I'm going to start with a point of order: my fascination with roosters goes deep into my childhood on an Ohio farm, and far predates any association with the University of South Carolina. I'm not a big fan of college sports, and over the last several years I've stopped paying any attention to any sports. So when I make a rooster it isn't out of any desire to cheer on the Gamecocks. And it isn't because I think cock-fighting is cool. It's because I find roosters to be intrinsically interesting.

I also like rooster art. And for a town where the gamecock is king, a lot of the rooster art falls somewhere on the spectrum between "bland" and "dumb." As Exhibits A and B, I present to you the sculpture that greets visitors at the Columbia airport and the $85,000 statue that graces the campus.

Eighty.

Five.

Thousand.

Dollars?

Moving on . . .

​"Pinwheel" started with trying to capture the lines and feel of a shape in motion. I used some arcs of round steel from an old outdoor table (curb find) to start outlining the crescent shape of a rooster back-pedaling into the air. The feel of the piece emerged over the course of the month as I triangulated what I envisioned with the materials I had and my technical abilities. It wanted a twirling, spinning, somewhat gritty, mechanistic-yet-on-the-edge-of-control feeling, like being on a beat-up carnival ride. I also wanted an out-of-balance display, part show and part genuine menace. "Pinwheel" is a summer evening's trip down the midway and through the gauntlet of posturing carnies trying to goad little boys into demonstrating their manhood. It's the perpetual motion machine of flashing lights, trampled grass, fried food, and the music of AC/DC blaring from the Matterhorn.

It's also for sale.

I think this piece turned out great -- it's perhaps the "best" thing I've created so far. I'm selling it because I don't really have the space to display it inside the house (it's an inside piece) and because I honestly think it is a piece that can be enjoyed and appreciated by a lot people. Of course it won't evoke the same basket of memories and feelings from everyone that sees it. That's okay. I did what I set out to do, so my job is done.

I think "Pinwheel" would look great over the bar in a high-end restaurant in Columbia or some other city. "Pinwheel" has a wingspan of 38," a height (from the base to the highest wingtip) of 41," and a length (from beak to tail) of 30." The base is a steel ring with a 16.25" diameter. The base could be changed but there would be engineering involved.

I'm asking $8000 for it and a display that includes my name. If you've got the cash, the space, and the desire to ditch your cartoon chicken and sit at the adult table, please send an email to my art account: ​[email protected].  I'm always ready to consider interesting trades or other offers, but please don't email me to ask if I'll take $200 for it.

I'm going to put two old radio tubes in the sockets of the light fixture after I apply a clear coat to the piece to lock in the patina.

Here are some more photos (and more here; video coming soon):

Update (6/22/2018): Yes, it's as dangerous as it looks.

Soundtrack.

I haven't had a whole lot of time for art this semester. I've had some, obviously (I finished "Beauty and Grace" and "My Father's Hammer"), but not as much as I would like. It's been a busy fall. The fever pace is starting to break, though, with just one week of classes left, SEAC over, and my wife's shop open (more on that later). So I've been able to get back to my workshop this weekend and last weekend. I need to spend more time out there to dissuade the Carolina wrens from building nests in things -- such as dinosaurs -- that I'm going to need to move. They've even been probing inside the garage when it's open. Love is in the air.

Last May after my Afterburner show originally opened at Tapp's, I had the time and energy to make several more pieces and get them into the "extended" show in June. One of the things I sent was an unfinished piece called "Sun Gun." It was a cawing crow perched on the tail fins of a rocket. I knew it wasn't done but I wasn't sure why. So it's been sitting my garage since the summer.

I made the original piece quickly, shortly after the death of Chris Cornell. Few celebrity deaths hit me like his did (I wrote a bit about it here). Anyway, his death was on my mind and his music was in my ears while I was working on "Sun Gun." The body of the crow is built to show a forward-facing gear under the neck that reminded me of the cover of Badmotorfinger.

The short version of the story is that I meant for the piece to be about fearlessness, arrogance, exploration, and vulnerability. No good fighter gets into the ring thinking there is a snowball's chance he'll lose. Neil Armstrong and Alan Shepard played golf on the moon. I've always been fascinated by that scene in 1902's A Trip to the Moon where the rocket hits the moon in the eye: the Victorians don't just land on the moon, they shoot themselves into it. The first line of "Nearly Forgot My Broken Heart" is "Every time I stare into the sun" but it also sounds like "stab into the sun." It's about again and again taking steps into the unknown that you already know is dangerous.

