Roots #2 rooting out the best concept

I have very strong views on the connection between agriculture and health. I prefer to only eat organic grass-fed beef. I prefer to not eat any gmo products and I feel best when only eating sprouted grains. I want to know where my food comes from and how it is produced. Agriculture has a huge impact on our personal health as well as on our environment. Roots play a large role in regenerative and sustainable agriculture. 

The first root - The root is fabulous all by it’s self. 

The trunk is not so fabulous. 

Off with the trunk- 

Failure #1- Experimenting with ideas- this idea emphasizes the important of roots in sustaining  life. - too obvious 

Failure #2- Another experiment- “burden”  I grabbed this marble sculpture I did a few years ago. I have always wanted to burden it with something on his back. 

I like the thought, I think it either needs more more more roots or a Sprout coming out of the root.  

The root would be bronze.  

Stay tuned to see how I will use the roots.  

Hurricane Harvey Project - confronted with humanity #9 - “They carried my wheel chair”

The heroes keep coming  

“that wheelchair was so heavy” 

Watercolor monotype  

“They Carrie my wheelchair”  

the ghost print 

Hurricane Harvey Project - confronted with humanity #8 “She would never leave him”

Una mas  

 “She would never leave him”

the ghost 

30” X 22”  

1 wire a kiss, tango, waltz, jitter bug, and the rumba.

Flipping around this broken scrap of pig wire and you get so many gestural images. 

kiss 

tango 

waltz

jitter bug 

rumba 

Cranes- through the window

A year ago, I made two works on paper; “Cranes Through the Window I and II”. The inspiration came when I stopped at a red light. Peering through the fogged and rain drenched car window, drops trickled down into tiny rivers, carving new landscapes in the glass. Beyond the miniature rivulets, dark and dusky clouds loomed in the shadows while others stood out in rays of hope. Through the puffs of gray, rooftops were stacked, and construction cranes delicately cross stitched in saffron and goldenrod garnished their capstones.

cranes through the window I 

30” X 22”  

cranes through the window II

30” X 22”

When asked if I had any cranescapes that were not monumental in size, I realized I had not posted these two pieces.

Hurricane Harvey Project - confronted with humanity #7 “those teenagers pushed our truck”

Another Heroes piece-

Those teenagers

30” X 22” water color monotype  

the ghost

When my worlds collide my heart sings.

Three things that I love are sculpture, dance and tennis. And if that is not enough, one of my sports heroes, after having her first baby, is in a tutu at the US Open tennis Tournament. My heart is singing and bubbling over.

     I may  have to make a bronze Serena in a found object tutu. It won’t be the first tutu I have ever made. 🤗   And it won’t be the first sculpture I have done that was inspired by Serena.    

 Below is a little back story on “the little Dance” 

“Edgar Degas created a sensation when he presented his Little Dancersculpture at the Impressionist exhibition in Paris in 1881. His intention was to portray a young girl who dreamed of having an “illustrious life” in ballet, but who also kept “her identity as a girl from the streets of Paris.”

The public, accustomed to sculptures that showcased idealized women in marble, was outraged that Degas’s work depicted such a common subject—a young dancer drawn from everyday life and whose attitude reflected nothing goddess-like or heroic. Moreover, instead of chiseling her nobly in marble, he had rendered her in beeswax and found objects. In the face of rampant public disapproval, Degas removed the sculpture from display and stored it in a closet, where it resided in anonymity for the next four decades until financier Paul Mellon acquired the original wax sculpture in 1956 and gifted it to the National Gallery of Art in 1985.” -

                                                  ByAmy Henderson

                                                     smithsonian.com 

                                                  November 4, 2014

Read more: https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smithsonian-institution/true-story-little-ballerina-who-influenced-degas-little-dancer-180953201/#6te5BSIJRy3wVyYX.99
Give the gift of Smithsonian magazine for only $12! http://bit.ly/1cGUiGv
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Read more: https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smithsonian-institution/true-story-little-ballerina-who-influenced-degas-little-dancer-180953201/#6te5BSIJRy3wVyYX.99
Give the gift of Smithsonian magazine for only $12! http://bit.ly/1cGUiGv
Follow us: @SmithsonianMag on Twitter

Roots- Thank you Soul Cycle

These two dead plants were in pots outside of Soul Cycle. The roots were exposed and beautiful. This summer every week I would ask the staff if I could have them for my art. Every week I received the same response, that they would have to get approval from the locations manager to remove the dead plants. They are mine now. 😊 thank you, everyone at Soul Cycle for not getting irritated with my constant persuit of these roots. 

My interest in roots has to do with my interest in regenerative agricultural. I will explain in the next roots blog post

Sapling #2

The welding is complete.  

