Gilded ravens

Posted on December 15, 2008 by pearce

After a busy weekend I got back to the studio today revitalized and ready to paint. I really want to get Chris’s raven piece completed, but the elements are not co-operating, because it’s so damp here that nothing is drying as quickly as it usually does in the California dry air. We’re getting rained on and periodically hailed on, which is great for the land and irritating for studio painting. I expect these pieces to take several days to dry now I’ve put the birds onto them. The sizes are deceptive in the picture, the smallest are 6″ square. Looking good! I have yet to paint the acacia tree from which the birds are flying.

I must confess to being preoccupied with traveling back and forth to Santa Barbara to visit Stessa there. In addition, it’s difficult to reconcile the desire to dispose of material with my constant need to produce material objects as an outcome to the spiritual exploration I’m on and this is keeping my mind busy at present. I’d like to know for sure that the work produces a mystical outcome for some of the people who see it, that would justify the materiality of the product, but this is seldom an event I get to participate in. 

  

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Two more

Posted on December 12, 2008 by pearce

Teddy gave me these two tall thin canvases to work on. I think I know how this is going to work, but it will almost certainly change as the idea grows. They’re seven feet by two. I think they will be associated with the alchemical project I’m working on right now, capturing the essence of the place. This evening, after a busy day at the very end of the semester I found time to apply the first coat of gesso to the pieces,  managing to avoid wearing the undercoat for once. I’m curious to see where these will go.

 

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Blue Sky

Posted on December 12, 2008 by pearce

I finished off gilding the last of the panels, creating some additional pieces for the large version. I can’t wait to rehang the large version at the Brand Gallery, I think these small additions will make a big difference. So, Amelia’s back in action as I wait for the gold leaf to really get dry. I added a layer of Prussian Blue over the sky, taking care of the edges of the orb so that the ragged flared edge of the disc have a lovely blue hue to them as they emerge. She’s almost finished now. I must get to her feet and drop back the orb a little – it’s still too bright. I love that Prussian Blue, it’s so transparent and bright at the low end of its range, and almost completely black at it’s dense end. Wonderful stuff!

 

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Sandstone

Posted on December 11, 2008 by pearce

The extraction of sandstone seems to have worked, producing a pale yellow coloured tincture. I suspect that the amount of organic oils that we have pulled is very tiny, and we’ll end up with only a couple of drops of actual extracted essence after distillation. I hope to get to the distillation of both tinctures tomorrow. I’m very pleased with the results of this adventure into practical alchemy, and looking forward to the mineral alchemy processing the remaining stone and distilling the smoke that comes over when we get it really hot. I met an alchemist who does the mineral work while in Vegas at the Alchemy conference (where we found Red Rock canyon, the location of the sage and stone which is the subject of this alchemical process) he described the process in his lecture, so I know roughly how to do it, and that it bears fruit. I want to do some study of the work so that I understand exactly what needs to be done, so this might have to wait for a while.

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Gold panels

Posted on December 11, 2008 by pearce

I finished the gilding and mopped the panels for the new ravens piece with distilled water using a very soft brush to make sure that the leaf was well laid down into the adhesive, and cleaning off  any excess from the surface. The gold is still very fragile at this stage, so I need to be very gentle with the brush, because I’d like to avoid making tears in the surface. Using plenty of misted water really helps. I’m not satisfied with the quality of the distilled water I’m using, as it still leaves a slight residue, which I will clean off later. The photo shows the panels prior to being mopped. Now, after a short drying time – maybe a day – I’m onto painting the crows, which will take a while. I really like this piece.

I’m getting more and more involved in meditating in the morning after running and yoga. Following this practice is helping me to be less interested in the material needs of life and more peacefully accepting of the things I cannot change. The Kundalini experience of a couple of months ago is continuing to make its impact felt.

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Solve

Posted on December 11, 2008 by pearce

    

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

In the lab the reflux set-up has continued to bubble away, pulling more extract from the second batch of sagebrush into the solvent (first photo). Yesterday evening I prepared the red stone by tipping the crushed powder into the flask (second photo), mixing it with the solvent and setting up the reflux, then we turned on the heat and let it be. John dropped by this morning while I was running and told me that we’d succeeded in pulling something from the material, which is a nice surprise, as I was wondering if we’d get anything at all from it, because although it’s a very soft sandstone, it is still stone! It’s very satisfying to follow the footsteps of the old alchemists.

