Posted by panch from pool0678.cvx24-bradley.dialup.earthlink.net (209.179.212.168) on Thursday, June 20, 2002 at 10:03PM :
Finally started today...at the foundry in Monterey. Jessie is making the armature. We got some I beams and scraps, he cut them and welded together a big "X" that sits on the concrete floor. Where the two legs cross he welded an upright I beam about six feet tall and on top of that a horizontal beam about ten feet long that will act as the "spinal column" of the Lamasu. Rebar will be welded for the legs and another vertical section at the front that will be the backbone of the man figure's chest.
It's pretty high off the ground for that much weight...about 1500 pounds of plaster and clay...which also has to support the mold when I'm done. The wings are going to be heavy too, but I'll wait till I have the body roughed out. The wings will have to be anchored from the ceiling with chains for support...and they have to be removable when finished so we can turn them over when making the mold of them.
I'll have to build a kind of a walkway scafolding around the piece so I can get up high enough to look the piece in the eye...about four feet off the ground.
The sucker will be huge. We should finish the metal work tomorrow. After that I'll mix plaster and dip large sections of burlap into it and drape them over the metal frame...a sort of sub-skin so I wont need so much clay. After that's done, I shellac the whole thing to seal it, and start throwing clay slabs over the whole thing...then I begin to model the sculpture.
Then I get lip from a lot of Assyrians who will tell me they'll be damned if they will support "me"...who say they don't "like me"...who, like Wilfred, will call me "scum" and promise to derail the whole thing... tell people not to trust me...that I need counselling, that my family calls me a crook, that I'll turn on them one day...that I'll destroy the Lamasu in a fit of pique, as I did the Hammurabi...that it's all my fault, that I like nothing more than to begin projects then stop them and ruin them and make myself broke and have people distrust me so I can have an easier time on the next sculpture I want to ruin.
Can no one see beyond the tribal?..beyond, "I like you".....or "I don't like you"? Do other people insist on "liking" the actors or writers or painters or poets or dancers the world is willing to give an audience to? This is Gratness?
-- panch
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