Uncle!

It’s only February and there’s still more Winter ahead for us Alaskans, but I’m ready for Summer or at least Spring! Happily, the added daylight is starting to finally make a difference each day and after all, what am I complaining about, poor Kristen has been reporting temps of -30 and -40 below up in Fairbanks! A snowstorm blew into town yesterday complete with weather advisory's leaving snowfall anywhere from a mere 4” to over 10” in Girdwood! Yippee for us skiers –if you’re not a

wiener like me and have been waiting for killer snow AND warmer temps. The thermometer says 12 degrees this morning… brrrr!

There’s an octopus

at Katie’s Gallery now –one of my favorite subjects to make. Maybe it’s because I’ve been dreaming about tropical bodies of water, to warm my old bones –mmm, a girl can only dream. It’s a larger seascape sculpture about 6’ long, plasma cut and welded steel with enamel painted finish. I embellished the sculpture with Czech glass beads strung on reclaimed copper wire. Even though these larger sculptures have not been selling as fast, I still like to have a few at the Gallery for sale. I mainly delivered a half dozen smaller metal sculptures

under $165 to Katie’s last week that seem to be selling very well.

My entry “Lead Dog” for the Quilted Raven’s “Mush-On” Quilt Challenge is finished. The deadline is next Friday and I ended up making a whole other entry because the first Dog I looked rabid! I wasn’t happy with his eyes or the finishing stitching I was doing on the first one –arrrgh. I’ll have stiff competition, my friend Ann C. shared her entry with me yesterday –WOW is it cute!! I'll take pictures of the entries and post next week. After forwarding the entry information to the Alaska SAQA (Studio Art Quilt Assoc.) group and they posted the challenge on their Blog. Hopefully, there will be lots of entries, the more the merrier to brighten up this LOVELY & long, cold winter.

Octopus On Ice

It was mixed use mediums of metal and mud this week in the studio. The tip of my middle finger I use for drawing is REALLY sore from all the sgraffito work! Wrapping my tools in athletic tape cushioned my finger which helped, though a bit too late. I think I'm going to get some of those pencil cushions for my tools. I got the Octopus commission cut and welded and now it’s just chillin’ out on the deck! The client wanted a rust patina finish on the sculpture and in the middle of the cold, dry winter it’s a bit more difficult to achieve than in the warmer, wetter, summer months. The client also expressed a great interest in the eye of the Octopus be just right, so I

took care to create it as best as I could. Creating the eye was fun because it’s one of my favorite parts of the sculptures. The client had seen another one of my Octopus sculptures and had wanted hers to be very similar. Fortunately, I had a digital image on file of the piece she had seen to work from.

To speed up the oxidation process of creating a rust patina I clean the steel of any protective grease and oil (the mill ships all the steel with a thin coating of oil so it DOESN’T rust) by using Kaboom bathroom cleaner –I’d NEVER use this stuff on anything in my bathroom because it works that good on my metal!

Kaboom actually acts as a corrosive and a great base to the commercial rust patina I use. I originally bought it at FartMart because it was really cheap, then discovered how well it worked on my metal. The extensive warning label actually warns AGAINST using Kaboom on “frosted glass, brass, aluminum, galvanized metal, natural marble, stone, Mexican Terra Cotta tiles, reglazed surfaces, fabrics and carpet”…not sure what’s left in most bathrooms.

The only ingredients listed are “Contains organic acids and surfactant” which are just perfect for cleaning and prepping Mr. Octopus! To achieve a nice rust finish, I’ll “weather” the Octopus outside for a few days, intermittently spraying a saline solution and fine sanding the details of the sculpture. Eventually the rust will become encapsulated enough allowing me to spray an enamel finish on the back and a clear coat on the front, especially around the eye and the front will get a final, fine finish sanding. I welded a reinforced frame and hanging washers on the back so the client can easily hang indoors or out. Probably on Tuesday or Wednesday I’ll be able to hang picture wire on the back, wrap him up and put him in a large bicycle box shipped from Alaska to Louisiana with love. I'm sure he'll be glad to head for warmer climbs and thaw out a bit!