- First schedule break since the idea of doing a book first showed up in January–book, taxes, then Sanford Pottery Festival. Showing opportunities in June that need more finished work than I have on hand, but they’re more flexible and don’t have hard cash booth fee outlays. Working on commissions–a mailbox bear for an 8″ post, a standing bear in trade for the logs that have become the Celtic obelisks, a bunny. Nieces’ birthdays coming up and they may all get mushroom stools. Lots of carving-for-fun ideas stacked up; I want to try a chain and caught myself in time. Start with a 3′ log and a 3- or 4-link chain before I try one of the big logs in the far backyard that will make a 12-link chain.
- Started ripping another obelisk; will probably do this one in colors. At the SPF04, some people said Forever Flowerbox was “too bright.” I think it’s pretty muted, especially considering my other work. So it will be a useful test to see whether a colored obelisk outsells a plain burned-and-sealed one. Rip went off in a direction of its own when the guiding 2×4 twisted so the offcut is quite a bit bigger than I’d planned; big enough for a Tree of Life. Look for an example in George Bain’s Celtic Art.
- Started proofing the Carve Smart pdf, aiming at 10 pages a day. Already found one glaring error (witch for which?!?) so there will be more. The publisher says most people take two weeks to proof the book; I’m hoping to spread the reading out so that I don’t have to abandon carving when the book does come back for review. Plus, I can only pay attention to a limited number of pages a day, and I need to be reading it as closely as possible this time. Wonder what else slipped past two editors?
- The garden finally got long-overdue attention this week. If we ever do have another local Tour de Moncure in early May, the garden will be fabulous. Iris, peonies, baptisia. Not quite as flashy as it looks in June or March, with 2000+ daffodils, but clearly a garden.
- Plan on spending the rest of church-time updating the rest of this site. Little of the most recent work is on here; I’m looking into getting a booth at some of the Celtic festivals this summer and you wouldn’t know I’ve ever carved anything but penguins if you look here. Need to do a website for the book, too–I have the domain and the host but not the HTML, except for what’s already posted here. Trying to spread out the desk work because I can’t stand to be inside during daylight this time of year, and I don’t seem to be very good at computer work after I’ve been outside most of the day. Church time is useful, if I will take advantage of it. (As mentioned elsewhere–one of the churches is black Baptist; that means “quiet time” till at least 1:30 on a Sunday.)
- Artistic process question du jour: planning vs. spontaneity, impulse vs. strategy. How is it that I can pull off a book, get my taxes done on time, and show up at the SPF04 with a booth full of work, and yet when I sit down with a May calendar and try to determine when I can do some of the current projects on my list, my mind goes blank? And they will probably get done, too–in the back of my mind, I know what I want to be different by the 4th annual Penguin Party; I know how much work I need for the September shows and then the Studio Tour in December. But it won’t go on a calendar.
- But then: I found this fragment from Wordsworth’s Prelude in a book last night:
- The Guides, the Wardens of our faculties, and Stewards of our labour, watchful men
- And skilful in the usury of time,
- Sages, who in their prescience would controul
- All accidents, and to the very road
- Which they have fashion’d would define us down
- Like engines.
- 1. Sounds like the project management subject matter experts in a CMM-I audit. (Day-job joke. Carving Kekule’s Dream was equally obscure in Sanford, but people got the joke in Durham. Wonder if anyone reading this will see the connection?)
- 2. Wonder if I’d be more able to schedule my artistic production if I didn’t do scheduling and project management for my day-job?
- Stay tuned.