Anyway, the crow of the unfinished version of "Sun Gun" had the right posture but was entirely too flimsy. In a race to keep moving, I used thin sheet metal and not much of it. I only just figured out that it was the crow itself that bothered me. Up until two days ago I was still thinking about how to change the base to make it more attractive. At one point I had even concocted plans for an elaborate mechanical contraption to rotate the base through a path mimicking the total eclipse we experienced here in August. I wasn't excited about any of those ideas (which I now understand was because they were wrong), so "Sun Gun" sat in the back of the garage.

My unhappiness with it finally turned into action when I realized it was the crow that needed work, not the base. I had all the materials I needed to puff it up the way it should be: more grit, more bulk, more moxy. Saw blades, rusty rods, a carving knife, old hinges . . . I used cut nails and pieces of a drain snake from the same stock as I used on "My Father's Hammer," which I like because it adds some resonance between them.

Finishing this feels like putting a piece into a puzzle that you couldn't place before because you were holding it upside down: fitting that piece in not only takes care of that piece, but opens the way for what's next.

​Here are some pictures. There are a few more on this page.

I happy to announce that my first owl sculpture (now named "The First Owl") received first place in the professional sculpture division at the 2017 South Carolina State Fair. The prize money will make a nice addition to my art war chest. I've got big plans.

​This is the last weekend of the fair. My wife and I have been virus-ridden zombies all week, but we managed to rally and get the kids out there this morning (we live just a short distance to the fairgrounds). I can report that the baby ducks are still being tricked into going down the water slide, the roosters are still cool, and AC/DC is still the soundtrack to the Matterhorn ride.

I can also report that, though a five minute conversation with a representative from the Libertarian Party, I have definitively demonstrated to myself that I am not a Libertarian. I do not believe a "de-centralized, community-based" to hurricane relief in Puerto Rico would be more effective than what the federal government is capable of doing. I also do not believe all state and local governments have done a super great job of protecting the fundamental rights of their citizens. Or educating them. Or providing them with basic services. 

Also: the kids each came home with an inflatable rainbow poop emoji. I have refused to participate in blowing them up. That's today's report from paradise.

This is just a quick post to update some recent goings on in my art world. I've been busy at work and home the past couple of weeks, so I've had little time to do much new except collect materials and make some minor progress on "Beauty and Grace" (my entry into this year's ArtFields competition, pending completion). But here's what else has been going on:

"Old Ben" at the Zoo Auction
​
The winning bid on "Old Ben" at ZooFari was $325. I have no idea who walked away with it (I've met or know every other person that owns one of my sculptures). I estimated the piece would go for around $300, so I got that part right. I wish I knew who bought it.

"Call It In" at Rosewood

I'm happy to announce that my entry into the Rosewood Art & Music Festival won first place in the three-dimensional category. I entered "Call It In," my first attempt at a Mississippi Kite. There was a lot of great artwork at the festival, and it was an honor to win a prize.

​I didn't know these birds before I moved to Columbia -- they migrate into the area in the summer from South America to breed and feast on cicadas, circling over our neighborhoods in June, July, and August. 

I put a price tag on "Call It In" but it didn't sell at the festival. If you're interested, it's now listed on my Etsy site.

It doesn't make sense to beat up on my own artwork when it's for sale, but there are a few things about this piece that bother me. The wings are too short, and I'm not satisfied with some aspects of the posture and body covering. I'll probably attempt another kite at some point for that reason. I've done three owls now and I still haven't made the owl I really want. I'm working on my fourth ceratopsian and my third crow. We'll see.

I'd like to thank my neighbors for their interest and support. Columbia is a good art town.

As always, I invite you to follow the Zero Point Mechanic page on Facebook to keep up with what's going on in my garage.

Just because I haven't been writing much about my art doesn't mean I haven't been busy. With the academic semester is in full swing, it's an evening and weekend pursuit. I've been working on a few different things but most of my energy has been going toward finishing up the piece I plan to enter in ArtFields (entries are due in early November).  Here are some highlights of what I've got coming up.

"Old Ben," Going Once . . .

As I mentioned earlier, I contributed a sculpture for the Columbia zoo's annual "ZooFari" fundraiser.  I don't really know how this sort of combination live/online auctions work, but there has already been at least one bid even through the live auction isn't until tomorrow evening.

You can bid on "Old Ben" here and I encourage you to do so. If the bid stays below $100, I'm going to buy it myself and he's going right back on my mantle.

