This is what it’s all about

Jack In A Block

Jackie’s hands are in that block.  Although I’m not quite there yet, I’m dreaming of the moment I can begin to cut up that block.  My wife thinks I should be dreaming of our impending baby–on or about March 17th…

Double Vision

Here is the output of a program I wrote in VB dot net.  It’s a slap-together program but it does what I want it to do and it’s not for sale, so I don’t care about the polish or lack thereof.

Among other things that it can do, it allows me to resize and overlay and most importantly, fade the opacity of photos, so that I can compare.  Compare what?  Compare a photo of a person in the position I’m sculpting with a photo of the work to-date.

It does in actuality, what sculptors do in their heads.  While most sculptors would love this for helping them “see” what to take-away, because of how I work,  it helps me save time and material in knowing how much wood to ADD before I do the take-away thing.

I’m still going to measure like crazy; and squint; and visulaize and draw on the piece with pencils and sharpies, but to have a static record that I can measure OFF of, without repeatedly posing and measuring myself (don’t laugh, it happens all the time), I can be quicker and more precise.

The unsettling part is that the overlays reveal errors that I have made that annoy me.  Hopefully, we can correct for them and the viewer will be blissfully, unaware and no, I never say specific, negative things about my work because that would prejudice the viewer and if they don’t find the faults that I find with the piece, are they really there?  And also remember that my standards are a lot higher than the typical, casual viewer.

Back to work.  –Fog

Jack-in-the-Hood

Jack and Drill

Jackie Robinson statue

Here is the raw 14″x11″x11″ block of basswood glued up and ready to be transformed into Jack Roosevelt Robinson’s head.  We’re already a few hours past this point in reality.  The rough out went faster than ever, thanks to new tools I purchased but the detail work is crawling.  Just crawling.  I’m having the “yips” about getting into the actual do-or-else stuff.  I haven’t done this kind of work in a year now and I’m low on confidenct and have found that when I get home from work and only have a few hours to play with, that I fritter away that time as a way to avoid getting into it.

This happens in the sculpting business.  You have to punch through, even if it means sitting there for hours and not doing much more than looking at photos and being scared to remove wood.  At some point, you will spot “easy” wood to remove and by doing that, you will be drawn in and eventually, you will get into the “zone”.

“The zone” is that hackneyed phrase that is used mostly in sports and sometimes in music.  It can be applied to any task, in my opinion.  It is, to me, that point where your brain stops processing “noise”.  Noise is anything not central to the task.  Once you stop processing noise (tired, time to do something else, worrying about x, hungry, what’s on tv), you get focused on the task or piece and instead of working on it with really only partial attention, you bring more of your abilities to bear on the task.  This feeds a loop in that, once this happens, results will quickly flow; results at a much faster rate than you are lately accustomed to.  Once that happens, you are going to be excited by the progress and that feeds your attention lock and stengthens it, leading to more and more positive results as measured against time.

Once you see the effect of this, the things that were creeping into your thoughts and distracting you begin to melt away.  You are less and less interested in them.  It gets to the point where even if you work very late and might ordinarialy be concerned that you will be tired for work the next day, in this case, you won’t care.  You will lose most of your concer with, and thoughts about, time.  You know you’re in the sweet spot and are enjoying that and thinking about time will only hinder you, so out it goes.  Now, you’re in “The Zone”.  You get a lot done.  You’re excited about it.  Your confidence soars and as a result, sticky problems are toppling one after the other, as you plow through the project.  It’s a great feeling.  It’s an energizing feeling.  It can spill over into other areas of your life.

Trouble is, getting in there the first time.

Jackie Robinson makes a mess

Jackie Robinson’s Million Dollar Legs

Early Robinson.  And clean for the most part.  Tonight, he was under piles of sawdust as the process of finding legs inside those wood blocks continues.  As you can guess from the position of the legs, this piece is going to be more of a pose, than an in-action.  Many hours of thought over a long period of time went into this decision and I could lay it out for you in detail if you want to read on.

Robinson’s batting pose is very “wooden”, for lack of a better term.  It looks posed.  It doesn’t look all that natural or fluid.  In short, it looks wooden.  And what I do is try to make wood look like people.  So a person who looks wooden to begin with?  No way.  Bad pose.

The other pose that folks associate with Jack Roosevelt, is running the bases.  Either the arms-akimbo-stopping-short-down-the-3rd-base-line-to-mess-with-the-pitcher, or, the slide into home on the steal of home.

Another problem with the “running” pose, is that to be truly running, you are leaving the ground each time you push off of either leg; that’s the definition of it.  So the statue wouldn’t have any way to attach to the ground unless you contrived it to be at the point of landing on the lead leg and that leads to the problems that the center of mass is then WAY off the point of attachment to the ground (base).  Technically, it’s murder and the look might be more awkward than effective.

These are, no doubt, iconic Robinson photos and/or poses.  But a statue that depicts baseruning, unless done just exactly correctly (and maybe not even then), might look very strange.  It’s too big of a gamble on a piece that may take half a thousand hours or more.

