thu-Sun. Details here.
Lichtenbergianism: procrastination as a creative strategy is going well, if by “well” you mean “successfully avoid writing abortive attempts for Seven Dreams of Falling while not accomplishing an awful lot.” I sit in my writing chair—that’s an official thing—and start free-associating on one of the 9 Precepts, and before I know it I’ll have two pages in a minuscule field notebook almost filled. It’s exhausting.
So far, I don’t have any brilliant new insights to share from my writing; I’m still in the “dumping” phase, wherein all those things I’ve said and thought about the creative process over the years are finding their way out of the recesses of my brain onto the page. I’ve also begun collecting relevant bibliographic support, so that’s progress of a sort.
Finally, a look at the labyrinth:
—click to embiggen—
A panoramic shot from the west side looking back towards the entrance—not our usual vantage point. The winter rye grass makes for a lovely oasis of green, although I’m sure I’d be a better hippie if I learned to appreciate Nature’s own withered brownness.
You may recall that at the westpoint of the labyrinth I have a bowl to contain water, the classical element of the West. You may also recall that the glass bowl I had there for a while succumbed to the cold last January when I left it uncovered and the Great Storm split it in twain:
So when I bought Brooks Barrow‘s limestone bowl last March at the American Crafts Council show, the first thing I asked him was how it would withstand the occasional ice storm. He assured me that Wisconsin limestone is the hardest there is and it should be fine.
And so it has proven:
Normally I keep the bowl covered so that water doesn’t collect in it. During the summer, of course, it would be a breeding ground for mosquitoes, but also the decaying plant matter that inevitably collects in bowls/birdbaths/fountains will leave stains.
Here’s a closer look:
It’s hard to see, but the center white ice is actually bulged up. The water froze from the cold, cold limestone inward, pushing the last of the water up and stressing it white.
The poor little beetle in the lower right is dead, not resting. Circle of life, etc.
The only other element in the labyrinth that was affected by this week’s freezing temperatures is this one:
This is a bottle of Crystal Head vodka, or at least it used to be. Crystal Head is Dan Aykroyd’s product, and the packaging/marketing is a hoot. Beside the skull-shaped bottle, the box it comes in proudly proclaims that it is filtered through “crystals” on his upstate farm/distillery/whatever.
Despite all this, it’s actually a really good vodka, and it amused me to have a skull sitting out in the labyrinth, especially one that you could stop and take a swig from as you passed by. (It’s at the northwest corner, on the bank overlooking the Dancing Faun.) I’ve also used it for pouring libations to the Universe over at the fire pit, and the Lichtenbergians passed it around during a memorial ritual for a member.
I used to store it and then put it back out for each session, but then I got lazy. It’s not as if it were going to freeze, after all. Then one day the large square top to the cork came off, as I supposed all glued-on items will eventually do if exposed to the elements long enough, and all was well till one night I was walking the labyrinth and decided to take a swig and OH MY GOD IT WAS MOSTLY RAINWATER INSTEAD OF VODKA.
All I could think was amoebic dysentery and immediately rinsed my mouth out with gin, as one does. Blergh!
I left it out there as a purely decorative object, and now the water has frozen. I like the frost on the interior of the top.
Someday soon I will need to buy another bottle so that we can continue to consume booze ritualize to our hearts’ content.
