Each year about this time, I put together mental lists of what was accomplished over the preceding annum. In some cases it is in the vain hope that I can get one more piece to the foundry; other times, I’m trying to decide what will be sent to next Springs’ art shows in Denver, Los Angeles and Oklahoma City; less exciting is the thought of preparing for the last quarterly tax deposit and closing the books for the accountants. Most years I am pleasantly surprised at the productivity; this year I just wonder where the heck the time went.
In college, one of my professors would end each studio art critique with an indelible marking pen circling weak sections of my latest “masterpiece” and the accompanying words “Well Ok, but next time, bigger, better and faster”. Distance and I hope some maturity clarified this message or at least softened the initial impact. Time has also, changed the target. “Bigger”, not that important; “Better” absolutely, but how better?; “Faster” ah, there is the rub, nothing happens very quickly any more except the speed my kids outgrow clothes.
So with that introduction, what did get done this year?
A Pit Bull “Nobody’s Angel”. (Conceived and completed well before the words “Pit bull, lipstick and hockey mom” were used in the same sentence.) Some revisions and redesign for the Ruffed Grouse Fire screen and early sketches for a Bobwhite Quail screen; a set of bronze place card holders, seven small models in all; ruffed grouse, pheasant, setters, pointers and pair of quail; (an indulgence, too delicate for my old eyes and too expensive to cast, but fun to make); at the other extreme, a huge and complicated wall piece with seven life size ducks descending a stone chimney through sculpted fall foliage. A new bobwhite quail sculpture “Steady to Wing”. Some bas relief sculptures of medallions to be struck this winter to help raise money for the Rolling Plains Quail Research Ranch. A new life size pointer “Inherit the Wind” which is actually the first half of a pair of dogs to be finished next year…… Not a bad list really.
What’s on the “to do” list? Well, first I hope to get the young lab out in the duck marsh before I forget how to use a shot gun and the dog thinks that orange dummies are the only thing she was bred to retrieve. A string of five English pointers on a stake out line is currently on the sculpting stand. I have wanted to do this piece for three years and now its time has come. A piece from the end of a fox hunt, “Counting Them In” is percolating in my head; I don’t know if I know enough to do this piece yet, but the research starts this month., the hounds are so powerful and wild that they will be a nice counterpoint to the delicate bird dogs. An outdoor entrance piece of an American Eagle is somewhere on the schedule and a few more shorebirds to scratch that ever present itch.
Enjoy the Fall and the upcoming Holidays.