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Dick Dale plays "Ghost Riders In The Sky"

“The Last Supper”

Detail

Scary Lucy has been replaced

Time:  Locals had started a Facebook group in the hopes of getting rid of the statue sculpted by Dave Poulin, at the time calling a “nightmare.” The new bronze statue depicts Ball in a polka-dot dress.

“Well, it’s been quite a ride,” Schrecengost said at the ceremony, according to the AP. “A little over a year ago, we got beat up pretty good.”

A look back...

After                                                      before

Churches hewn from rock

...[Ethiopian king] Lalibela envisioned a dozen churches carved from stone — not made of stones, but each one literally carved out of one unbroken rock with its roof at ground level.
Details on the construction process have been lost in the mists of time, but 13 churches were indeed built between the late 12th and 13th century. These were no simple structures — the rock-hewn churches had arched windows, moldings with religious symbols, and murals covering the interior walls. Built on either side of a trench — which was named the River Jordan in recognition of the new holy city — they connected to one another through a series of tunnels.

In the ensuing centuries, seismic shifts, erosion, and water have severely damaged the churches. But the last one to be built — Bete Giyorgis, or the Church of St. George — remains spectacular. Extending 40 feet down into the stone and shaped like a cross, Bete Giyorgis continues to draw Christian pilgrims and curious tourists.

-Slate
-Atlas Obscura
-Google Images

Something Trooper might do?

"[A] millionaire neighbor will plop a 33-foot, painted bronze sculpture of a beyond-naked pregnant woman with an exposed fetus on his front lawn. So when Aby Rosen, the real estate titan and art collector, installed this 13-ton statue by Damien Hirst on his newly renovated property last month, his neighbors were roused into action."

“It is out of character with the neighborhood,” (read more)


A different edition of the statue,
photographed in Monaco in 2010

I thought of Chip Ahoy when I saw this

Tea party to honor fallen SEALs Chris Kyle, and others at Benghazi with sculptures

Sculptor Gregory Marra stands next to the memorial statue in tribute of Chris Kyle.

"As for our grass-roots support, we are currently working with the Navy SEAL Museum, All American Veterans Services, Tea Party Community, ACS Public Relations, and the Tea Party Tribune,” said Don Smith, a talk radio host and a public relations maven who is helping Mr. Marra wrangle the complexities of public outreach and fundraising.

 “I know it sounds crazy, but I feel their presence. That’s what happens when you’re creating a life-sized image of someone.”

I know. 

That does sound crazy. You are crazy. That is what happens in isolation, the way you work like that, meditatively, your physical motions ritualistic for prolonged periods. 

As artist and craftsman, what happens is you set your mind to a task, a fairly simple task, the big decisions are made already and it gets down to chip chip chip away careful not to do this and avoid that, repetitive ritualistic tasks that do not require the full mind to carry out and cannot contain the mind's full energy so the other part of your mind takes flight. Turns out the larger part of your mind takes flight, free form, goes where it wants, when it wants, how it wants, and enters another reality altogether while your body back there anchored by mind to task stays focused and busy at functioning and doing that on autopilot. You trick yourself into allowing yourself to connect with the universe and for the universe to connect with you in ways your ordinary material bound self prohibits. You're crazy.

Driving in rush hour is similar. You are thinking and driving, making small decisions and doing it well, and dreaming and planning at the same time. With those two thing going on, it is the ideal situation for your intuition to provide something for you. It can feel like your spirit looking ahead and providing a picture for you. You are insane.

Did I ever tell you about the time I did a commission for the man with an offering carving? I saw a very simple and attractive start to a painting and thought that outline would make a good bas relief. All I would have to do it scrape the background away and then scratch in some details. I already did one bas relieve before so that makes me, what, an expert. 

Here is my copy of the book where I saw this. Tomb of Horemheb. My book says Haremhab, the vowels were not agree upon then. 

Ha! That was the military general who followed the old courtier that followed the death of king Tut. Half the paintings in my copy have grids drawn over them in pencil. The whole thing is in pieces. That means I replicated at least half of these, and sold most of those. This book has been a treasure to me ever since I found it a long time ago when I was a wee lad. 

Bed wetter.

Kidding. I loved this book to death. It is worth a 2.25 million dollars to me. You can buy one for 29₵ 

Chipping away at the background with a dental tool. A real dental tool the dentist gave me. It is boring. Best to break up the project into bits. Leave it on the work table and return to it here and there throughout the day, throughout the week until it is done. 

It takes a whole spare bedroom. It makes a huge dusty mess. 

One night I bathed, wrapped myself with a towel, passed near the workroom with the open project, went in, sat down and chipped away, chip, chip, chip, chip, chip, chip, chip, it is very boring, chip, chip, chip, chip, chip, it is not so long and I am transported, zoop.

I am in a dimly lit cave. Back home I am physically in a cave-like bedroom at the back of the apartment, so not so remote a transport, but there I am doing what I already am doing, I went to a thousand years ago, two thousand, four thousand years ago, toiling away at wall. I drew the picture that I am working on and I am there again to correct it and to have my corrections corrected by somebody else and then together we will move on, and right before we do move on I snap back to present day where I actually am sitting there chipping away making a mess, I did make admirable progress there wrapped in a white terry cloth towel, I stand up feeling and looking exactly like a half-naked Egyptian scribe. 

So yeah, you sound crazy to me. I understand completely.