More bits & pieces

Posted on by Dale

I spent most of this past week in West Virginia, a lovely state, although where we were was a bit lacking in those things which I tend to enjoy while on vacation, such as fine dining and access to art in any form.

However, there was this, the New River Gorge Bridge:

That’s a four-lane highway on top; for scale, a car could drive on any of the girders of the arch. It is immense. It’s the longest single-arch bridge in the western hemisphere, and the second tallest in the U.S. As you can see in the photograph, there was a slight haze to the air that day, so the whole mise-en-scene was a bit CGIish. Confronted by something like this, the brain rebels. It can’t be real. It’s too big. Somehow a computer did it.

Before the bridge was built, folks used a smaller bridge down at the river (still there). It took 45 minutes to get from the top of one side of the gorge to the other. Now it takes less than a minute.

I was impressed.

I was also more than a little bored, not being the outdoorsy type who jumps at the chance to spend all day rafting down said New River. It rained nearly the whole time we were there, so I couldn’t even take naps in the sun, and there’s only so much hot tub one can take.

I was also largely internetless, having left my laptop at home. I was able to keep up with email via my iPhone, but there are about 13 major emails to which I have yet to reply because they need some thought and depth to them. I’ll get to those tomorrow.

So I amused myself by not shaving. Here I am after a week without a razor:

One always hopes that one looks raffishly sexy, but I know I’m just unkempt. It all comes off tomorrow morning, lest I scare the rest of the leadership team at school.

I got home from GHP last Sunday, left for West Virginia the next day, so I didn’t really get a chance to check on the labyrinth, other than to take this photo late last Sunday afternoon.

As you can see, the dry summer has not been kind to the space. The grass is mostly dead. Today I was able to pick up all the little sticks that had accumulated, and I spread a “weed & feed” fertilizer on it. I also have to get the lawnmower fixed, and then there’s a host of other little things I have to swing into action on. I’ll take more photos tomorrow afternoon and blog about them tomorrow night. I also hope to have a full report/plan on the omphalos bowl and its accoutrements and installation. Big doings in my near future.

Various updates

Posted on by Dale

I brought the bowl back to the dorm this morning. It’s awfully heavy. I continually fear I will drop it.

The cracks are now a feature, not a bug. When I think back on the puzzle of what to do with the interior, I am reminded of the line from Casablanca: “It seems that destiny has taken a hand.”

I spent an hour with a string quintet this morning reading through and working on Waltz for string quartet & bassoon. A cello subbed for the bassoon. It was great fun, and I was able to help them hear what I heard and to play it. I think that with actual rehearsal it would be a very presentable piece indeed. My friend and colleague Stephen Czarkowski plans to program it this fall, so maybe we’ll get a YouTube video performance of that.

There were three places that I wasn’t sure were effective, and I found that I was right about those as being weak. I was able to fix one of them on the spot, and the other two are simple doubling issues, i.e., I need more oomph at two spots that sounded bare, so all I have to do is copy and paste some notes. Done, for a ducat!

I haven’t blogged about this because it’s been touchy, but for the past week here at the Land of Pan-Dimensional Mice we’ve been under “social distancing protocol” restrictions due to the flu. No one could sit directly next to each other, everyone was issued hand sanitizer, etc., etc. (There is no hand sanitizer in the city. Tomorrow there will be no Sharpie markers.)

The “no touching” thing had some interesting repercussions. We canceled Field Day and the Saturday night dance. (Everyone dressed up in their 80s finery anyway.) I canceled my Grand Ball. We had to cut seating at peformances in half, which meant we had to double the number of performances, which meant increased monitoring duties for me, which meant less time to get the program ready to close out. It was very stressful.

The worst was facing the fact that we were going to have do the final Prism Concert twice, cancel the Friday night Graffiti Dance (the kids sign each others’ t-shirts in a last paroxysm of bonding), and somehow split up Saturday morning’s Convocation. What kind of good-bye is it when half the people you love are not there? And the idea that we were going to keep these kids from hugging each other was ludicrous. The increasing anxiety about this very real downer was getting to everyone.

Last night, however, the word finally came that since we had not had anyone register any symptoms since our only case ten days ago, we were free of restrictions. We could end our summer as we should. And there was much rejoicing.

All in all, we were magnificent. We responded quickly and appropriately, and the kids were fantastic in their good-spirited compliance with the protocols. They were actually grateful that they were still at GHP, and many said so. All the final events were kept on the schedule, and as far as I know no one was turned away from something they wanted to see. We deserve much praise.

Two days, one hour, two minutes until GHP is over.

GHP 2009 Art

Posted on by Dale

Here are my favorite pieces from this year’s art exhibit, in no particular order, other than walking around the gallery.

Bottles, mixed media, by Samantha Bond. You can see the label on the right side of the photo, which should give you a sense of scale. I would love to own this piece. At the top of the white slashes, wire is looped through the canvas, with corks dancing on the end of it. It gives off an odd combination of menace and satisfaction.

Hoof and cube, ceramics, by Will Darnell. This was the artist’s solution to the “problem” of making a teapot. I should have gotten a shot from the other end, so that you could see that the base is actually a hoof and not any other organic form that I’m sure Marc is going to call me out on. I love the kludgy assemblage of forms, and I think the paint job is gutsy. The whole thing dares you to think it’s inept when you can’t stop yourself from watching it.

