New Year's Eve Custom

On the New Year's Eve, in some parts of the Driftless Area...

the Indigenous go door to door

asking in Rude Rhyme for cake or money.

When the wench does yelp
God us do help
Who knows what will be
In the year ahead of ye
There may be riches
Or there may be bitches
But what is in the air
Will our eyes dare
To let us breathe
and Let it all be

by S. Donnelly, December 31,2007

who very kindly allowed me to print it here.

Pounded Copper Christmas Present

One of the latest poundings...
Tony's Christmas Present...

Wiro..the Electric Boy in a 3 3/8" square piece of scrap copper...

It's a work in progress...as I don't know enough about working with metal to be able to take this further...

at least not yet.
I'm figuring it out as I go...
I'm taking Wayne Farra's soldering (riveting) class in February, which will definately help with a lot of these other things I've been pounding on.
I want to know about patinas, so I ordered the book Japanese Patinas, by Eitoku Sugimori.

I found it in the Ganoksin archives.
This next year I'm making the studio friendlier to this whole process.
It's too much fun to be fighting with the awkward nature of how it is now.

Rocket...Stars and Saturn.....

the first of more.....

(Stars are 4 1/2", 5", 3 1/2")...........(Saturn is 10" wide)

Rocket size coming...I forgot to measure it...

(one group picture still coming)

the Squirrels

I've never been successful at buying anyone any kind of gift...
so, I made this set to bring to a baby shower...

(actual small painting on canvasof their home)

studio pictures

I posted 9 more pictures of the studio over at
SardineQueen, which seems a better place to house them.

When the studio is made "presentable", it just doesn't work for me.

Sardine Tins #7 and #8

SardineTin#7...front....

back...

SardineTin #8...front...

back...

SardineTin Number 4

SardineTin#4...sardine tin, paint, wireit is sold.

Self-Portraits

During last year's FallArtTour,
I lined these four up in one of my flat file drawers...

Self-Portraits and PokeyMan

liked them too much to break up...and closed the drawer.

Yesterday I brought them into the house...
I'll get them hinged onto something archival,
and I'm willing to bet Tony will frame them.

Perserverance and the WoodBlock Print

It was a couple years ago, right after I attended a Japanese Printmaking "bootcamp"
that Gravity finally got the better of the architecture which carries me about....
rudely interrupting an intense arting wave I was riding.

A year later, a tendon traffic jam forced the Right hand to retire....
not expected to be re-activated until this month...

I won't accept NO arting....
so the Left was drafted..

Early this year I started pushing things...
between the exercises for my back...
and those for my wrist...
I opened my notes,
and began "bootcamp" again...
spending the good part of this year
working on that tricky balance between water, paper, rice paste and color....

I'm floored by what I'm looking at...

color quality that can only be achieved by woodblocks printing watercolor on paper.

There's no way to repair a bad print....
I've tried...

there 's no short-cut to a good print,
except by printing...printing...printing...printing...printing...printing...printing....printing....

OK...I can cut wood....
and yeh, I could get a print from that wood....
but, it was a so-what result....
I wanted more....
I wanted thrill and carbonation I know I get from arting....
I know it's there...it has to be...
or this process could not have lasted all these years.
The first time I got it right...
that first time I knew I was printing well enough...consistantly...
to maybe get a head nod from my instructor of 2 years ago....
..HA!....I was carbonated.
Now...I'm hooked....
this whole process is so intensely addictive....for me...

It's probably the most difficult thing I've ever attempted...

it will be years before I can say I'm good at this.....
but, it's the challenge...
...I love the challenge....

Some FallArtTour visitors might think I've changed directions a bit....
it's only me picking up where I left off two years ago....
when LittleEve was next....

well....
LittleEve needs one more color....
one more printing...
and then I move on to the next one.

Sardine Tin #6

Completed. . .

Sardine Tin #6

Sardine Tin #2

Sardine Tin #2

Sardine Tin #1

It's been sold!

You can see #1, and others in progress.

The Pig

....He's under 5 feet tall at the top of his ear...

His job is to let people know when LocalChoice is open...

and what's "special"...
living in the market when he's not working.

I make odd signs just for me...

My first for someone else was a tabletop salt&pepper sign for

HerbsSpices&More in Arena Wisconsin...

(there's a picture in the emails I'll find and post)
When LocalChoice started to happen in Spring Green...

and I was asked for just a road-side sign.....

(I'll post the original drawings...which will give some idea of what happened.)

It's almost a year now.

I finally got a camera...so now you can see.

He's been named Franklin.

Green Bridge 2007

I finally got this scanned and assembled to show you...

7 x 32 inches on Mulberry paper.

One of my most favorite places to just be....

It will be framed and present at the 2007 FallArtTour.

Sardine Tins #5 and #6....and a Honeybee

This is the what happened to my poundings after meeting up with Kirsten Skiles...

Sardine Tin #5

the first sawed-out Bee....

Sardine Tin #6

Chasing Tools

THE best tools you can buy, are those made by artists who know how to use them.
Latest tools are from Kirsten Skiles, artist/blacksmith:

they were left over from a tool making workshop, which I will take when she does one again.
Kirsten's arting is simply wonderful...
I'll post links to a few pieces...railings, wall pieces....she's good...really good.

Friends told me about her months ago,
but, I ran into her/her arting on my own
with my pounding curiosities.
I met her the first time when I bought the tools....
and I met her husband, Bill Fiorini,
making a powerful duo....
(Bill also raises amazing finches)
I'm really happy to have made their aquaintance...love their energy.

These are the tools I got from Rene Bluhm...gold & silversmith...

go see what he can do with these....
his site loads slow on my 26.6-28Kbps connection...but it's worth the wait.

(12-27-07...here's the latest work in progress with all these tools.)

HoneyBees

latest poundings:

Bee1..1.25 " x 1.32", copper (all poundings so far are works in progress)

Bee2...1.34" x 1.32", copper

Sardines Tins

sardine tin #1

Sardine tin #1, completed and waiting for it's support

SardineTin #1, done...

It's at NoRules Gallery...Spring Green, Wisconsin, 588-7509...$65.00...and has been sold!

sardine tin #2

sardine tin #3

ardine tin #4

...woke up thinking about #4...and gave it one last good pounding to puff it's body out a bit...

now it's done...for a while.

The Religionator....pounded aluminum icon

(I had to see it....)

(3 3/8" tall...the relief is too deep for the scanner, so this is the best look I can give you right now.)

Aluminum Poundings

(chasing tools from Rene Bluhm on Ebay)

QuadruPedal...the event

If you are planning on riding the 35, 55, 86, or God forbid, the 100 mile QuadruPedal Century on May 6th, AND
you want to receive this year's special T-shirt designed by artist Linda Kelen (me)

http://www.absolutearts.com/kelen/ ,

we need to have your electronic or paper registration in our hands by next Wednesday (that's when we place our T-shirt order).

I think it's now too late...but you can give it a try....


To register online: http://www.active.com/event_detail.cfm?event_id=1420256

To register the old fashioned way (print and send) : http://www.ichs.net/quadrupedal2007signup.pdf


Remember that all proceeds go to support the Iowa County Humane Society
Please consider joining us in the cause.

Would you like to help us promote this event? Please consider printing our poster and pinning it up at your work or gym: http://www.dairylanddare.com/dld2007/ICHSposter_ver2.pdf

Ride on,

-Stew

Quadrupedal woodcut--1st, 2nd rubbings

(Found a piece of basswood in the basement...
softer than I would have liked it to be...
but...
well....
no time to be fussy.
You can follow along with these rubbings...)

(April 6th rubbing)