Rosewood Art Festival Mystery Sculpture

My entry into the juried show at the Rosewood Art & Music Festival was accepted. The show itself is a one-day event on September 30th, so I'll drop the sculpture off in the morning, it will get judged, and then I'll pick it back up at 5:00. If it sells, I'll pick up a check that will go into the Zero Point Mechanic World Domination Fund.

For some reason I can't claim to understand, participants are not supposed to identify their entries online. So I'm not telling you what I entered. I'll just say I like it, but I'm putting a price tag on it.

If you're in the Columbia area, come and see some art and listen to some music on Rosewood.

Stickers: An Indoor Activity

I can't always work in my garage when I want to, so I stay busy indoors sometimes. I'm not doing much at these days that doesn't produce heat, sparks, and fumes, but I have taken to playing with sticker designs. You can see/purchase what I've come up with so far at my Etsy shop.

The tri-lobed rooster design is one I've been working on for a long time.

The yin-yang "dark-bright" Triceratops heads are something I worked on while we were cooped up inside getting lashed by the outer bands of Hurricane Irma. I couldn't decide on which color combinations and configurations I like the most, so I had a batch of 1" ones printed as a experiment.

South Carolina State Fair: A Pair of Birds

Next week I'll drop off my two entries for the South Carolina State Fair. I decided to go with two pieces from this year that I love and don't ever plan on selling. I'm not sure they're my best work, but they're a good pair. 

After everyone submits what they're going to submit, there is a process where they "jury out" things that aren't judged to be suitable for whatever reason. Everything that's left is judged, prizes are awarded, etc. Awards are announced in early October.

Last year, my crow sculpture won "Best of Show" in the amateur division. That was a real confidence booster, and it was a rare treat to get to take my kids to see my work literally in the spotlight with a big ass ribbon on it. I don't expect I'll be able to pull that off again, but I still love fairs and I'm looking forward to seeing all of this year's entries and seeing how mine do.
​

ArtFields: Go Big or Go Home

ArtFields is a big deal: it's billed as one of the largest professional art shows in the Southeast. You can only enter one thing, and it's reportedly very difficult to get in. I missed the deadline last year but have been planning for this year ever since.

Originally I was planning on entering "Grace," but as the fall started I began thinking/imagining that I'd have enough time to also finish "Beauty" and produce the "Beauty and Grace" pairing I've been envisioning since I started on "Grace" last spring. 

The deadline is November 9, so I've got a month and half left. Wish me luck: it's going to be a push to get it done.

Summer is almost over, and the beginning of the academic part of my year looms in the near future. I was able to spend quite a bit of time on my art hobby this summer, beginning with stocking up for my May/June show at Tapp's and continuing to make stuff at a pretty rapid clip up until our family vacation. I won't be putting my workshop into mothballs, but archaeology will put the brakes on the art until the spring.

I've spent some time at the end of the summer taking photographs and creating a store on Etsy for the items that are for sale. I've also entered some pieces in upcoming shows and contributed one piece to a nonprofit auction. The "Art" section of my website is reorganized (and still under construction). Here's the rundown: 

And now you are up-to-date. As always, you can follow work in progress on the Zero Point Mechanic page on Facebook.

It already sounds like a paper title -- just replace what's after the colon with "A Model-Based Approach."

I'm coming up on the end of my second year in South Carolina. I think it takes a few annual cycles before you start to "get" the rhythms and tempos of seasonality in a new environment. Prior to coming here I had lived in the Midwest for most of my life, so there's a lot to learn. 

As an archaeologist, I don't try to understand the environment just so I can give it a round of applause (if I had to pick what to applaud here, however, it probably would be the birds, flowers, and insects). Human societies and natural environments are inter-linked in numerous and  complex ways -- figuring out those linkages and understanding how the "social" and "natural" parts of those coupled systems affect one another is an intrinsically interesting and profoundly important part of understanding how human societies work and how they changed in the past.

My point in writing this isn't to compose a fully-formed, well-researched argument, but rather to jot down a few observations/ideas/questions that have struck me since I transplanted myself into a region of the country with environments that are, in many ways, dissimilar from those of the Midcontinental interior with which I am most familiar (i.e., the Ohio Valley, the Till Plains, the Great Lakes). I don't have time to pull all these strings yet -- I'm just noting them.

First, the Deer . . .

