Up to Eleven!

Gonzo: (To mirror) You're a reflection! You're supposed to do just what I do.
Reflection: But you do ludicrous things!
Gonzo: I do what?
Reflection: Ludicrous things!
Gonzo: Of course I do! I'm an ARTIST!
-The Muppet Show

Brewery Ommegang in Cooperstown has recently come out with a new beer called "Eleven By Volume". To commemorate this historic event, they asked me to carve them a custom tap handle in the shape of vertebrae. I eagerly accepted the commission. I really like this project for several reasons:

-It allows me to make a ridiculous yet functional object
- The project lets me indulge in my own highly specific form of geekery
-Ommegang, aside from making some really good beer, is a good company to work with. There was no petty quibbling over the cost or unnecessary interference in the design process. The deadline was realistically achievable
-Any commission that involves this kind of abysmal pun is one that I am wholly in favor of. (think about it!)

For once, I thought to document my working process from beginning to end.
Here is the concept sketch. Ordinarily I don't draw out a carving first, preferring to discover it as I go along. Most clients, however, have this odd liking for what is quaintly called "having some idea what the hell we're spending the money on"

 I offered a variety of choices for the top of the handle. This detail is the one we all agreed upon. Personally I was lobbying for the ram skull...

 I chose to work with a piece of kiln dried maple 15 inches long and 2 and1/4th in. square. I chose maple because it has a subtle grain pattern, finishes nicely takes details well, and is durable enough for frequent handling.

 Sometimes I find it helps to roughly sketch out what I  intend to do on the block first. During the carving process, you'll notice that I will occasionally draw a few crude lines to act as a guide.

By the end of the first day, things are pretty well blocked out

 On the second day I roughed out where individual bones were to be

 On Day three, I concentrated on the top piece and separating the spines

 By Day Four you could see a nice curvature was emerging. I think this is also the day that I learned that if  you listen to ear buds while working with a knife, it is an excellent idea to run the chord through your shirt.

On the Fifth day of work I am entirely finished carving and have put the hardware on. The only reason this was photographed in a studio setting was that it happened to be raining at the time.

Here is the tap handle halfway through the painting process.

Sometimes you simply don't have the amount of drying time recommended on the back of the can of finish. I think this is one of my more inventive Jury-rigs.

  

 And finally, the finished product! Say it with me: "This Is SPINAL TAP!"

 Note that there are 10 bones under the top piece. This actually does go up to eleven! (I even numbered it )

Hopefully soon I will have some pictures of this installed and in use.

Filler

For reasons that might become apparent later, I have something specific in mind for my eleventh blog post. This means I have to get the tenth one out of the way to make it fit properly. So....here are some pictures of a lizard

 Her name is Cecelia. She is an African Fat-tailed Gecko.

 You can see why they are called that.

 Fat-tails are comparatively docile and easy to keep. They don't mind being handled and are attractive little lizards, so they're pretty popular as pets

 She has a pretty cute face too.

Well, that's about it. Thanks for tuning in.

The Donkey on the Stairs, Explained and Illustrated

My older sister, Anne, asked me for the reason for my blog's title. You will notice that Anne credits me for having a rational and well thought out explanation for my behavior, in spite of the fact she witnessed most of my adolescence firsthand. That's just the sort of person she is.  I promised that the story would be the subject of my very next post, and then promptly fell into a deep blue funk for several weeks and didn't post anything.
       So here it is at long last, The reason this blog is called "The Donkey on the Stairs" (Although to boost readership, I'm considering changing it to "It's Got Lots of Pictures") :
When I was travelling I started my first blog, Tourist Monkey to keep everyone updated on my travels. One curious thing about travel writing is when monkeys are stealing your luggage or you're crammed uncomfortably on a bus with 59  unwashed people, or something generally unpleasant is happening to you, it's remarkably easy. When you are happy and at peace, writing about your adventures becomes very difficult because nothing, from a purely narrative perspective, is happening. It was exactly this predicament I was facing in Bhagsu, an extremely pretty and peaceful little Himalayan town in India. On one beautiful sunny morning I was walking to my favorite breakfast place. As I strolled downhill watching the blue magpie flip back and forth between the trees, with their long streamer-like tails and vaguely suspicious expressions that made them look like fugitives from a story book illustration, I was thinking that I was overdue to post an entry.  Just as I was thinking that I had nothing at all to write about I stepped out of the way of a train of donkeys. It should be mentioned that most of Bhagsu's streets are actually a series of narrow staircases because the terrain is so steep.  No wheeled vehicle could manage them. The only way to get supplies up and down the mountainside is with pack ponies or donkeys, Trains of these animals march up and down the hill all day. On average you would have to stand aside and wait for them to pass five or six times a day.If i hadn't been thinking about writing home, it simply would have never occurred to me that there was anything unusual about this and I might have never mentioned it. It got me thinking about all the other things I accepted as commonplace that would seem exotic and strange to an outside observer. I had very little trouble writing that entry.
       For the most part I think that I lead a fairly ordinary life, yet I am a professional puppeteer and artist. These are not exactly common career paths. My morning routine involves misting lizards and putting fresh greens in the bird cages. I think upon closer inspection, most people could find something unusual and interesting in their day to day routine. On the whole, ordinary life is an extraordinary thing! I chose this title to remind myself of this.