Hurricane Harvey Project - confronted with humanity #7

A piece from a large series of work inspired by the everyday heroes of hurricane Harvey.

Who saved whom

the ghost 

Hurricane Harvey Project - confronted with humanity #4

A piece from a large series of work inspired by the everyday heroes of hurricane Harvey.  

He was wearing overalls

22” X 30”  

the ghost print 

What does sound look like?

Using the Schlieren Flow Visualization method of photography, scientists photograph sound vibrations (even with them moving at 761.2 miles per hour.) NPR does a beautiful job of explaining this complicated process that scientists use to see sound. See link below-

https://www.npr.org/2014/04/09/300563606/what-does-sound-look-like

It is amazing and inspiring to see photographs/videos of sound. With this additional visual inspiration and  conversations with art critic Laura Wellen and curator Kimberley Davenport, I have decided to create an installation in my new studio. 

I have moved my “score” (working title) sculpture to my new studio.

Everything else is in a temporary storage facility 

I will miss my dogs 😒

With some luck by the end of the summer  my new studio will be filled with a 4D installation of the voice of the violin. 

Faux bois Wedding gift ❤️❤️#1

January 3, 2018, our son Griffin married his soulmate, Alexandra Groome.

After the wedding at the Houston Arboretum.

As a wedding gift, Curtis and I gave them one of my early bronze sculptures “lovebirds”.

Bronze lovebirds welded to rebar.

The lovebirds are inspired by my grandparents Imogene Young Travis and Robert Francis Travis, (Granny Gene and Bob-pa). They were married in high school and remained married for 70 plus years. In their El Paso High School yearbook, their senior pictures faced each other and lovebirds were placed in the corners of each of their pictures.

photo of copies of the yearbook pages framed in my house.

The second part of the gift is to make them a faux bois bench for the love birds to sit on.

I am going to make each piece of the bench thinking about the two of them and the lessons I want to pass down from my grandparents and from my own marriage. It will be a reflection of the qualities of the love Griffin and Alex committed to each other that day on January 3rd, and will be a symbol of the characteristics needed to maintain a marriage for a lifetime. My plan is to have it completed by their first anniversary. 

Design Considerations: 
1. Griffin and Alex are both environmentalists, so I will recycle as much rebar from other projects as possible.

2. No marriage is ever perfectly balanced, so I will make the bench asymmetrical.

3. It will have arm rests for support - symbols of both of their families. 

4. When things don’t work out exactly as planned, I will keep an open mind and make the best of the situation. The beauty will be in the imperfections as is life.   

5. I will listen to their wedding playlist on Spotify as I work. 

6. Griffin and Alex are very playful. The piece will reflect the joy they embrace life with. 

I started on Thursday, June 15th. Griffin and Alex are both people-people. They are always reaching out to others and welcoming them into their home and world, they love to entertain. So I decided to make the seat of the bench the shape of open arms.

rebar welded into the shape of open arms that will eventually be the seat. 

Next I need to set the seat on jack’s the correct height for comfortable seating. Every couple needs a good support group. 

Marriage should be comfortable -  The front is slightly higher than the back for comfort. 

 equality - I use a level to make sure the seat is level from side to side.  

Grinding the tip of a piece of rebar cut for a leg. 

With small taps I use a sledgehammer to make a gentle curve to a leg.

Next is to creat the armrest and back of the bench. 

Four legs and two arm rest are welded to the seat.

Griffin and Alex are very fun loving and not inhibited at all to have a good time. The vines/branches that make up the back will embrace this side of them. 

A little sketch of the armature and how it will look with concrete on it so far. 

I might need to prune the crazy branch on the left side. 

Photos 🙏🏽 title of work? and artist statement ?

photos by Nash Baker 

Earlier this week I received the images taken of my sculpture. There is great satisfaction seeing this piece finally photographed. Many many  thanks to Nash Baker for taking the time to get the perfect lighting and angles. 

I am struggling with the title and the  artist statement. This is where I am presently on the Artist statement for the piece. Some possible titles follow. I would appreciate any suggestions 

 ”___________” A three deminsional depiction of the the passage of time through energy, produced by playing contemporary classical music.  I was inspired by a long exposure photograph of my cousin, Arkansas Symphony Concert Master Andrew Irvin, that captured multiple images as he played his violin. I was struck by the simple back and forth movements of a bow, composed of horse hair, drawn across strings that create emotionally charged sounds. In this piece, the music radiates off the musician as he plays, as well as off the strings of the violin, sometimes like a painfully slow waltz, and sometimes with the sharpness of a quickstep. Working on the piece during the last weeks of my father’s life I examined each movement of the bow and the wire/sound that comes off the violin. Some warble and then end sharply like a tear running down a cheek. Others gently twist into a whisper that fades into a broken heart, and some linger and then pivot like a murmuration of birds and is set free, each movement triggering a unique emotion. I applied the concept of seeing multiple images, and seeing music as emotional energy in three dimensions. The piece is built on a steel armature covered in plaster, recycled wire cloth, and baling wire.

possible titles 

Documents of Time’s passage

Rhythm

Oscillations

“Lost in time”

Sonata

Rhapsody

Movement

Interval

dimensions of time

Intervals in time

Sonatas of time

Scores in Time

score  

Seeing faces at Dachau -

We recently toured the Dachau concentration camp. It was known as the S.S. “school for violence.” The facility is now a memorial to those who suffered and died at Dachau. 