Early on, I commented on what must be differences in the demography and behavior of a key Holocene large game species (white-tailed deer) across the different regions of the Eastern Woodlands. One would expect that those regional differences -- whatever they are -- would have articulated somehow with the behaviors of the human populations that exploited them.  Generally, we presume that periodic (i.e., seasonal) aggregations of hunter-gatherer populations are useful to those societies for a number of demographic and social reasons. Logically, aggregations of large numbers of people have to take place when and where the resource base can support them. I would guess that most archaeologists in the north have a "fall aggregation" model in their heads, based in part on when deer are the fattest and least cautious. Are those conditions different in the Southeast, where the seasonal gradient is much less severe than in the north?  Do deer populations go through boom/bust cycles? If so, are those linked to periodicities in mast production? Do those periodicities differ from region to region in the Eastern Woodlands? Deer hunting isn't everything, but it's surely something.

​Second, the Sea . . .

At some recent conference, I had a conversation with a colleague who has been working in this region for a long time. It was clear he had had a few drinks, so he was probably telling me the truth. He said that the rhythms and tempos of hunting and gathering on the coast are very different than in the interior. I've never done coastal archaeology -- when I go to the beach it's usually to let the kids play, watch birds, and look for shells.

We were at Edisto last year during the time when the loggerhead sea turtles come ashore to lay their eggs. These are big animals, with adults weighing about 300 pounds (up to about 1000 pounds). The females come ashore at night during the summer to lay about 120 eggs in a nest in the sand. 

Watching the Edisto turtle patrol identify and check nests every morning, I became curious about how turtle nesting behavior articulated with prehistoric coastal hunter-gatherers in this region. The nests are easily spotted by the tread-like path that turtles leave as they move across the sand. Caught in the act, the adult turtles are large packages of meat, sitting in the open, defenseless. Presumably a couple of people could flip one on its back and return later for an on-the-spot feast or to butcher the animal.

How much archaeological evidence is there of sea turtle exploitation on the Carolina coast? Does it change through time? Where would sea turtles rank in terms of a seasonally-predictable resource that could be used to support periodic aggregations? Were sea turtles part of coastal Carolina hunter-gatherer cosmology (perhaps in connection with the summer solstice)? I don't know the answers to any of these questions.

Third, the Air . . .

The birds here are beautiful, plentiful, varied, and constant. Of the 914 species of birds documented in the United States, over 400 occur in South Carolina. That's a lot of birds. Some sing all year round. Some even sing at night. It's fabulous.

One bird I have learned about since I moved here is the Mississippi Kite. It is a smallish, grey raptor that winters in South America but breeds in the southeastern United States.

These birds eat mostly flying insects, and you can see them circling over my neighborhood during much of the summer. Their appearance in the region seems to coincide with what I interpret as the "high" insect season -- the cicadas are hatching in force and there are things buzzing around everywhere. They're a signal of a season change here, perhaps much in the same way as the yearly arrival of Turkey Vultures north of the Ohio River. 

However the annual long-distance migration/breeding pattern of the kites evolved, I would guess that the dense insect populations of the Southeast are a key to making it viable. That got me thinking about the effects of longer-term periodicities, particularly the those of the 13-year and 17-year periodical cicadas. The emergence of buhzillions of cicadas at the same time would surely make for easy living for the kites, as well as for game animals with an insect-based diet (e.g., turkeys). The periodical cicadas tend to damage trees, however, which reduces mast production (and hence could have a suppressing effect on deer populations). Did any of this factor into the characteristics (social, behavioral, cosmological, etc.) of the prehistoric human societies of this region? I don't know.

Finally, from the Periodic to the Anomalous . . .

The completion of my second year in Columbia will be marked by a total solar eclipse that I'll be able to experience from my backyard on August 21 at 2:41 p.m. I've never seen a total eclipse before, and I may never see one again. Most people don't see one in their lifetime. I'm really looking forward to it. Thankfully I won't have to stay up late at night to see it.

Obviously, it's now old hat for us to predict these "anomalous" astronomical alignments with a great deal of accuracy (business depends on it). Given how infrequently these things occur and the low probability of any one person accidentally being in the right place at the right time to witness it, it's natural to wonder what prehistoric peoples would have made of this sort of phenomenon. I'm really curious as to what it will feel like to experience it firsthand (I'd also like to know what's it like to be in a hurricane, to break the sound barrier, to be close to a tornado, to fly at the edge of the atmosphere, to experience zero gravity, etc., in case your looking for ideas for my birthday).

So What?