Old man, oil, by Maggie Ellis. Certainly I would question her title, given the subject’s still-youthful aspect, but since this work sailed directly into ELP territory, I found it both fascinating and instructive. Look for renderings like this from me in the next year or so. (Mike, Eli, you still owe me photos.)

What has 50 teeth and holds a beast inside, a zipper!, ceramics, by Christy Eun-A Kim. Ignoring the cheeky title, I liked the bravura of this piece. It’s just chaotic. Here it is from the other side.

What a glorious mess! One suspects the artist simply got bored one morning and decided to pile it all on and see what happened. A lesson to us all.

Untitled, mixed media, by Aubrey Warnick. A tidily assembled piece, I thought. The interior, of which I need a better detail shot, is encaustic; nails protrude from the surface, and stains run down from them to a collection of twigs jumbled at the bottom.

[update] Here’s a detail:

Lost in translation, acrylic, by Courtney Curtsinger. For some reason, the kids painted faces on everything this summer. They’d have a guest artist who showed them strategies for abstraction, and I’d see a nice painting developing, and then the next day there’d be a face on it. It puzzled their instructors no end, as it did me, but ironically of course such figurative work is my goal for my own work. This was one of the better ones.

At the spring, acrylic and encaustic, by Newnan’s own Katie Turner. Several works showed up this year on bare board. I thought Katie’s use of the encaustic to capture the water and its contrast to the crispness of the legs was quite clever. Again, better focus would show it off better.

Virgin’s first dance, paper and wood, by Christy Eun-A Kim. This is the first time we’ve ever had anything like this: over-the-top origami Harajuku fashion sculpture. Clearly Miss Kim loves her neomannerist torsions.

Here’s an overview of the exhibit, and here’s the other overview:

All in all a good year for art at GHP. I may snag some more images tonight.

[updated 7/23]

Two other pieces:

Untitled, wood, wire, burlap, by Corissa Duffey. This little piece struck me with its combination of form and materials.

Chair with fabric, mixed media, by Jerome F. Kendrick. The self-assuredness of this piece is amazing. Very Noguchi-like, don’t you think?

Omphalos, 7/21/09

Posted on by Dale

All right, who didn’t light a candle?

Yes, those are cracks. They are large cracks.

See??

We are not to worry. We will patch these cracks with a marine epoxy, perhaps even with some colorant. And actually I kind of like the pattern they made.

I don’t know when I’m going to do this. Maybe between midnight and 2 a.m. one evening between now and Saturday.

Tomorrow morning I sit in on a rehearsal of my Waltz for string quartet & bassoon, although I’m not sure whether they ever recruited a bassoon.

Omphalos, 7/19/09

Posted on by Dale

So.

First, Andy showed me how to patch the enormous ring of cracks:

That’s a mixture of glaze and the clay I pulverized last week, rubbed into the cracks.

Then we moved outside to the spraying station. That’s right, children, I didn’t have to spend hours painting my glaze on. Andy let me use the sprayer. Here’s the bowl with its six coats of white glaze on the outside. (Don’t panic. The bowl isn’t going to be white, at least not where you can see it.)

Here’s the manufacturer of the spray booth:

That’s pretty dang close to Lacuna. For all I know, it’s Laquna. (It’s not. I just checked. It’s Laguna.)

Next, the inside of the bowl:

Makes you wonder, doesn’t it? It’s cobalt blue.

Later, I glazed the little cutout pieces from the four corners.

Those are for East, West, North, and South. I think what I’m going to do is to gold-leaf the old alchemical symbols for air, water, earth, and fire, respectively, onto them. Then… I don’t know. They’ll go somewhere out there.

The blue, brown, and red glazes were just underglazes, so they had to have coats of clear glaze:

Yes, I know it looks like Pepto-Bismol.

It all goes into the kiln tomorrow. Cross your fingers/light a candle/walk your labyrinth that the big bowl comes out clean and sealed.

Omphalos, 7/16/09

Posted on by Dale

I arrived in the studio just as Andy was taking the bowl out of the kiln. It is still too warm to touch even as I write this:

It has of course cracked exactly where we saw before:

Again, Andy is not concerned. The ground up clay that you see here will be mixed with glaze to form a grout to seal the cracks.

We still have not decided on the interior. However, I look forward to welcoming my fellow Lichtenbergians to the Land of Pan-Dimensional Mice tomorrow, and I feel sure they will provide guidance in that regard.

Waltz, 7/14/09

Posted on by Dale

This morning I had the pleasure of hearing the Waltz for String Quartet & Bassoon read through by the strings majors here at GHP, under the direction of the inestimable Michael Giel.

They read it as a whole group, so it had a bigger sound, which was not at all bad. Also, since the woodwinds were hard at work on their concert for tonight, the bassoon part was taken by a solo cello, which was also fine.

What can I say? It worked, and it worked admirably. I’m pleased. Thank you, Michael and strings!

In other news, Stephen Czarkowski has ordered parts in order to perform it this fall. Who knows, I may actually write two more movements to go with it.

Omphalos update: The bowl is in the kiln.

Waltz, 7/10/09

Posted on by Dale

I think I’m through with the waltz. It’s not finished, I’m just through with it.

Yes, it’s complete, and yes, it makes sense in its twisted little way, but I still feel as if I have lazily slapped together a few combinations and turned it in. Oh well.

Here’s the “completed” Waltz for String Quartet & Bassoon. (Here’s the score, if you want it.)

I need to go double-check it for impossible double-stops before I let a real violinist see it.