When my sister asked me about the title, she asked why I called the blog "The Donkey on the Stairs" and not "The Capybara in the Cupboard". This struck me as really funny for some reason:

 The Idea expanded into an Alphabet of obscure animals in strange locations (bear in mind these sketches are rough drafts). For example: A Babirusa in the Bathtub:

 A Vicuna in the Vegetable stand:

 A Wombat In the Washing Machine:

 A Pangolin in the Picnic Basket:

 An Aye-Aye in the Aquarium :

 ...And so forth.

On a completely unrelated note, I was chatting with my friend Gennarose the other day.( Aside from being a wonderful human being, Gennarose may just be the single most  talented person I know, which is really saying something!) During the course of conversation, she announced "I hate singing rodents! unless they're singing opera. Then that's just classy" (It actually makes sense in context). Then, this happened:

Apparently, you should really be careful what you say around me....

Underlying Form

 Bones fascinate me. I love the myriad of shapes they take, how each one is perfect in both function and form, and the vast amount of information you can get about the organism from them. It's like reading the animal's biography.  I especially like skulls. I collect skulls. For the record I did not and would not cause the death of any animal  for my collection I found and cleaned most of them myself, the vast majority by the roadside (I could elaborate on that point and discuss various cleaning methods here, but, trust me you don't want me to!).  I wanted to get some practice taking photos today and this seemed like the perfect opportunity to show off some of my more interesting specimens. the first picture here was a nice accidental still life. I was doing a few sketches on my porch while waiting for the camera battery to charge. One of the nice things about having a few skulls around the house is that I always have something interesting to draw.

Here we have my Canid collection. From smallest to largest: Red fox (Vulpes vulpes),North Eastern Coyote (Canis latrans thamnos), and Feral Dog (C. lupus familiaris). I find it really interesting to be able to compare these closely related species with one another. Note the bullet hole in the coyote's cranium. I found her along a farmer's fence row. It should be mentioned that there is a chance that the bottom skull is possibly a coyote/dog hybrid,  judging by how deep in the woods I found it. It is very difficult to tell from morphology alone.This is the one most likely to get me in trouble with people. It is a Domestic Cat. (Felis cattus). This specimen was hit by a car. I didn't want somebody's beloved pet in my collection, so I made absolutely certain that he was a stray before I took it. I just love how compact the jaws are and those fantastic large sockets.
 The whole skull has a pleasing round form

This is one example of why comparative anatomy is so intriguing to me. On the left is the North American Beaver (Castor canadensis) and the one on the right, the Common Porcupine (Erethizon dorsatum) These are the two largest rodents in North America. They are from entirely different branches of the Rodent family. One is adapted to aquatic life and the other is largely arboreal, and yet, their skulls are remarkably similar because they eat the same type of plant matter. 

This one was on my wish list for a very long time. It is hard to find an intact skull of the Eastern Cottontail (Sylvilagus floridanus) because most animals that eat them aim for the head. I found this about a quarter mile from the cat, and on the same day. Sometimes you just get lucky. A rabbit's skull has a surprisingly aggressive character for such a timid animal.

