Mom Joy  
​                                                                    
I recently attended a dance recital of my beautiful granddaughter Elizabeth. She danced like an angel (as only an 11-year-old can).
One of the recital dances consisted of only preschoolers; four little girls dancing to a bouncy tune, I forget which one.  Anyone who’s seen a dance recital knows how hard the kids work to get their movements together. Still, one four-year-old girl stood out.  Not because she had her dance together but because she embodied pure joy. 
I am in the joy business (sculpture is just a vehicle).  So, I watch this little girl joy bundle closely.  She knew she had to dance with the others to make the teacher happy but, oh my. Her Mom was in the audience!  Nothing was more exciting and more wonderful than having Mom in the audience!  So, a couple of times, as the dancers moved about, she would break stride to wave at Mom.  And then, there were two hands waving.  And then she threw a kiss.  And then a two-handed kiss.
At that point, she looked around to see what the others were doing and got a bit confused, so she ran to the front of the stage waving to her Mom. Fearful that she would go right over the front of the stage the teacher bolted from the behind the curtain to catch her and usher her back to the others.  But still, there was nothing more exciting then Mom in the audience. Following the curtain-bow, she broke from the herd and raced down to the first row to hug Mom and thrill everyone else.
Mom was flustered, the instructor was flustered, the audience was howling with delight while the purest bond of joy flowed like electricity between Mom and her loving young daughter.
Poets, musicians, choirs and, yes, sculptors labor daily to show us what joy is all about; but it took four-year-old to let me see pure joy.
I don’t think I could be that joyful. 
I wish I could.  I want to try. 
Maybe I can approach joy as a four-year-old girl, full of love, energy and delight and lose the gray areas and compromises that weigh down life.
May your life be full of joy.

I am sitting here in Oregon watching the gold and red leaves gently falling from the maple trees in the back yard.  Under the trees and under blue tarps sit my tools for the physical creation of the spiritual creation that is sculpture.  

While the physical creation has slowed, waiting on some architectural remedies, the spiritual creation never stopped.  Soon they will blend, but I am sure the blend will be novel.  I expect things will be the same, just  in a different location. That keeps me sane.  But I know I have changed right down to my molecules.  

Through miraculous happenstance, I have met my most admired figurative realism sculptor, a production designer dripping with accolades from broadway plays to Disneyworld, Crimson Rose the once-naked fire lady of Burning man, and a dozen other creatives who, without giving me direction changed me--forever.  My daughter has a t-shirt reading "Don't look back.  It's not where you're going."
​
The chaos that once was my studio will soon give birth to new sculpture, a reborn studio and new opportunities for beauty. I didn't give serious thought to sculpture lighting possibilities, to mediums expressing their true emotional and implicit messages, or to the effects of elemental spirals on joyful creations.  Can I go back?  Nah.  When the world is swirling around me, I tell myself nothing has changed.  Makes me comfortable.  But nah.

It's been a while since I've written.  Life has intervened with all of its textures.  The season has changed from an an extended cool Spring to Summer bursting with warm days and the occasional thunderstorm to cool us down. 

My work has been consuming.  There have been some wonderful highs and some wrenching lows...marvelous successes followed by a pile of rubble on floor.  These opposites are not bad or good--they just are.  I give neither the positive or the negative any play.  They are opportunities to learn the lessons of the present moment so that I don't have to learn them in a future time.  I've been grateful for each of them. For instance--

Connection. I've had the good fortune to have personal connections grow into public placements.  My community of patrons and friends have opened doors and pocketbooks to make a place for my sculpture in their communities and homes.
 