The other objection I have to the baserunning angle is that it slights the man, somewhat.  It’s as if you are saying, “this guy is in the Hall of Fame because he was fast”.  No.  That’s not right.  He is in the Hall of Fame for being a great all-around player.  He played gold glove type defense at several different positions, including first, where he was not accustomed to playing his first year.  He ran well, true, but he also hit something like .306 for his career.  And he was on the Dodger pennant winners in 1947, 1949, 1952, 1953, 1955, and 1956.  In 1950, the Dodgers lost on the last day of the season to the Phillies.  On the last day of the 1951 season, Robinson’s homer in the last game, clinched a tie with the Giants, requiring a 3-game playoff to break the tie.  You’ve heard of that playoff?  It went 3 games and it seems, The Giants Win the Pennant.The Giants Win the Pennant.The Giants Win the Pennant…etc.

He was a great all around player is my point.  He should not be cordoned off into the “speed” wing of the Hall of Fame.  He makes it easily in any era and on his complete game.  That is why, I have chosen to depict him at ease (somewhat of an accomplishment in itself, for this man, and many others), holding the bat on his shoulder and looking up as if to pose deliberately for a camera.  On his face, a little look of satisfaction; a look that only a veteran big-leaguer can have; not so much a look of professional competency, but more like professional pride.

So, no batting stance and no baserunning hijinks.  A deliberate pose.

To make up for the lack of action on this one, I am considering a radical pose for the next piece with one thin, solitary attachment point to the ground.  The idea that this extreme delivery photo may be posed for photographers is being researched currently.

Jack Roosevelt Robinson is underway

Here is the beginning of the life-size Jackie Robinson statue.  When looking at this photo, is there any question that it is 100% wood?

This statue is going to be my meisterwerk; better than my DiMaggio; better than the last Babe Ruth.  I’m feeling great at the controls and confidence is high.  I’ve gathered a surprising amount of Robby photos for the push on the head; enough so that I won’t have to go up to the library at the Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, NY, to get photos.  That’s expensive.

Here’s what I managed to gather up:

The key is to have as many as you can with good detail of the head and from all possible angles.  You want just below and just above level.  Three quarter and profile and three quarter from behind.  Anything that will get you to be able to work out the 3-dimensional aspect of the head.  It has to look right from 360 degrees, not just from the front.  You’re taking the 2-D photo and trying to guess at what the 3-D object looks like.  The 2-D photo contains some 3-D information, but only around the edges.  If you had a series of 2-D photos at intervals of, oooh, say, every 4 degrees, you’d have all the info needed to do 3-D.

Have I thought of writing a computer program to do this stuff?  You betcha.  Will it help me now for Jack?  Nope.  But this is where being a sculptor is really meaningful.  This is where you make the piece alive or not–just a piece of wood (or pieces, as the case is).  All the marbles.  The challenge.

For this piece, I’ve decided to do a sort of time-lapse, so you can see it come together.  I think that might be fun.  The sawdust is not fun.  More as events warrant. –Fog

Babe Ruth In The Papers

Click here to open the story in the Washington Post in a new window. You may have to register a username and password but it is not a big deal.

This is the photo that is currently on the front page of the Washington Post’s Sunday Metro section:

Before I go any further, let me make sure that I take time to thank the staff at the Gaylord National Hotel inWashington, DC for their tremendous professionalism and attention to every detail. These people are the standard for their industry. I have, in all honesty, never seen such elan in my life. It was a real treat. With the hotel slated to open in a few days, you could ride on the energy of these folks as they readied their jewel of a hotel.

I would also like to thank Michael Hudson of Gaylord Hotels. He is a throwback to a more civil time in America and in business. He is a true gentleman and a visionary in his field. You don’t run into too many people like him and it was my good fortune to have done so. Thanks Michael, for everything.

This is a shot someone took for me with my camera during the installation.

The Babe Ruth statue is now permanently on display at the Gaylord National Hotel & Resort in Washington, DC at the new National Harbor area.

I went down there on Tuesday and stayed until Thursday and The Babe was installed and well received. The Washington Post came by and did a story on the hotel opening and included a fair amount of interest on the statue. I was not sure how much would run on the statue but I was pleased to have folks in Washington DC call and tell me the good news.

The full story of the statue and everything surrounding it is on the Birrerart.com website:

Click here to open the Birrerart.com website up in a new window

Other things that were noteworthy while I was down there was the fact that the Nationals has declared the sportsbar in the Gaylord as the official sportsbar of the team. Because of this, they had sent over the last home plate used at RFK stadium so it could be permanently installed at the entrance to the sportsbar. Here are a few shots of that and the Washington Post getting their story at the time:

That’s Michael Hudson, Director of Brands at Gaylord Hotels, with homeplate from RFK Stadium.

And here is the laying ceremony while the PR folks take photos.

***
The Gaylord National Hotel is so immense that it is difficult to photograph it all in one frame. The atrium that overlooks the Potomac River and Old Alexandria, Virginia, on the opposite bank, is 18 stories high. There is a village of little shops and fountains and trees and restaurants all inside the enclosure. It is so big that you mostly aren’t aware that you are inside.

Here is a view of the upper part of the atrium. These gaslights are 20 feet high. The scale is just hard to fathom.

On the 24th floor, there is a state of the art nightclub and one of the unique features is, believe it or not, the men’s room. Here are the fixtures and the view is outrageous. The Washington Monument can be seen while you are, well…ahem, you know. It’s just one of a myriad of details that make this hotel one of the most amazing in the world.