crane action

Earlier this week we fired up the crane and attached the top piece of my sculpture. A very exciting event, indeed.

a special thanks to John Hock (artistic director), Bobby Zokaites (park manager), and Tom Streit (fellow intern) for all of their gracious assistance

and the journey continues... only 2 weeks left!

coming along

Piece by piece, it's coming together. Last week I met a nice man named George who kindly snapped these photos of me working. He stopped by the park on his way up into Canada. A 10 day trip of motorcycling around Lake Superior... check out his quality travel blog HERE for photos.
Now that I've got the basic structure built, my time is spent cutting cutting cutting and welding away.

Working outside has its ups and downs. It gets pretty darn hot out here during the day time. And the nighttime mosquitoes are mildly carnivorous. Rain pours down in unexpected sheets, causing a panicked shuffle to get the high-voltage tools into the barn. But I'll tell you... the landscaped. My God, the landscape makes it all worth it. I can't help but feel more and more that my piece is becoming a part of the landscape. The backdrop of cornfields and cartoon clouds... this is something entirely new to me... and I love it.

Franconia Sculpture Park

It's been a month. And I still kind of don't even know what to say. I hesitate to try to define my experience out here with words, with the fear that it might cheapen it. Life on the park is rich. Our days are full. Work is hard. But it feels good. In such a short amount of time I've become not only a weed-whacking monster, but a grass-planting manic, a thistle-pulling beast, AND a ladder-climbing acrobat painter. 7 days a week we interns work for the park. We spend the morning doing various tasks, such as those mentioned above, and have the afternoons to work on our own sculptures. My piece is coming along. I arrived with plans and models for 2 ideas, and ditched them 2 days in. I'm much more happy with what I've conjured up.

I spent the first few days constructing this scale model. Though I was committed to the form, I was all over the place as far as materials go. I finally decided just to go with steel. Lots and lots of steel. And I plan to make so that it can be disassembled and moved to another location if the opportunity arises. Once my 1000 linear feet of #3 rebar arrived, I got to bending in no time. I prefer to bend the rod without the use of tools. I feel that by using my body I am able to get the material to do what I want it to do. It's a very physical/spiritual process... not easy to explain.

Roughly 2 weeks into my stay, my professor Jarod and his wife Jennifer stopped by to say hello. It just so happened that they were in town for a wedding, and though they both went to school out here (the University of Minnesota) they had yet to experience Franconia Sculpture Park's new location. It was really great to see them... to show them around the park, to show them what I'm working on. Very cool. Everything about this SURF project seems to be working out just right.

More in-progress photos to come!