Pregled posta

Marketing

"Found Art" of a favorite sort--this chair is fashioned out of discarded waterskis. Actually, built twice, since a few of the components rotted and had to be replaced.

It's surprisingly comfortable, and holds true to my appreciation for recycled building materials, and nautical salvage. It looks great on a houseboat deck, too; although I'm avoiding an initial mistake that was made (varethane finish didn't shed water--but rather held it in, creating rapid rot)--in this resurrection, I'm soaking the components in linseed oil before the final protective coat of spar varnish with UV filter is applied.

A philosophical dilemna arose during this re-build. The chair wanted a heavy sanding, but part of the charm was the patina, and where that original waterski paint job remained, I felt that it should be retained--otherwise it could have easily been constructed out of lumberyard stock, not actual water skis. (Of course, the skis have their own characteristic bow).

So--a few sunny days and a bit of varnish and this project will be done! But it's already achieved the ultimate award--the Wife's Seal of Approval.

"You should collect used waterskis and make more of these," she suggested. "I know you could sell them, and you'd do well."

Clearly, I've been wearing my "What Should I Do With Myself?" t-shirt. Presumably my performance of "happy retired duffer", fools no one. My rootless search for identity and purpose is laid bare. But now the course has been charted, the quest has been cast; unused waterskies will be furnitures fast!
"Ready? HIT It!"

6x6" oil on canvas panel
"Painting a landscape feels like flying, such a welcome change of pace from still life. I love the loose flow of buttery pigment as it courses, glides, drifts, circulates, skims, oozes, swirls, and rolls off the fine tiny hairs of my brush with a story of its own to tell. The brush charts its own path catching light off vapors of layered atmosphere, fluid sweep of free-flowing water, or the crisp rustle of dry swaying grasses.

It feels so natural to me, I can't imagine approaching a landscape in any other way. To labor over each exacting blade of grass, every ripple on the water's surface, or the intricate patterns of bark on a branch, would condense it all into a frozen frame of a girdle to sit lifeless and idle for all eternity. In a landscape, I want to capture the movement of breathing spirit. I want the viewer to feel the chill of the wind that's blowing through my hair, the warm rays of afternoon sun that sit perched on a shoulder, and to detect the decaying scent of autumn rising from the mists off the bank of cool waters.

The artist job is to take it all in but then to simplify and filter down to the barest of it all, that which contains the whole. I still have miles of canvas to go but am loving my journey along the way."