Persistence.  Piles of tangled filament have led to careful analysis of root causes and marked improvements in technique and tools.  I had one piece I reworked countless times...and as I did, I discovered better, simpler, more elegant ways to complete an astonishingly beautiful new piece.
Patience.  I admit that I want to get things done right now. In practicing patience, I've learned that all things happen in their own time, on their own schedule...and they happen exactly when they are supposed to in exactly the right place.  
​
Not Doing.  I look at the river of life as it floats by and I ask myself if there is something I should or could contribute to make the moment better, or if it's even mine to do at all.  In not doing, I've become more attuned to what I can do, if anything.  And many times, the answer is nothing. 
As we move toward fall, I constantly practice gratitude. And as I do, I am given grace to continue on my path.
​​

As a sculptor, one of the greatest pleasures I have is watching how viewers interact with my sculptures.  Once, a decade ago, I had a woman look at one of my rough-textured small bronzes and burst into sobs.  When she finally recomposed herself, she told me, “That sculpture is me when I was young. We had nothing and my mother did her best, but I always had messy hair and was a little disheveled…but I was happy anyway, especially when I danced.”


Recently I’ve noticed something different.  Lots of people want to go dancing with my sculptures.  I mean LOTS of folks.  In every group there seems to be at least one person that starts dancing.  My favorite is little girls.  So why do people want to dance with them?  Maybe it's the same reason when Garth Brooks sings, I think I can sing.
The sculptures are light on their feet and look to be floating.  .  .maybe that person sees their self taking flight in dance.  Perhaps they are inspired by the movement and want to see for themselves, just for a moment, if they really have a hidden dancer lurking inside. Maybe they really are a dancer—jumping toddler, lithe grownup, or arm-chair ballerina—and they want to see if they have really got, or still have, that playful move.  
​
Last week in Sioux Falls for an installation, I met a real ballerina, Chloe, who, goaded by her friends, showed her moves next to Spiral Dance.  ​

Sometimes I wonder if anybody really sees or understands what I am trying to do with joyful dances.  Last week, sitting on a park bench away from my sculpture, I was handed dozens of little dancing love letters from ordinary people of all ages who shed their ought tos and must dos for a moment of joy in the sun.  Every dance filled my cup.  It just doesn’t get any better than that.

When I last posted, I was deep into curating the flotsam my life and three or four former generations of my family.  The 40 boxes have been reduced to eight; pictures have been sent to be scanned (7,800 of 'em); and many questions about my forbears were answered.  Those of you chuckling now know that each answer creates eight questions.  

The oldest letter was from 1775. The sweetest find was four 78 rpm recordings of my grandmother (known as the Oklahoma Nightingale) singing from her barnstorming career as headliner for the silent movie circuit.  And then there were friends and family for whom the only physical remainder was in my hands.

Upon reentering my sculpture world, I carried forward curating.  Some of my sculpture experiments and intentions were great.  Others produced only the detritus of lost dreams, useless tools, aging materials and sincere written plans for great accomplishment.  Out they went, perhaps saving a memory token to puzzle whomever curates my leftovers.

I'm an experimenter and an innovator with both ideas and materials.  I started out in oil clay, then Terra Cotta (water clay), moved on to traditional lost-wax bronzes, experimented with plaster, researched ferro-cement, taught myself welding to create Flourishes, laid up fiberglass, learned to create new Swoopieprototypes with 3D technology, and most recently, moved to larger-than-life carbon fiber Swoopiesculptures.

My studio space reflected this meandering path through a whole forest of materials and techniques.  Eight large bookcases were crammed with anatomy, art, photography and painting reference materials. Boxes of wax dancer macquettes were nuzzled in along early bronzes of (can you imagine?) cowgirls. Steel pipe was leaning against prototype 3D prints.   My 3D printers sat among my hot wax tools.  You get the idea.  Picture every piece of clothing you ever wore draped somewhere in your studio.

Now, I've not read the book or seen the Marie Kondo series on The Life Changing Magic of Tidying Up.  But one of those nearest and dearest to me (whose name shall remain--Deborah) suggested that I look at my melange of art paraphernalia with an eye to what gives me joy now.   

Not yesterday, not tomorrow.  Today.  Right now. 

