Solo Exhibit

Blue helped me deliver artwork and install this exhibit in Spartanburg at the Chapman Cultural Center last week.  The show features work that is either directly or indirectly influenced by my dad.  The reception on 1/17/2013 will include some of his favorite foods prepared by my mom and by Ginger at Delightful Dishes.  All the work is for sale and credit cards are accepted.  I'm told that this is a very different exhibit than what is usually in the guild gallery.  I'm hoping that's a good thing.  Either way, come see the freak show.  It will be worth the trip to see the poster designed and rendered by Blue and to write in my specially selected guest book.  Oh and there will be a continuing slide show on the LCD screen inside the gallery.  That might be interesting too. 

The Chapman Cultural Center is located at 200 East Saint John Street, Spartanburg, SC 29306.  The hours are Mon - Sat 10:00 - 5:00 and Sun 1:00 - 5:00.

 On installation day, Blue was out of school for Christmas break so I had to leave enough room in the truck for him and me.  We were both surrounded by artwork.  Behind us was the trailer loaded down with freshly painted pedestals.

 Blue mostly held the door because his dad is a control freak when it comes to handling the artwork.  I wanted to let him carry things, but I kept seeing him dropping my iPod in the gravel last summer and I just couldn't do it.  He apparently gets bored easy too, so instead of rolling up the blue tape into a ball as I suggested, He straightened out each piece and started making a tape drawing on the floor. 

 And it looked like this when he was finished.  Sadly, this is cooler than the artwork I delivered.  It's not a good feeling to be shown up by your 6 year old son.  I left the tape on the gallery floor for a long time trying to find a way to justify leaving it there for the exhibit.  I couldn't make a good argument for it, so we carefully transferred it to a large sheet of bubble wrap and sort of preserved it.  While we were there he announced to anyone who would listen that he was going to be an artist when he grew up.  And that he was hungry.

After demonstrating his creative thinking, he also demonstrated his powers of deductive reasoning.  He studied my beard and asked why it was growing so fast.  Then he asked if I drank a lot of root beer.  I do, so then he announced that it was the root beer that was to blame for my beard growing.  Logic!

 

But the show looks good.  Almost all the work exhibited was made within the last 12 months and most of it has never been exhibited before.  It's one thing to see a sculpture or a drawing but it's a much different experience to stand in a room filled with drawings and sculptures by the same artist.  I suppose it could be like the difference between reading an isolated chapter or reading an entire book.  Or maybe not like that at all. 

Come see.

my lucky precision tool

This is my lucky hammer. 


Surely we all have our quirks and since I happen to know just how weird some of you are, I won't feel bad about sharing this particular oddity of mine.  I have a lucky hammer. 

As a student, when I turned out a good sculpture I could barely enjoy the compliments because I was already wondering if I would be able to make another one just as good or better.  I always wondered if the good one was a fluke.  I wish I could tell you that this insecurity faded after graduation but it was always the same.  If I made something that people loved, I always wondered if the next one would be a flop. 

I began to observe my creative process and each time I started a new sculpture, I tried my best to follow the patterns noticed during the last successful sculpture.  Not in an obsessive compulsive way, but making sure the welder was set exactly where it was before, trying to use the same clamps and eventually the same hammer. 

This little 4 pound hammer was the one that handled the precise seams and bends on some of my best sculptures.  It's also taken a couple of hearty tosses across the welding shop, but I'm trying to be better about that sort of behavior. 

It's also my favorite hammer and for slightly different reasons.  This little guy was the smallest hammer in my dad's toolbox.  Most of the others were 8 pound hammers.  When you're trying to convince steel to do what you want it to do, the bigger hammer is generally preferred.  But for whatever reason, this was the one I picked up on a particular day and it stuck.  And of course, the fact that it was my dad's hammer is also important. 

I have several hammers of my own.  (See a previous post about how I feel about hammers if you think that's an odd statement.)  But this hammer was one that my dad told me to take with me when I moved my sculpting operations out of his welding shop and into my basement.  Each time I grab this one to swing at something I get a pleasant memory of home and of my dad.

Pop called hammers "precision tools".  This was his comedic nod to the barbaric nature of such a tool.  Yet as strange as that sounds, when you need a 200 pound piece of steel to move 1/16 of an inch, the hammer is one of the few things that can provide that gentle and precise nudge. 

steel tree

The latest addition to the Plantation...

A polished steel tree.  Blue and I planted it last week and it was immediately 10 feet tall and 7 feet wide.  We do not expect it to grow. 

