Cat House Construction
This afternoon saw the beginning of a cat house of sorts. It has a hanging basket, a turret, a lookout post; we'll see what tomorrow adds. The clamps are holding the carpeted hanging basket while the glue dries overnight.
This afternoon saw the beginning of a cat house of sorts. It has a hanging basket, a turret, a lookout post; we'll see what tomorrow adds. The clamps are holding the carpeted hanging basket while the glue dries overnight.
E & I wound up at our local salvage shop, George's Alternative Uses Architectural Salvage, and George knew exactly what we were looking for and all the functional issues of returning the door to its original look. The doors are original to the house, and had 70 years of paint to prove it. I spent yesterday sanding through driplines of 6 colors (blue, olive green, apple green, mist green, pink, white), but mostly flattening out the roller texture of the last layer of white and adding bondo to rebuild corners and dings. A primer coat of Kilz and a coat of white enamel and I was out of paint. It still could use one more coat of enamel. This was the door to the bath picured in the previous post that was gross-out-yellow.
The glass handles came slathered in layers of paint, with the brass fittings painted and tarnished and stained. The door plates were also painted, and entirely blackened with age. I spent the last 4 hours getting the handles clean and shiney, then cleaning off the paint on the plates, buffing them back with scotch-brite pads, then 00 guage steel wool.
The goofy handycap accessible universal design doorhandles they replace have a 2" bore straight through the door, the vintage handles only needed an inch at most. So that was a structural issue to fix, but that is where a shop full of tools comes in handy- the longest setback was driving back to Home Depot for matching aged brass screws.
E made rhubarb home-made syrup & rhubarb waffles for breakfast, and a gourmet lasagne for dinner- so it was a good Hobbit day for fiddling with old treasures.
There were two sets of doorknobs, the other set was fused together (maybe they cut the door apart to get the handles off?) and I let it sit with w-D40 overnight. No difference. So I took it out into the shop and started fiddling around. The trick is not shattering the glass or shredding the brass, but applying twisting force. I heated up a side and got a vice-grip plier on the center rod, then put a bolt in the tightening eye for the handle and used that for leverage. The bolt bent but I finally got a micro-turn. I removed the bolt and saw that any more force in that manner would balloon out the soft brass sidewall. I re-threaded the hole, and the set-screw had just enough left to grab on- so I hadn't ruined it! The wrench had slipped and bit into the brass- dang. So I went for a small pipe wrench, and with some monkey-strength the knob slowly let go and spun off. I cleaned out the knob and it spun back on and off easily. The othe side was still fused in place, so I tried the same thing. No budge. So I tried some monkey-strength, and things started to spin, then the steel shaft sheared off inside the handle. The spin had been the steel shaft twisting. I killed it. That is a stubborn old handle that would rather just die than ever work again.
The semester ended last week, leaving me no excuses with continuing my repainting of the house. The before pictures show the effects of only 4 years of smokers living in the house- they had painted it all white, over the previous Yikes-Green. Over Xmas I refinished the dining area (which just had a hole punched in the wall by an Elizabeth-boobie-trapped sculpture that drew a long scrape down my arm and crushed my foot: feels kinda broken...it was the last thing to move back into the living room, of course).
On Sunday I got things started by takining down the curtains, pulling off all the socket covers, and moving everyting out of the room. Then I spent the day plastering 70-year old house issues, and caulking every seam of every window, the floorboards, and the fireplace. The caulk was a special firm variety that holds and doesn't bulge or run, but was nearly impossible to squeeze out of the caulk-gun, that or married life has really ruined my hand strength.E spent a lot of the day washing down the walls, again. an 8 hour day.
Monday I blue-taped around all the floorboards, then taped down drop cloths. Then taped off the lights and everything else. Then it was time for paint job #1, covering ceiling and walls with at least one coat of Kilz to knock back and seal in the cigarette sallowness. Some areas took 4 coats of Kilz. a ten hour day.
Tuesday I painted the ceiling a flat off-white with a blue tint, the same as the dining room. A hint of blue in the ceiling gives a nice sense of space overhead. The first step is using a trim brush to define the line of the ceiling/wall, a bit of zen displacement helps the hours of fidgeting this requires- then a rollerbrush on an extension arm. It is good to wear a hat for this part. a 12 hour day.
Wednesday began giving all the trim, floorboards, windows, and fireplace two coats of white enamel. Then it was back up on the footstool for more zen trim brush, defining the line of the wall from the ceiling, the wall from the floorboards, and around all the windows and fireplace. The wall color is a warm toned off-white. In the right light it has a buff sandy quality, but usually reads as white in daylight. a 12 hour day- that's a 40 hour work week. whew!
In one of the later picts you can see a yellow door (it doesn't seem yellow in the before picture). My next project is to remove all the doors and take them out to the shop, sand off years of paint and bondo over dings, then paint them all and rehang them.
This leaves the bedroom and the kitchen and the stairwell to the basement. The downstairs housed the college age daughters, who did not smoke- but that doesn't mean the painting will stop...
The straight figure again, this time a 1/2 life size portrait of my brother-in-law when he was 49 years old. He was quite a challenge, as you can see he is built like an artist's anatomy book. The sculpture was started in Kansas, travelled to Utah with some damage, was fixed and fiddled with, then I pulled a silicon mold in the living room of E & I's small rental place, and finally last year had a bronze rough-cast at the foundry and I chased and welded it out in my studio. I brought him to the foundry with E-Ball for sandblast, patina, and basing as well (things I do at the studio now).
This is the same 1/2 life size portrait as the Sequential Figure. She did not risk destruction in her casting, rather her perfection was assured by ceramic shell. I had the foundry rough-cast her last spring, along with a casting of Peter, and I did the welding & chasing (see prior posts for the process), then had the foundry sandblast, patina (as I did not own a sandblaster at that point) with my help scubbing back the Liver of Sulphur, and base them to rotate on a hidden lazy-susan. I have entered her in a few shows, with no luck: the non-idealized nude figure in Utah or some such...
This new Sequential Figure is finished. She is the best of them all. I tried a few new things, building on my casting process from my MFA show and the Orpheus & Euridice commission. If there was time/$ left in the semester I would cast her and Peter again, pushing the series more.
While I was at it I created new bases for all of my Sequential Figures, and reworked their patinas. I'm considering sandblasting a few down and giving them entirely new patinas to match this one. The new male figure also has a patina and base, but I must make a new arm out of another media to replace his miscast arm.
The Roostuar came in for a photo shoot. He is rather problematic to photograph, as he is nearly 4 feet tall and weighs in at 90 pounds. He is so big that I catch the top/edges/bottom of the grey screen in the frame. He is on a separate turn-table to facilitate spinning him for the camera. He is my favorite so far in the Gallus Sapiens / H5N1 series, I call him Alpha & Omega regarding the obvious chicken/egg, and subtler viral contagion implication.
I thougth Crescent Selene was done awhile back. She sat on the dining room table for a month or so, showing me the places that needed more work. It was amazing how much more stone I needed to remove, and how many refinements needed to be addressed. Now the push & pull between form and abstraction, the dynamic of flexing strength v gravity, and stone v anatomy- all converge more convincingly. It seems she may finally be ready to let me call her done.
I am a professional sculptor. This is the record of the process of creating my public artwork, private work, and personal adventures.
