Some Early Beach Sculptures Wiped out by Storms

This week has brought some bad news for the Stonewave. The owner of the property has finally made an appearance...metaphorically, (it was actually a phone call). I had hoped that no such creature existed, be he has demanded the destruction of the Wave. I'll deal with that bad news in a later post. I do want to thank all of the people who have stopped by and lent their support, not just this week, but all along. It has been a great help in dealing with the disappointment that the project will remain unfinished. But as I said, I'll deal with all of this in a later post. For now I want to share some pictures courtesy of the Rossetti's. My records of earlier attempts are not available for posting at this time, but he made me a disc with some of his pics that turned out pretty well and so thanks and with no further ado....

The first pic is of one of the first attempts...short-lived, humble, but it gave birth to more ambitious plans.

The second is a shot of the first really big piece. This one actually made it through the winter before falling in a spring storm.

This one is the third of the tower structures and by far the biggest. I had to make a staircase in order to work on the upper portions. The next photo shows things a little further along just before it got wiped out. I kind of liked this one.

The last picture is the Stonewave from last Fall...a nice touch of color in the foreground courtesy of some sumacs. Bravo nature!

The demolition of the Stonewave has begun and I'll try to post it sometime soon.

The First Big Stone Harvest

Fourth of July weekend brought about the first good days for stone harvesting. Each day during the four day weekend the lake grew clearer and more calm. I could see the bottom even in chest deep water. Occasionally there are even clearer days, but this was the first in a long time so I spent a lot of time hauling rocks. The bottom pictures show the Wave with the season's first crop lying about. This was the beginning of the first real progress made on the project this summer. The next three pictures show the July 4 harvest. A lot of big stones and a lot of good stones, so much progress was made. There were also a lot of visitors who stopped by to chat which is always interesting.

I have been working on the second wave...the rear portion of the sculpture. It is now about as tall as the front wave. Since the July 4 weekend I've been able to get in here and there, so the stone supply is still sufficient. Things continue to take shape but my hands are getting beaten up pretty good, so a day or two off won't hurt things.

The Stone Flower from a couple of posts back has survived now for about a month. I add to it occasionally and I think some other people do as well.

I bought a new digital camera and shot the first pictures of the Stonewave with it today, so from this point on the pictures should be a little better than the pictures from the point and shoot camera that I had been using since my 35 mm was stolen. I just need to figure out how to download them...

Three Stone Circles Sketches

Waiting impatiently for the water to clear, the rain to stop, the lake to calm down and the temps to get warmer...or any combination of these factors to occur in order to get into the lake and find some stone. Good days have been few and far between, but this weekend I did manage to get some work done on the Stonewave. I'll shoot some photos tonight of the progress. In the mean time I have been playing around with circles.

The bottom circle was the first from a couple of weeks ago, but it didn't last long as somebody took the sticks and burned them. Must have produced quite the conflagration as the sticks were about 8 inches long and there were about forty of them. But if it kept those poor idiots warm for 2.3 seconds on that blustery 70 degree night then I am thankful that my little sculpture could be of service. The middle image was the next phase. I used the colored stones from the previous piece and added some to make the ring bigger, went out and found some new sticks and tried again. This one lasted about a day before the sticks were burned again. This time in situ! To add insult to injury two hand rails were pried off of the staircase to the beach and burned along with my little wheel of sticks and a liquor bottle was broken in the fire as well...glass bottles apparantly were a last resort for these poor unfortunates as they braved the elements.

The sculpture in the top image has lasted about 10 days so far without major harm from nature or human interference and I've added a stone "flower" this week...the surf has been kind. I have a few more circle ideas still rattling around in my head so you'll just have to be patient. Much painting is being done as well on the 100Views project so I'm enjoying my momentum.

Just finished Picasso's biography (vol. 3). If nothing else, it makes me want to work harder. I found a number of his beach images to be not so interesting and the sculptures from this period in his life don't do much for me, but you have to be impressed by the facility with which he draws from the ideas of others and takes off. By the way the biography is about as in depth as you could want one to be, perhaps too much so, going into such detail as to where he got his socks laundered on July 5th.