So began the purge.  Fellow artists kindly relieved me of many of my reference materials.  Our high school art department was delighted to take the 2-D materials for its students. My fellow model railroaders are now enjoying all of those kits and scenery acquired for a bygone dream.  Duplicate power tools found a new home with those who need them to build habitat.  

It felt like I was giving away big parts of my life, but the parts were acquired for chasing a dream and--well, dreams change.  The rear-view mirror doesn't indicate where I'm going.  And I enjoy having uncluttered space.  It seems like every great leap forward in my life has started with a clean desk, and now it is real clean.  So look out.  Ideas are flowing faster than I can imagine their creation.  I am moving into major joy.  

Watch this space.  

As patriarch, I find myself the curator of my family history--all fifty boxes of the flotsam and jetsam that comprise my life (to now) and all my forbears. Each year, I set aside those mementos--cards, letters, faded pictures, report cards, hand drawn pictures, break-up letters--from 20 branches of the famtree.  I promised myself over years that I'd go through them sometime.  And now is sometime.

My eyes well up with tears of gratitude for the people who have loved me and mine, with tears of regret for the might-have-been or didn't do and tears of sorrow for the family and friends no longer there to share our lives and loves.  I've laughed at the funny letters, smiled at the joyful pictures and had glorious fun recounting the best embarrassing stories to my kids and grandkids.  Like a time machine, I can go back to my old (young) self and feel the anxiety of big-consequence decisions--some made with excruciating deliberation, some by random chance.

I came across a photo of my first sculpture show in Encampment, Wyoming.  I was unreasonably proud of making it to a "real" show with other "real" artists.  My work was raw--extremely elongated bronze and clay figures. Some were scary.  My booth was even more so--replete with white plastic shelves, beaded curtains and shiny stones.  What did I know anyway?  I am forever grateful to my across-the-aisle neighbor who kindly shared with me his elegant pedestal designs, which I use to this day.  

I remember a trip to Normandy, France, visiting the American Cemetery and being stunned walking among the grave markers to see that every row, rank and echelon pointed directly to me wherever I stood.  They all seemed to radiate--to me.  

I got that same feeling poring over my fragmented history.  Every knowledge, ability, experience, failure, love and pain has found its way into my sculpture today.  And I never saw it that way until now. ​

​I cannot stand still in my sculpture. My mind is constantly in "tinker" mode--what about thatmaterial? thatpose? thatnew idea? What else is possible?  How can I push the boundary just a little further?

My studio reflects this incessant quest for the next interesting thing.  It looks a bit like a laboratory experiment (or ten!) in progress. Boxes of materials from all over the world.  Resins of every imaginable combination. A tool for every occasion.  Dust, fiber, paint.  .  .paper on the floor to catch the over flow.  Piles of sculpture parts that didn't quite come out.  A birds nest of filament spilling out from a printer job run amok.  

Pre-emergent Bird's Nest sculpture

I have a love/antipathy relationship with my 3-D printers, which, at the moment, are behaving like recalcitrant toddlers--spewing parts, fiber, and glass build-plates to the floor as they have the mechanical equivalent of a temper tantrum.  Still, I relish the flexibility of beginning with a rough 3D print and carbon-fiber layup for the finished sculpture.  A new-to-the-world combination that brings incredible new Swoopie sculptures that are strong and light weight at the same time--sculptures you simply can't make with conventional techniques


Most of you normal people would look at the mess and say, now that's a failure!  Instead, I see it as a success in progress.  Every one of my leaps forward has been just as messy, just as confusing, just as perplexing. So I keep tweaking, fiddling, conducting my post-mortems and reloading, because I know that soon.  .  .really soon, I'll create another sculpture ahead of the curve.

Nothing like a looong road trip (2700 miles) to give me the time to reflect on where my art has been, is and will be going next.  You might call it the ten year itch.  

For the first ten or fifteen years of my life as a sculptor, I'd placed about 1000 of my more traditional bronze pieces, mostly dancers, in a variety of settings throughout the world.  And suddenly, I felt the itch to change what I was doing.  Significantly change what I was doing...rapid and purposeful movement away from my then-current body of work.
  