There are deer tracks leading up to the trunk.  I'd love to know what went through the deer's mind when that encounter took place. 

mcabee's minions

I've had some great students this semester.  Talent, personality, sarcasm....they've got it all.  Starting with Sculpture I:

 

 First day of class.  Before they were sculptors.

 

 

 Last day of class.  After they mastered power tools and welding.

 

 

 It's a big class and since their facial expressions are funny and potentially embarrassing, let's zoom in.  Above:  Sean, Danielle, Whitney, Megan C and Megan T

 

 

 KJ and Fred flashing the "work, work, work" signal, Bennell, Anne, Ashanta and Brandy (Cessquatch) bending steel

 

 

 Abby with the stick, Katie (Katertot) reclining, Emily, Lydia striking Emily with a steel rod, and Ashley behind the flame mask

 

 

 Shawdrea (Shawny) attacking Kelsey with a grinder

 

 

 Then the other Sculpture I class posing

 

 

 Taylor spraying Margie who along with Leigh Ann is hitting EllenBess over the head

 

 

 Corey (who is not in the class but refused to get out of the photo), Jaaziah, Nich, Bethany with the sculpture pot on her head, Mia trying to clamp Bethany's head and that student whose name I can't remember (Erin) showing off a piece of steel

 

 

 Then there's the Advanced Sculpture and Master of Arts in Teaching group posing with Sam's sculpture.  Clockwise starting with the girl choking the guy:  AnnieBob choking Corey, Adri, Paul, Winston (or at least his eyes and hat), Patro, Scofield, Samantha and Other Paul (not in the photo)

 

 

Speaking of Samantha's sculpture, it's pretty cool, huh?



i love a hammer

This is what happens when you are late for my class.

I'm kidding of course. 

Some days are better than others.  Last Thursday was a perfectly good day.  It was the last day of Tue/Thu classes and my students were scrambling to put the finishing touches on their projects.  That's a joke too....the truth is many of them were just starting to work on their final project.  As I was gleefully encouraging each one to work, work, work, I noticed a couple of students headed toward the door.  I told them that sculptors did not need to take breaks and asked where they were going.  They said they were going to smash a car with a hammer.  I instantly fell in behind them knowing that my day was probably about to get even better.

The student affairs people had arranged for a car to be donated for a stress relief project.  Students were encouraged to de-stress by taking turns pounding on the car with a sledge hammer.  I watched as large framed guys pecked at the fenders with the heavy hammer and small, stress filled ladies struggled to swing the hammer hard enough to hit the car.  I know I'm supposed to be more professional, but the 12 year old boy in me came out and I jumped at the chance to take a shot at the car.

I'm lucky enough to have my own sledge hammer and to have about 30 years of experience using one.  I love to smash things with it.  This may even be an understatement. 

One of my students was kind enough to take a series of photos with my phone.  If you look carefully you can see the roof of the car sink through the series.  On swing number four I tore through the sheet metal and make a 6 inch hole in the roof.  It felt amazing.

 

Thursday was a very good day.

the parade

 I love dealing with ideas of duality in my artwork.  Pairing up ideas and characteristics that are not normally associated with one another is fun for me.  When we moved to Laurens I had no idea that this was a town of dualities.  The "historic" public square that seems to be falling in on itself in some areas is fully equipped as a video surveillanced, wi-fi hot spot.  I noted this while sitting in the square waiting for the Christmas parade to begin last Saturday.

 There's always such a wide spectrum of people types at these events, the people watching parade started long before the decorated floats arrived.  G and I herded the kids and tried to keep them on the curb as the real parade began. 

 The kids share my lack of tolerance for noise.  Sirens, fireworks, loud music force their reflexes to push their hands up around their ears.  This is especially funny when someone is singing.

 This posed a bit of a problem for them when the candy starting raining down from the floats.  I was under the impression that people didn't throw candy in parades any longer.  I haven't been to any in years and I guess I assumed we had become more civilized.  I was wrong.  My kids became Philistines when the candy started falling.  They'd race out a few feet to pick up the tiny gifts not caring if it was even candy they liked.  I didn't see them step on other kids in the process but it would not have surprised me at all. 

 By the time Santa arrived they had candy stuffed in all their pockets, in my pockets and still had their hands so full they had trouble waving at Mr. Claus. 

So the Christmas season is here and boy are the kids excited.  The tree is up, the tattle-tale elf arrived and my to-do list is eight pages long.  Bring on the sweets.