well… i officially had my first fainting experience in
the studio with steve!
thank god i finally got that over with. those of you who know me well, know i pass out at the sight….
even at the thought… of blood.
yes, it’s pathetic.
yes, i am an embarrassment to my family and loved ones,
and to doctors everywhere.
yes, i even understand it’s all mental.
but no, i cannot change.
i was sure this was bound to happen eventually, and
knowing steve, i knew i’d get no sympathy… so i was dreading the inevitable
moment when one of us would get hurt, i’d immediately pass out, and he’d be
utterly disgusted with me.
tuesday morning i was working on fabricating a short
steel pyramid to cap our new piece.
steve was working in the back of the studio, and we were
mid-conversation (i can’t remember for the life of me what he was talking
about, but i was listening). i
strolled over to the pile of sheet metal, grabbed two sharp-cut 4 x 1 ft
pieces, and held them up in front of me just below eye level, staring down
along them, trying to gauge their relative thicknesses (they ended up both
being 1/8”). somehow, one slipped
through my work glove, and guillotined straight down on my left foot, mostly on
my big toe. i let out a loud
shriek, and the first two thoughts immediately in my head were:
1)
did i just chop off my toe??
2)
i think i just chopped off my toe.
then i panicked that steve would panic. but amidst all the noise he was making,
i could tell he somehow hadn’t noticed.
as i waited for that initial delirium of pain to stop, so i could actually
think what to do, my next two thoughts were:
1)
this initial delirium of pain will stop, right?
2)
did i just chop off my toe?
finally, i cut steve off (he was still talking), calmly
saying, “i think i just really hurt my toe…” he walked over as i nervously unlaced my shoe (thank the
lord i wasn’t wearing flip-flops, as we’d been doing clear through october),
and pulled off my sock…. to see… my toe!
attached! and a gurgle of
blood starting to seep out the top right behind my nail. i didn’t want to make a big deal in
front of steve, so i decided to get it out of sight ASAP. i put my sock right back on as it bled,
laced up my shoe, looked up at steve, and we both laughed. “i’m an idiot,” i said.
from that moment on i don’t remember any more of the
conversation, as i followed him, half-limping (my foot was still numb and not
hurting yet) into the machine shop and back. just then ruth came out to say goodbye (she was heading into
town), and steve made a joke about her bringing back crutches for me. i think i half-laughed, as i started to
feel pins and needles and hot flashes in my head at the same time. i knew what was coming, and pulled over
a stool to sit down. steve and
ruth didn’t notice. pleeeeease
don’t faint. pleeease. i tried deep breaths. my vision was going spotty. finally ruth left, and i said, “yeah, i’m really not feeling so
good,” and steve looked at me, ”jesus!
you’re white. lie down on
the ground.” i was half stubborn
and tried to maintain calm on the chair… until steve insisted “no i’m not
kidding, get your head down on the ground level, you really have no color in
your face.” so i laid on my back
in the middle of the studio, instructed steve to go work, and tried to maintain
consciousness (i think i did) for the next 15 minutes. i tried getting up once, went white
again and almost lost my feet, and laid back down. steve was chuckling to himself and trying not to
comment. “well, you were really
calm about it, i would have been cursing up a storm!!” i could tell he was just trying to make
me feel better.
anyway…. needless to say, i finished fabricating the
steel piece (it took me all day tuesday), and by wednesday night, and again
thursday morning, we decided it didn’t work as well in steel, and i remade the
whole thing in stainless. but
we’ve saved the (deadly) steel version, and already have a potential plan for a
new piece to use it in.
just another example of how this process is always a
constantly changing course. with
this piece specifically, we have maintained a really cool combination of
strategizing and letting go, giving control over to the materials. in fact, steve thinks it might
just be a piece where we’ve achieved a pretty near perfect balance of CAT (concept, art, technique). this has been able to happen, in part, because
the piece will be a donation – there are no requirements, no hopes to fill, only
room to evolve. we’re going to
donate it to an awesome environmental non-profit called the wildlands conservancy, which steve is a huge
supporter of. it will be auctioned
off during a large-scale art event at their whitewater canyon preserve in
march.
we want it to sell, of course, to be appealing to a large
audience. so we didn’t just play
around until something cool came out (which easily could have worked), but
instead decided on a few hallmark
components that we really wanted to include.
one was the notion of “stainless steel driftwood”,
composite pieces constructed of processed scraps that interlock and flow into
each other (you saw this with the raven and rising sun kinetic). i have become quite
enamored with this. there are a
lot of directions to take it (and we have some newer ones already on the front
burner!), but i freaking LOVE the concept of taking scraps, re-processing them,
then using them like paint on a canvas, in structured and non-structured ways
to create lines, movement, natural repetitions and rhythyms.