The only native marsupial in North America, the Virginia Opossum (Didelphis virginiana) has the most teeth and smallest braincase of any mammal on the continent. I really like the sleek looking zygomatic arches (cheekbones) and large sagital crest on this specimen. I think it may have been quite young when it died.

When I want to stump someone, I usually try to have them guess what this next one is. Very few people could tell without being told first that this wonderful piece of Gothic architecture is what's found beneath the jowls and floppy ears of the Domestic Pig (Sus scrofa domesticus).

I probably have more Whitetail Deer (Odocoileus virginianus) skulls than anything else. The one depicted here  is neither my best specimen or my most interesting, but she was one of the first skulls I found and the one that really got me started on my morbid little hobby. Deer skulls seem very graceful to me

The skull of  a Sheep (Ovis aries), on the other hand, is  charmingly cumbersome looking object.I'm not sure what breed this is, but  the arching Roman nose and high set eyes give it a lot of character.  A friend gave me this.

Finally, I had to sneak at least one drawing into this post.  This is a sketch I did a while back. It is the skull of a Blue Jay (Cyanocitta cristata)  from a private collection. (9x12 graphite on bristol vellum).

Well, that's all for now. I hope you enjoyed seeing some of my collection nearly as much as I liked showing it to you

Shameless Self Promotion and some musings On the Business of Art

      People have asked me  if, given that art expresses something personal about the maker, whether I find it difficult to sell. Don't I become emotionally attached to the piece? My answer is that I have very little difficulty with selling my work for the simple reason that I enjoy regular meals and sleeping indoors.  It is true that each piece I produce reflects some aspect of myself, sometimes in quite surprising ways, and that a part of the creative process is to fall in love with your project. I view the process of art making as an adventure filled with pitfalls, surprises, and wonderful discoveries. the actual finished piece is an artifact of this voyage. I am fond of them because they show where I have been, but ultimately, I do not need to posses them to remember. If someone else wants something I made, I am more than happy to part with it, for a fair price. If there's an item that I'm particularly attached to, I just make it more expensive!

Which brings me to the Self Promotion bit. After about a year of sitting fallow, my Etsy shop is now active. Here are the items that I have put up for sale so far:

... And here is an exclusive preview of the next item to be posted. I posted it here so that you could be among the first to see it....Because I love you!

(Thank you for checking out this post. If you don't wish to read a detailed belligerent rant about the perils of trying to make a living in the arts, here would be a good place to stop reading, although I do think I got a few funny lines in.)

  One of the most harmful false beliefs about the creative lifestyle, nearly as bad as the necessity of suffering (That is a whole separate rant that, at the moment, I won't subject you to!) is that artists are and should be divorced from mundane concerns. To be pragmatic and businesslike is somehow looked upon as selling out and not being true to your creative nature.  I have come to have a very definite opinion about the role of professionalism in the Art World. I firmly believe there ought to be some. I have the good fortune to count many talented successful artists as friends.Far from being divorced from reality, they are uniformly practical and professional. Working artists generally can come up with inventive business strategies, money saving tricks and innovative promotion techniques that would make a marketing department sit up and take notice.  They need to in order to survive . The sad truth is artists need to function in the real world. There is no bohemian exemption available on the federal tax forms. The phone company doesn't look at your occupation and say "because you work to find Truth and Beauty we're going to give you free service and a coupon for an  ice cream sundae." In fact the opposite is usually true. You find yourself constantly having to convince people that what you do is actually work. Non-profit Arts organisations are constantly trying to get you to donate a piece for their charity auctions or badgering you to pay them membership fees on the premise that they just might get you a show later on where you just might sell a piece. Casual acquaintances slyly  hint that they would love to own a piece of your work and then act as though you've mortally insulted them when you quote your selling price instead of just offering to give it to them.

Try this little social experiment next time you need to get your car repaired: Inform the mechanic that you drive a lot and know a lot of other drivers. Tell him that working on your car would be a great opportunity for him to showcase his abilities and could open a lot of doors for his business. Explain to him that because he enjoys working on cars so much anyway, and because of the amount of future work you could potentially drum up for him, that he should repair your vehicle for free, or at very least give you a really big discount.
 Now duck.
 There will be a rather large crescent wrench flying towards your head by this point.

Every artist I know has heard many different versions of this exact same argument over the years. Even more remarkably, none of them have ever been charged for assault.