Almost, not quite, pretty close, to done with "The Stockmen"

Today, I chased defects. (Chasing is the term used for taking small tool steel tools that have all sorts of different surfaces and shapes on the end, and using them to hammer down or chisel off blisters, zits, scabs, pieces of foil, or any other thing minute thing on the surface of the bronze that shouldn't be there.

Then, I used an oxidizer to patina the bronze to a darker hue. Then I used steel wool to burnish back a lot of the dark oxidized surface. Then I waxed it all down and polished it with a cloth.

And then I took preliminary photos with an improvised backdrop. Real photos to take place next week.

Here are the "dailies", one under florescent lighting and one under incandescent:

At the beginning of the year, I made a half-serious resolution that I would try to entertain myself with my own content. Clearly, that's not entirely possible. I do go to movies. I do go to the library. I do watch some TV. I listen to other people's music.

And it's important to do that. I once had a former English teacher of mine, a good friend of my mom's, berate me for not reading any fiction. I asked why I should, and she told me that it is important to entertain perspectives and worldviews other than one's own. That's.... that was a good answer.

Reading, like travel, broadens one's own experiences and is a good innoculation against bigotry and small-mindedness.

So, I will continue to read and absorb and experience other people's stuff, but I feel I need to start really fleshing out my own internal worlds with narratives and stories and rationalizations and justifications, at least so that there is a coherence to the kind of art I am making. Just so that I've got, for lack of a better term, a ground floor of sanity for all this weirdness.

Doesn't mean I'm going to give you the stories behind these things. That's YOUR job!