05 April

The Big Carrot in the Sky





Mother Nature dumped another Spring snowstorm on us. The garden art trellis’ I have been working on are getting a good patina right now “weathering” in the front garden area! With all the snow in the forecast I switched to finishing a Mountain wall sculpture commission and am giving garden art a break for now. Here is some of the process on how the mountain sculptures went together. I made two to take the pressure off of the commission piece, giving one to the

Gallery and one to the client. First, I draw out my designs on 4x8 sheets of black iron,

then, free-hand plasma cut out the desired shapes. After the plasma cutting I have a two part sanding and grinding process to achieve a nice finish that reflects the light nicely. After I weld the components together on a frame for support and dimension, I gave the trees a quick heat treatment with the torch to create a gunmetal blue color that I like. After the metal cools, I spray the back with a Hammerite enamel dark gray and the front with a clear coat enamel finish.


xOx
12 years ago someone irresponsibly dumped their pet baby rabbit in our garden. We’d already had a couple of frosts and with winter approaching, the kids and I were cleaning out the last of the cabbages. Willie shouted “look out Gus, there’s something under this cabbage!” After I scolded him for teasing his little brother, we saw a small, shivering and frightened, baby black bunny under some wilted leafs. Living near downtown and on a busy boulevard, the chances of his survival were not good. “Can we keep it, can we keep it?!” shouted all three kids, and the rest is history. Sadly, Bunny Foo-Foo hopped to the “big carrot in the sky” today. He lived a long and free-ranging life in my studio, listening to good music and getting plenty of apples and fresh carrots each day. He was 12-13 years old, which is considered a long life for a domestic bunny. The kids named him Bunny Foo-Foo but Daddy-O always affectionately called him “Lucky.”
"Bunny Foo-Foo" a.k.a "Lucky" 1998(?) -2011

6 comments:

cookingwithgas said...

and lucky he was.
That is really old age for a lucky rabbit!
Thanks for sharing your latest!
XO

Judy Shreve said...

Spring snows make me the craziest! Screaming out the window doesn't stop it either - lol

Love seeing some of your process in making a sculpture.

And yes - Lucky bunny - no wonder he lived so long -- good music, good art and lots of good food! :)

Tracey Broome said...

I WANT a studio bunny! Was he potty trained? I think with the weather you are getting it makes mental sense to do mountain sculptures instead of garden art:) beautiful piece.

cindy shake said...

Thanks all. YES, domestic bunny's will litter box train themselves. I used corn-cobb husks (K-cobb) bedding for his Rubbermaid shallow tub. Kitty litter is bad for them because they may ingest it. He'd been really good using his "bunny bucket" until the last few months because he kind of lost his "hops!" A surprisingly good pet to have. He did have a penchant for electrical cables, phone lines and numerous (and expensive) ethernet cables -until he trained us to keep those up and out of the way!

He also would thump his hind leg like a wind-up toy before an earthquake or whenever anybody new was in the house!

Anonymous said...

Bunny Foo-Foo was ancient, I'm thinking he had an awesome lucky life.

I sent that snow back your way;)

Christine B. said...

Storm, indeed! The wind ripped several ten foot pieces of siding off the front of my house. I'm not complaining, at least the power is back on and my roof is intact...so far.

We have one wild bunny that hangs out in our yard. My kids would love to track him down but he's too wily.

Christine in Anchorage