Alex Alvis Art

Insomnia

"sigh" 

Hanging out in a hotel is not all that conducive to sleep for me. 

I am working on a sculpture at Turpin Gallery this week and I woke up with the thought that the horse I'm working on ...the feet are too big.

I started the design of this sculpture in the studio at home based on the form of it I had imagined, the little maquette I had made in clay after the imagining (so I wouldn't forget) and then settled on the size of the feet...using that as one of the units of measurement for the rest of the work.  This required the use of a 4-letter word.

Math.

Yes...the M word...

Yesterday, as I was working on forming the wire armature in our hotel room - before going to the gallery...I got three legs formed (leaving one to demonstrate the starting point in the process) and up to the shoulders and then started thinking about the back of the Subaru Outback we rented....

Specifically the size of the back of the Subaru and about how this sculpture would not fit in there if I kept this thing going at the height at which it was at the moment.  I hadn't attached the head yet and already it was at about 4'.

So I shortened it.  Scrunching the legs shorter by folding that wire around the area where the feet would be.

There.  That was better....
At least so it seemed in wire.  But here's that M word again.  You see...it's 22" horizontally from the horse's behind to his shoulders.  And, that really means - as far as the design goes - imagining things in design curves and golden rectangles as I tend to do (we all do, by the way; the forms that are all around us in nature are design curves in the golden ratio) - that now things are goofed up.

My thought upon waking at 2 was the remembering of looking at the feet of the sculpture before we left the gallery last night.

Too big.

The feet are too big.

What to do?

Well, just make them smaller.

Problem 1.
I don't want to.

Problem 2.
It isn't practical because of the way the armature base is made, where the feet are placed (make them smaller, they're going to be too far away from one another for the design), and...I don't want to.

Problem 3.
How shall I solve this problem?  Hmmmm.

I think I know what I will do.  We have to be able to get it home so it must fit in the car.  So.   

Essentially, the way I must see this is NOT that the feet are too big but that the legs are too short.  I imagine the lower part of the horse's legs ...the part below his knees in front and part of the upper and lower legs on the horses rear legs...will be foreshortened just for now.

I will not sculpt the knees ...as that would make the whole horse look too totally weird while I'm at the gallery...I will just keep them straight.  Yep.

I'll work on the rest of the body and neck and head while at the gallery...then when I'm back home I can add some length to the legs and make the sculpture the true approximately 71.2" high that it really needs to be. 

I will let you ponder the math on that one :)

Problem solved.
Ta Da!

I may be back tomorrow with another dilemma.

P.S.  A sculpture sold yesterday!  Little "Look!" 

But why not?  He is such a cutie! 

I love being present when a sculpture sells because it is so nice to meet my new collectors personally and get to know them a little bit.  I love that!

Tomorrow maybe more progress pics!
'Til then...hope you have a fabulous day.

~Alex