After seeing a few of the images in the memorial; I had to turn away. That is when I noticed that the immense suffering that was inflicted upon innocent people inside the walls of Dachau is not only told in the photos; it penetrated and lives in the structures of Dachau. The walls are scarred with the suffering. In every wall I saw the faces of pain, misery and stories that can not be ignored. Below are a few words That the images in the walls inspired. 

                               Dachau 

In the walls of Dachau  

the sunken eyes of starvation still cry.

Through it’s cracks,

faces of fear still hold their breath.  

In the walls of Dachau

the contorted faces of torture still moan. 

Through it’s scars,

calls for tolerance plea to be heard. 

In the walls of Dachau

the stripes of prisoners are held in respect.

Through it’s survivors,

stories are preserved and true heros are honored.

In the walls of Dachau.  

Below are are some photos of the images I saw in the walls when I turned away. 

sunken eyes of starvation 

The fear seen in eyes of those confronted with the evils of humanity watch helplessly through cracks in the cement walls.

  contorted face of  torture

an emaciated body 

face contorted in pain

human figures bent over in pain and suffering. 

After you walk through the tortuous halls of the Dachau maintenance building and walk around to the front of the building there is  a magnificent sculpture.  It is an abstract figurative piece that beautifully  expresses in monumental style the bodily harm endured by those who threatened the ideals supported by the S.S. . 

In front of the sculpture is an additional memorial: The foundations of the 30 barracks that housed the prisoners of Dachau are each marked with a tombstone style market and numbered. 

Picasso Museum in Paris

Three of his and a few of mine.  

Dove/pigeon - bronze 

Doves/pigeon and a fish 

Dove/pigeon

Two of my Herman Beak trumpeter pigeons with leg muffs in charcoal 

Two frill back pigeon is one in Talc powder  and one in charcoal. 

“Heritage-dust to dust.”

 “Heritage-dust to dust.” My dad was not part of the hat generation, he was a cap dad. He did, however, have the traits that are reflected in each of my Heritage pieces and I do see glimpses of him when I look at them. This is one of the two hats I worked on during his last weeks of life. The week after he passed with a large hole in my heart, we poured the bronze. When I broke off the shell I was not really surprised to see the large hole in the heart of the crown. 

Last week I completed the metal work on the piece and this week my siblings and I will celebrate his life, as he requested, with a simple bar-b-que in the feed store warehouse.  It won’t be your normal wake, with guest dressed in formal black jackets and pants.  We will all be in jeans, boots, or tennis shoes and he would like that. My sister and I will decorate the tables with two of the things he loved: tomato plants and footballs. We will drink beer, eat texas bar b que, and share memories and his love. He may not have worn a hat but he did leave a hole in this one. 

Gust- patina

before 

Installation day - “feminam”

 “Feminam” is Latin for feminine. I gave this piece a Latin name because she was purchased by two physicians. Over a year ago I agreed to sell G.G., my female wire cloth sculpture, titled “January 21st, 2017” as she saw it in our 2017 Spring Block Exhibition. I was amazed that G.G. asked me if she could buy the piece because I was already anticipating the problem of where I was going to keep her. G.G. was the first person who came to mind. G.G. loves art, is a very particular collector and any artist would be lucky to have their work in G.G. and Mark’s collection. A year later I was still having studio visits with people that I wanted to see “January 21st, 2017." However, I had said I would sell her so it was time to give her up. I decided to make another one for my studio.  I started the second piece and showed her to G.G. and the new piece is really a better fit for G.G’s collection. She has a beautiful run just off center down her middle and she has more whit  plaster on the surface. I am really pleased with the new piece. I wanted G.G. to have her pick and it worked out GG. for both of us. When I first met G.G. I automatically liked her, I tried to channel her inner  beauty into this new piece, “feminam.”

Diane and Nate of Level Arts were very patient as G.G. and I decided on the perfect height. 

They were also extremely patient as we played with the lighting. And I can play with lighting all day, it is so much fun.  

Job well done. I could not be more thrilled to work with Nate and Diane of level Arts.  

G.G. And me- both happy  

I  

Gust - grinding down the sprue stubs

tools