Time has puddled, stagnated even during this Pandemic. Has it felt that way to you? Maybe that’s why it feels like I’ve been working on my latest series, “Shaman Ladders” forever. Two years ago I started the maquettes in wood, then I worked them up to a larger scale. Finally, when satisfied with the scale and form in wood, I drove them over to the Mystic River Foundry to be cast in aluminum. There they were at the mercy of foundry time, which has its own slow process dictated by other jobs ahead of me. Because the sculptures can’t be cast in one piece they looked like puzzle pieces when I brought them back to the studio. Then I had to figure out the puzzle, reassemble and weld it all together. I’m on the home stretch now, adding the patina, which is the color process for the metal.
This all makes me think that my creative timeline is getting comparable to elephants, it takes almost two years for a baby elephant to mature in the womb and drop out into the world. At least my process has speeded up to only two years, my last series “Forest Dialogue” took four years to be made. So I’m eager to say “enough”, and get these out into the world and their debut is coming. Shaman Ladders will be part of my solo show at the Lyman Allyn Museum, “Forest Dreaming”. The show will be up from June through October, it will also have other interesting programming around it. More on that soon