another component we wanted to include in the piece,
which steve refers to as an “endless screen” (ES), is something he has played
around with a lot before. essentially it looks like a chain-link
cage made out of steel rods that are welded together. for this piece, we liked the concept of having the ES
wrap around some precariously-balanced stones, on which sat the stainless
driftwood bird form. we used three
rectangular pavers, and covered them in weathered copper (we spent a few days
alone just strategizing the wrapping).
the ES, in this case, serves a visual/artistic role (makes the viewer
curious as to how the stones got inside the cage, and how the stones, balanced
as they are, can support any weight), as well as a technical purpose (the
welded steel screen forms the strength of the entire piece), and most fun... a conceptual role (the screen grows from the base of the piece
and as it climbs and wraps upwards, turns into human forms, climbers actually, weaving
and wrapping their arms and legs around).
creating the steel structure has involved a lot of wire
welding (MIG welding). this is far
less enjoyable than TIG welding, (mostly because it’s messy, and i’m a
scientist), but fascinating in its own way. and steve and i got to work together on the design of the
screen, which was a ton of fun. we
knew we wanted to make human forms, and we knew we wanted the screen to transition slowly and subtly into human
forms, but chosing the right design and materials took us a few days of
experimenting. i spent a few hours
making bits of steel rod into different thicknesses, lengths, and with various
kinks to create our material pool.
and then came the fun part.
steve and i sat on the table, literally like kids with a toy set, and
assembled these climbers into various positions, as we held heads and arms and
arm-bodies for each other, passing the MIG welder back and forth between
us. we were oooo-ing and aaaah-ing
and laughing at the michelen-man-like fat arms or fat-shins that would suddenly
emerge depending on choice of segment.
and looking at it more and more, we have both gotten
such a kick out of the expression in the movement of the climbers as they wrap
and fling themselves upwards on the piece. we are both most excited about how different people
will react to it, and any dialogue that wil be created in the variety of
interpretations. so far it’s just
been he and ruth and i chatting about it.
but we are going to put the piece up in JTAG (joshua tree art gallery) asap to see how people
are responding. we have some sort of vision
for what the piece represents, but i almost hesitate to share it. in one way, the climbers
represent humanity, emerging from “the mud and the muck” (as steve loves to
say), and climbing up, maybe in desperation, maybe in blinding competitiveness,
maybe at times in a beautiful web, through eras of time, ever grasping after
nature, creation, perfection. and
nature? it’s saying, “i’m getting
the heck outta here”….
or maybe not.
any other thoughts??
..........
and after a week of letting the artwork fuel my climbing
itch, i got to snag two days in a row this weekend out on the rocks! major winner!! saturday i went out with john (yes, famous HAMBAM john) and my friend matt, and we did some classic
crack routes in the park. by
classic crack routes, i mean that there was an equal number of curse words emitted
from my mouth as there were scrapes on the back of my hands, wrists and
knuckles.
sunday ended up being perhaps my favorite day of
climbing yet. i got a call from
todd last minute, and pulled myself out of bed after 4 hours of sleep (and the
most wild night at pappys – we had raging crowds with blitzen trapper playing,
AND i got to wait on both helen mirren and the entire queens of the stone age
band). i met todd early and we
went out with a few of his good friends, hitting an area in the north part of
the park, where we saw no one else the whole time. it was about a 2.5 mile approach in, and we got to do a
bunch of new routes, finishing off with a two-pitch route where we had 360
degree views all across the park and back to 29 palms. best high ever.
(some of the climbing photos courtesy of todd)
and in other exciting news on the homefront, we’ve had such
a beautiful week that the snakes came back out!
all the talk of rattlesnakes out here, and i have yet to
see one (although when i first got here, we were seeing tracks every morning in
the canyon sand along our morning walk).
a few days ago we saw a big 4 foot long red racer snake, slowly gliding
across the sandy driveway, basking in the unseasonal november sun. unfortunately, they are not poisonous,
and thus the excitement factor dropped rapidly… but it is pretty damn incredible
to watch one of those animals move.
he was out multiple days in a row, leaving trails that were somewhat intimidating
to us, but were pushing his luck with the predators, and eventually one of the
cats (stripey) got a good bite of his tail. we helped him escape, and haven’t seen him since.
been falling asleep to the hint of woodsmoke in my cabin
all week and savoring every….. every, bit of time. the things i’m
thankful for defy articulation, but i thought i’d send you all off with a
couple more photos. steve and ruth have
two good friends (harlan & fraulke) who recently had us over to their house
for dinner. they live outside LA,
but have a little haven of a spot up here, which they are fixing up &
decorating (including 2 of steve's kinetics). one of the major
things i’ve loved about being here is seeing different people’s houses, and
they ways they’ve integrated their ideals, their visions, into the design. in the high-desert, as far as homes go,
the most valuable thing you can have is a lot of rocks. rock piles. the more, the better.
the national park itself some may consider to be merely a sh*tload of
rock piles. but… when you are
physically amidst them, it really sinks in. the enchanted wonderland quality of the formations, their
simplicity, and the way they catch the light, is something truly magical.
hope you all have a wonderful and love-filled holiday…
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