Ten years ago, I started my current body of work which I called "Swoopies" to capture the elegance of the movement and the emotion in the moment.  They've been very well received (thank you patrons!) and I have continued to improve my creation techniques and experimented with new materials as I added a bit more detail--faces, hands, and the like.  

Sitting in my car, somewhere in those 2700 miles, I felt that familiar stirring of creativity...a yen to try something different...perhaps moving to a simpler style....fewer details...contemporary materials...larger pieces...creating sculpture ahead of the curve. 
 
In the Muppet Movie, there's a delightful song featuring Kermit and Fozzie about their road trip--"Movin' Right Along" ...it captures where I am and I thought I'd share it with you.  It goes like this:

"Movin' right along in search of good times and good news
With good friends you can't lose

This could become a habit
Opportunity knocks once let's reach out and grab it
Together we'll nab it

Movin' right along 
Footloose and fancy-free
Getting there is half the fun
Come share it with me"  

I hope you do come along...and share it with me.  There's a lot more to come!
​

"Man, sometimes it takes a long time to sound like yourself." -- Miles Davis

Myself.  Hmm. Not to brag, but I am unique.  You are too.  I occupy my own place, my own time, and have learned my own truth--though I'm still working on that truth part.  Maybe you are doing better on those than I, or maybe time, place and truth contemplation gives you a headache. 
I sculpt (. . .therefore I am) and I insistently seek my personal self-sound, my truth.  Starting out, I tried everyone else's sound--Michelangelo, Rodin, Giacometti. . .because I was just learning the scales.  Might as well try to sound like someone good.

A funny thing about making art.  However good a copier you are--there is a chunk of "you" in your copies.  With more time, more you.  Until you find yourself faced with--you, all you, and you understand what Miles was talking about.

My time. My place. My truth.  My little dot on sculpture's timeline is amazingly complex.  Michelangelo could draw on religious allegories everyone understood while using sculpture materials and techniques everyone knew about.  Same with Rodin. His allegories appeared in Dante's "Inferno" and all the techniques he used had been taught in school for centuries. 

My "time" is complicated.  Yours too.  While my forebears had a rich institutional encyclopedia of agreed-on concepts, views and metaphors, my "time" is both disappointed in, and rebelling against, institutions.  Old ways are being challenged and people are dividing on issues and dividing again and dividing again into splinters which can't even agree on a set of facts to argue over.  Institutions become just part of the argument, not part of the answer.
Technology in my "time" has given me abilities never dreamed of by the ancients.  Form, calculation, execution--all new.  All are waiting to be explored and all are sitting ducks for the next technology and methods to disrupt them. Writing on cave walls was disrupted too, but it took 30,000 years.
​
 As a result, sculptors have changed from "singing to the flock" to "make your own kind of music."  And, while Mama Cass was right about individuality, I have to reject self-centered narcissistic art.  
 My focus remains on my greater posse.  What can I say--without words, mind you--that will resonate with you and our world?  I don't care to preach, just to evoke.  But I consider it my duty as a sculptor to make art of my time, place and truth.  To add my block to the cathedral of understanding, as best I can .

Then I saw it. Anyone dripping paint on canvas had to answer to Jackson Pollock. He was first. Anyone sculpting skinny rough figures had to answer to Alberto Giacometti. He was first. Anyone painting sexy flowers had to answer to Georgia O'Keeffe. She was first, and so on. First matters in Art. The rest is all second-hand.
 
It was then I changed my approach to magazines. I combed them closely to be sure nobody else was doing what I was doing and vice versa.   And man, there is a lot of sculpture out there to comb.  
 
The result of my search for The Art is the unexpected discovery of Me. Now I live in every sculpture.  Unavoidably now, my sculpture has me imprinted on it--everywhere.

Still, I have not done a self-portrait.  But then I am not 90--yet.