Somewhere in all this mess, there's a question to be crystalized about how human societies "tune" themselves to the predictable and unpredictable fluctuations in their environments. What are the feedbacks? What are the dampers? What are the common denominators? What is the range of risk/variability that societies create cultural rules or behaviors to respond to? What happens when the needle moves outside of that range? Which parts are robust? Which parts break? How do responses scale to the size and predictability of perturbations across time and space?  I have no answers right now, just questions.

And now I've got to move on and do other things.

I didn't think it would happen, but it did: after my final push to finish new work for the Afterburner re-opening, I needed a break from the garage. I busted my butt for several sweaty, grimy weeks and got seven new things pushed out of my head. The Tapp's people helped me move them, and they did a wonderful job rearranging everything to integrate the new pieces. The place looked great on opening night, the weather cooperated, and there was a steady stream of people coming through. I enjoyed talking to everyone I met.  

I didn't make any new sales that night. The show isn't over yet (it runs until the 23rd), but it looks like I'll need to find homes for some of the larger pieces (I love them, but my backyard can only support so many large animals). If you're interested, have a look at what's for sale. If you like one of the larger ones and have a good plan for what to do with it, I'll talk turkey on price (contact Tapp's) and may be willing to discuss donating after the show is over in cases where a piece could be displayed in public (or in a business, etc.). In any case, this experience has helped me learn how to look forward to what's next in addition to looking back. That makes it easier to let things go. 

I haven't taken the time lately to write individual "how I made it" blog posts, but I did update the Gallery page with some photos of recently completed work. 

​And who knows what's next. I spent a few days shoehorning my old record player and 8-track into a sewing table.  Then I reorganized my workshop.  Then yesterday I started working on an owl made from an antique roller skate.

I'm happy to announce that my solo sculpture exhibit at Tapp's Arts Center has been extended through June 23, 2017. There will be a "re-opening" on June 1 at 6:00, hopefully without the severe weather that accompanied the first opening in May. Here is the event on Facebook if you're interested and in the area.

Since the semester ended (I'm on a 9-month contract with the University), I've had the luxury of taking a step back from the day-to-day grind of the academic world and spending more time in my garage. The results of that are that: (a) I'm in a better mood; and (b) I've finished several new pieces that will be added to the show. Some of the new stuff will be for sale and some will not.  There are few pictures of some of the new pieces in my last blog post. Here are a few more:

My short-term plan has been to "use down" my stock of material so that I have an excuse to finally visit the local scrap yard (there are several particular things I want that I'll probably never find on the curb). While all of my recent work has used up a lot of stuff, however, I keep accumulating. I'm at a point where what I'm making is significantly affected by what I'm hauling home on a day-to-day basis -- it's fun, but I'm afraid it isn't making much of a dent in the amount of stuff I have on hand. Grace and several other pieces still have to stay out of the weather until I decide what, if anything, I want to put on them to protect them, so it's getting pretty cozy in there. Someday, perhaps, I'll have a larger space and I'll fondly remember the time I spent sweating my ass off in a tiny garage trying to find a horizontal surface on which to set my beer on that wasn't covered in scrap metal or rat crap.

There are several days until I deliver the new pieces to Tapp's. I'm going to have some flexibility during that time. I may produce a few more things, or I may just sleep a lot. Maybe I'll manage to do both.

So . . . that was fun!

My show at Tapp's Arts Center opened last night during a heavy rain. Being as this is my first show and this was my first time being downtown on First Thursday, I have no points of comparison in terms of the number of people who walked through the door. I'm told it was a low turnout in general but a good turnout for a rainy night. 

I talked to a lot of interesting people (several of whom I had "met" online but never spoken with in person) and two of the sculptures sold (the heron and the cockfight are spoken for; the triceratops head, tyrannosaurus, rabbit, pachycephalosaurus, and stegosaurus are still available). I stayed up a few hours too late and had one glass of wine too many, but your first art show only happens once, so I give myself a pass.

I'm kicking myself a bit because I took very few photos during the show. It would be nice to have some images of people looking at stuff, and a picture or two with me in it. If you took any good pictures and you'd like to share them, please send me an email at [email protected]. 

Two "preview" pieces came out on Wednesday if you're interested. This one by August Krickel ran in the Free Times. This one by Brad Dountz appeared in Jasper Project blog.

Here are a few photos showing how Tapp's set things up. I thought it worked very nicely, and I appreciate all the hard work that Caitlin Bright, Shigeharu Kobayashi, and others put into the effort. Thank you!