THE TWO INVITAITIONAL COUNTRY CRAFT FAIR AND OLD FASHIONED MERCANTILE - SEA DOG

when I was away in China I worked on another piece beside The Mermaid. The second piece that I took with me to China was just a piece of wood. I had thought that it would be an animal figure. I was not sure what kind of animal it would be but I knew it would be an animal. After I did some preliminary carving to create a general animal shape it became evident that it would be a dog. My youngest daughter's rottweiler, Diesel,  came to mind so I used the rottweiler species as a model for my carving. I found many examples of rottweilers on the internet that helped me as I modeled my piece. It was remarkable in a way, I did most of the roughing out on a rainy Saturday afternoon in my hotel room in Nanning, China. I did the final shaping, sanding and finishing when I returned home to Canada.

After I had finished sanding the dog with the last grade of sandpaper, 800 grit, I decided that the dog needed something to sit on. I found a piece of found wood in my collection of found wood that I thought was perfect. I sanded the base but not to the same luster as the dog. I wanted the base to have a wind swept, water worn look to it. In addition, I thought that the dog required a name. I decided to call him Sea Dog. I roughly carved the name "Sea Dog" into the front of the base to give it a ragged looked then I sanded the entire area where I had carved the name to give it a washed out look.

After treating the base with several solutions of Tung oil cut by thinners I applied a coating of cabinet makers wax to seal and protect the surface.

Now, everything is assembled. Sea Dog is attached to his base with a dowel pin that I glued into a hole in the base and a corresponding hole in the bottom of Sea Dog. i was a little nervous because there is not that much material in the base of Sea Dog and I did not want to break through the wood with my Forstner bit that I used to drill the hole.

The last thing that I did was attach the two glass eyes into place. I used two old pins that had rust heads. I cut the pins short then pushed the pins into Sea Dogs head which firmly seated the glass eyes into position. I do have to say that Sea Dog has a forlorn look sitting on his piece of floating debris.

Sea Dog ensconced on his bit of driftwood

He definitely has a mournful look!

You can see how the piece of wood that Sea Dog is sitting on is well worn

This end is almost completely eroded

I left most of the wood intact in the back, holes and all.

some of the letters are clear and prominent. Others have almost completely faded away.

THE MERMAID

Well, here she is, The Mermaid, mounted on her stand. I chose this piece of wood to be the stand because it gives the appearance that she is rising up out of the ocean on a crest of a wave.

I glued her to a post and tried to make it as inconspicuous as possible. I wanted to create the illusion of floating. When I look at The Mermaid from a distance she reminds me of the first time that I saw the statue of Nike in the Louvre. When you stand at the bottom of the steps and look up you see this magnificent ethereal statue of Nike hovering at the top of the stairs.

 In the following pictures you can see the shell that The Mermaid is cradling against her chest. It would appear that she is protecting it.

I am happy with the way The Mermaid has turned out. Unlike the Siren who has a raw, overpowering sensuality, The Mermaid has a more ethereal quality that us just as alluring. She will be just as effective in luring sailors to crash onto the rocky shores that they inhabit.

FIVE NEW PIECES

I have five new pieces that I have completed. Actually, some of them are pieces that I started some time ago and came back to them recently to finish them. At least one of the pieces I set aside because I could not make up my mind on how I was going to finish the piece. The others, I just did not get around to finishing them. I wanted to have some pieces to put on Etsy so I finished these five pieces.

Composition #1 (15X10 inches)

This piece I call Composition #1. It grew out of the idea of contrasts. I want to use different pieces of wood that would evoke the idea of contrasts. I chose pieces of birch that were very clear. I contrasted pieces of light and dark birch. On the left hand side I used pieces of plywood that I had cut into slices to contrast the striations of the light and dark areas of the plywood against the clarity of the birch. I liked the idea because it creates a sense of tension in the contrast. Also, I feel a sense of musical movement descending in tone from left to right.

The next three pieces are similar in the sense that they are composed of rectangles of wood that were cut consecutively  from the same piece of wood. The patterns were creating by arranging the pieces in an order that made sense to me or resonated at some psychic level.

Transitions (6X10 inches)

I called this piece Transitions. The pattern is created from defects in the end grain of the wood. The pattern flows from block to block then inverts itself and returns to a pattern similar to the beginning but never entirely the same.

This piece I call Flights of Fantasy. what I like about this piece is that it evokes entirely different images in different people. I see the images as a bird, a machine or even a person rising up in flight to wherever it is they want to go , would like to go. To me it is a liberating , freeing image. On the other hand, my wife sees the images as something sensual and erotic. I could see it as well but only after she pointed it out to me. You will have to find your own flight of fantasy in this piece.Flights of Fantasy(6X9 inches)

The Scream (3X7 inches)

The piece, called The Scream reminded me of the painting by Edvard Munch.

The Scream by Edvard Munch

Screaming Pope by Francis Bacon

 The Screaming Pope also evokes the idea of this small piece. It is composed of two consecutive slices of wood. when I held them together the image that you jumped out at me.

All three pieces were created without changing the surface of the wood other than sanding the wood and finishing it. This is something different from my usual wood carving. Usually I am trying to remove layers of wood to find what the wood has to reveal. In a way, it is only the technique that is different. The idea of reusing wood that would have been discarded is the same as well as following the nature of the wood to see what it reveals is also to same. I think we should use technique as a tool and not be limited by only one method of arriving at the final destination.

The last of five pieces was carved in the usual manner.

Chinese Poem (6X11 inches)

I had a lot of fun carving this piece. It  is a relief carving with varying depths to make some parts more prominent than other parts. The wood came from the frame of one of the windows that I renovated in our home. I removed the old window which was broken and leaked air like a sieve and replace it with a new air-tight window. I as much of the wood from the window frame as I could.

The Chinese characters are from a poem that I read in a book by a Chinese calligraphy artist. The calligraphy was beautiful and the poems were interesting. I like this poem because it expresses how I feel about Bayshore Woods. Here is a rough Translation, "Stillness In The Green Pine Forest". I took a lot of liberties with the Chinese characters by lengthening parts, exaggerating parts and generally changing them until they flowed on the wood in a way that I liked. However, I did not change the characters so much that they were illegible. Also, I did not place them in any particular order on the wood so you can read them and interpret them as you like. That is part of the fluidity of Chinese poetry.

Well, there they are, five new pieces, different yet the same. Once I finish my grand daughter's crib which is very close to completion, I will have more time to finish and work on other pieces.