With John’s guidance this has all been easy and really fun. He thinks the extract smells like Graham Crackers, which are an American cookie (not a cracker at all). Our colleague Grady dropped in to the lab and smelled the fragrance of the extract and said it reminded him of hiking. 

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Crazy days

Posted on December 9, 2008 by pearce

I ran to the top of the hill overlooking the valley this morning, watching the sunrise, then did some yoga with Janet and Richard, getting well set up for the day, but getting involved in working on the gilding as soon as I got into the studio after a cup of tea. It’s been a constant flow all day since then. John found a window of opportunity to get to the reflux process, so we were able to drain the extracted sage brush and filter it (photo tomorrow). It’s a lovely reddish brown colour, almost exactly the colour of a good english ale, and it has a delicious scent of the desert sage. Wonderful. We plan to set up the same process to extract the sandstone essence tomorrow. I’m hoping to capture the rich earthy smell it has as effectively as we have caught the sage. The successful outcome of this effort has encouraged me to do the same thing with other places, ready for display in the Brand Gallery exhibit alongside the As the Crow Flies piece. The second batch of the sagebrush is bubbling away right now in the lab.

Kathy Wagonner’s show is in the gallery and looks fantastic. If you happen to live near Thousand Oaks, do yourself a favour and come and see how effective ceramics can be – these are awesome mystical sculptures of Goddess women. Opens Saturday evening at seven in the Kwan Fong Gallery.

I’ve been gilding, completing half of the gold for the new Gilded Ravens for Chris. The gold’s looking good over the traditional red undercoat.

I’m off to shower and run to the reception for the exhibit in Ventura at the Government centre, then dinner with Teddy, who has a couple of large canvases for me. This is perfect timing, as I have stretchers for one four feet by six feet piece, then I’m out of grounds and will need to get a pile more. Teddy’s are tall and thin, so I will have to consider how to use them most effectively.

 

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Red gesso

Posted on December 8, 2008 by pearce

I painted the red gesso undercoat for the gold leaf onto the panels this afternoon, as usual ending up wearing much of the stuff on my jeans. I don’t know why gessoing should be such a messy business for me, maybe it’s because it’s lying flat on the table, which is too low (gives me a backache, every time). Nevertheless, the panels are done, ready for gilding tomorrow, all bright red and nice and rich. I think this smaller version of As the Crow Flies is going to look terrific.

I ran out of time to visit with John this afternoon, so I’ll visit the lab with him in the morning. He’s started running with us at dawn, joining Rich and I in our quest to get some pounds off. It’s going pretty well so far – I can wear all my old jeans again, even the tightest of them. Anyway, tomorrow the reward for our efforts will be a visit to the lab to see the results of the reflux, and to begin the experiment again with the other half of the sagebrush. When we’ve completed that we’ll distill the solvent off the essential oil and bottle the remainder.

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Preparing for gold

Posted on December 7, 2008 by pearce

What a busy day this was. We needed to load out Sean Sobczak’s exhibit of Light Sculptures from the gallery, so I picked up the truck at nine then returned to the gallery to meet Sean at lunchtime. We packed everything up and took his work back to his loft at the Brewery, then returned the truck and got back to the studio at four.

It was right about then that I realized that my week is getting pretty intense, and I MUST get the panels for Chris’s gilded ravens started right away if we are to get it hung by Friday. I think I can pull if off, but only if I get down to it immediately, so I went to the store and picked out two good sheets of 12mm plywood, sawed them into small squares, then gave them a couple of coats of gesso, which are drying as I write this. Chris had seen the big version of the As the Crow Flies piece in the gallery, and wanted his own version for his home, so instead of putting the big piece in there which really wouldn’t fit the available space at all well, I’m making a new, slightly smaller version of it specifically for the house. There are three tables full of panels for the piece.

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The face of Justice

Posted on December 7, 2008 by pearce

Having done as much as I could to Amelia’s orb I moved back to Justice, who has been neglected of late, to build the surface of her face up a little. This is a wild improvement upon the sketched up noodling that I had earlier, so I’m pretty pleased with the progress I made this evening, although she clearly needs some fix-up work. I’ll fix errors in value balance later. I always encourage students to stop when they have something that looks good, don’t feel that you have to re-make the brush-strokes if they are good already. Sometimes I find myself doing it though! Curses resound! 

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