Stumptown becomes Chipland

NE Portland is the land of chips. Big lots with a lot of folks interested in growing food not lawns. I've lost track how many truckloads of wood chips I've spread on this garden. Each truckload is 10 cubic yards. At least 60 cubic yards in 4 years. That's a small plywood factory in some places. Each truckload I swear will be the last I'll need.

Six months later I'm calling up Wind Thin Tree Service, asking for another truckload. If you see or hear someone chipping, check it out. It pays to know which companies do work in your area. Most arborists are happy do unload their trucks. That saves them the driving, dump fees and keeps it out of the land fills.

Wood chips work wonderfully for keeping the weeds down. To colonize a new area, I lay several layers of cardboard down and then cover with a thick 6 to 8 inch layer of chips. Only the dandelions can survive a year of smothering. No weeds. Even blackberries struggle to take root. The chips make for great paths in the garden. Soft and no mud.

The trick is to spread the pile as fast as possible. Aside from being in the street, steaming, the big pile can build up quite a bit of heat as it starts to decompose. It's not going to burst into spontaneous combustion, but there can be some really nasty mold in that big mass that you don't want to breathe. Spread around, it's not a problem.

Saved by Tiny Boulders

Work is slow. Even the Las Vegas casino sculpture is dead in the water. What's a pro sculptor to do?

Ask around.

A friend's brother wanted a custom business card holder to give to his sales staff. I'm happy to create it for him...( I don't have to sign it.) Good thing the work was small because so was the budget.

The thing with tiny work is that it can take as much time as a far larger piece. My goal was to design and sculpt the entire job in three hours. To save time, I built it around an existing plastic card holder so the cards would fit. Working this small every mark has to count.

Talking with the manufacturer I learned that the wider bottom was necessary to allow a paintbrush easy access with the bronze face coat. I built the forms for the mountains and logo on an angle so that it will demold easily and allow for painting. The end material will be a cold cast bronze resin so I left some areas rough. The textures will add dimension on the very shallow relief, dark in the recesses and bright metal where polished.

No experience is wasted. All the stone walls I've built were there to help me shape the boulders. The client was pleased because one of the company's divisions is in landscape rock. Could the work it be better? Absolutely. 8 hours would have given a sweet relief but three was the deadline. Bang it out as skillfully as possible, and let it go.

How to move Heavy Stones

Wally Wallington demonstrates how to move heavy weights using only his body, simple tools and gravity. Amazing demonstration of how the original Stonehenge might have been created.

249 Ornament

Designing a trellis for the garden, I had to reread the chapter on Ornament in A Pattern Language by Christopher Alexander. The following is a quote from that chapter.

"In order to understand the function of ornament, we must begin by understanding the nature of space in general. Space, when properly formed, is whole. Every part of it, every part of a town, a neighborhood, a building, a garden, or a room, is whole, in the sense that it is both an integral entity, in itself, and at the same time, joined to some other entities to form a larger whole. This process hinges largely on the boundaries. It is no accident that so many of the patterns in this pattern language concern the importance of the boundaries between things, as places that are as important as the things themselves."

"Pay attention to transitions" where ever/when ever they occur is mindfulness 101. Such good reminder. I know it when I'm creating a sculpture. I call it sewing the sculpture back to itself, making every aspect of it congruent, till I can neither add nor subtract a single thing. But the larger picture of seeing how that carving relates to the room and ultimately to the world takes it into a spiritual practice. All my relations and Tikkun Olam........................

Allowed to be mysterious

Better neighboorhoods are like that Tolstoy quote
"Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way."

Not that scrappy developments are unhappy, I just mean that they are not all groomed to a bland consensus. Quirky things happen.

I came upon this enigmatic structure by the curb. It is not at all cute. It's brutal. All the elements of a building, but why? Was it a fortress for a psychotic guinea pig? A Tower of London for a deposed chihuahua? Are those windows for defense? or for seeing a small patch of... car tires? It even has a moat!

Some things are best left unanswered and mysterious.

LASH Quality Molds and Sculpture Supplies aka the Candy Store

Even though I make most of my own sculpting tools there is something compelling about the display at LASH Quality Molds and Sculpture Supplies. The potential of finding the perfect tool, and the delight of seeing clean, orderly rows is so relaxing. Picking up and feeling how the tool fits your hand is worth a dozen Sculpture House catalogs.

Owner Leslie Bell has made molds for Portland's best sculptors. Her shop stocks hard to find hand forged spatulas and rifflers and different grades of oil clay. It's well worth a visit to 4702 NE 102nd Ave. Portland OR. The phone is 503 251 6959.

Thonet Chair Rescue - Before and After

I have a thing for chairs. Hate to see good ones abused. Out driving, I saw four Thonet upholstered bentwood chairs dumped by the side of the road. Had to stop.

A good sit is hard to find.

Judging by the turquoise Naugahyde, they were probably from the 1950's. Oooh, Mid Century! Tho' tired, they were still pretty solid, good support. I left the broken one, took three, one to cannibalize for parts if necessary. Did the reupholstery myself, these chairs were just the right amount of work. Not too much, but enough to feel satisfied and proud of the results.

With some sanding, polish, new cotton stuffing and smart retro fabric from the Whole 9 Yards they are ready for another 50 years. I love how the new material references both the 1950's and turn of the 19th Century's love of the irregular line and the peacock feather's eye, and even has the same turquoise blue.