In the past few years I feel that I have reached the fullness of my capabilities with the technique of wet carved concrete. I have come to understand the limits as an individual, working alone, can accomplish. Weight and size of the work, the setting time of the concrete to the point where it can still be reasonably worked, the degree of detail and complexity, and the physical endurance of the carver are in combination the parameters that govern a carving session. Creatively there is more than enough room to operate within these constraints. Many of the simple pieces are done spontaneously and mostly because I have done this so many times. The majority of other pieces are done from pencil sketches. And the work that is more intricate and detailed is done from small clay models. This is primarily for a clear look at the projected piece in three dimensions so I can know where to make the all important initial major removals. I say projected piece because the clay model is only a general idea of what is being sought. The intuitive/creative choices, details and qualities that emerge during the carving process determine the outcome.

This whole process of wet carving is unique because it is chemistry driven. Chemistry doesn't give a hoot about what biology wants. The best I can explain it, in a big picture kind of way, is like this. Spirituality stirs (the creative desire) in biology (the carver) and the carver commits to express the impulse. The sandstone has been crushed, the limestone has been cooked and chemically separated into it's basic compounds. With water these two different types of rock are combined and by chemical reaction will reconstitute a new hybrid rock: concrete. This having been initiated the carver pulls off the form and stands before the chosen vehicle of self-expression. The window of opportunity to express is open and because chemistry is steadily doing its thing the carver is obligated to submit to the process of chemistry that the spirit committed to earlier. The technique of wet carved concrete is governed by chemistry and desire.

Given the nature of the wet carved concrete process I have found that long and focused sessions are exhausting. I have come to realized that the mental concentration and physical exertion required leaves me spent. Carves of up to 4 or 5 hours approach my threshold of how worn out I can expect to be the next day. Carves over 5 hours and up to 8 hours can leave me totally wiped out for a number of days. I've had times when it has taken 5 days to recuperate. The usual limitation on an extended carve is the concrete having set to a point where you are no longer scraping away the mix but are beginning to scratch the surface and shatter the sand. Another limitation is muscle cramps. Because of this I try to do most of the rough out with my left hand and try to save my right hand for the detailed work. The "Finial" was an 8 hour carve. In the last hour I was so tired, the concrete kept getting harder to work, and my hand was beginning to cramp to the point where I had to pry my fingers apart to release the tool. I was facing a really awesome piece that had emerged from a round chunk of soft mix just hours before. To stop at that point I would have ended up with a "really cool piece with a large unfinished spot" but I stretched it off and persisted because I wanted the "really cool finished piece". For me sometimes this is what it takes to create a intricate detailed piece. It is that last hour or two of concentration and finesse with the tools that gives that soft, uniform surface quality. I tell you this not to discourage you but to help you understand that there is sometimes a delayed physical toll required to receive the reward. So commit to the creative desire, then submit to the process and respect the wear and tear that it takes to express yourself in this fashion.

In the early eighties I was in graduate school and living out in the hills of Tennessee in an old cabin with no electricity or running water. My neighbors Jack B. Hastings and Arlyn Ende, both artists, had found their way to rural Tennessee in the mid-seventies via NYC, Boston, and Tuscon. Through the Tennessee Arts Commission Jack had been selected to build a monumental concrete piece for the I-75 Welcome Center southeast of Chattanooga. Jack had been working with concrete for a while and was well aware that he would need and apprentice, i.e. laborer, for the mixing and form filling step of the process so he could save his strength for carving. So for $4.00 an hour I would hop in the truck and drive the mile or so and shovel sand into a big mixer, the help shovel the mix into the form. I was not needed for the carving stage. But on one day Jack said, "We have some leftover do you want to make something." The cylinder form was the obvious choice. That afternoon I made a 150lb. chunk of a planter. Another time I made a smaller pot. One day Jack said, "You know with carving concrete the materials are cheap and no one else is doing it. I started out with just a wheelbarrow and a hoe." I thought perfect, "I never have any money and I don't want any competition." And so it began. Jack and I are still fast friends and I affectionately call him my "minner". Years later when we were hanging out I said, "You forgot to mention how hard the work was". He raised his eyebrows cocked his head slightly to the side and grinned. So it is only appropriate to honor the person who enticed me to pursue this spiritually uplifting an physically degrading work by including a gallery of some of his works.

If you have already made some things then you may look at them and think, "they don't look as good as Elder's." Guess what my first pieces didn't look that great either, but check out my cousin's first piece. Here is an example of my early work with pieces 3 through 5, a large stepping stone and a step with inlaid concrete. A few years later most of my work mostly had geometric and abstract decoration on the surface. This cluster of planters is typical of most of the things I was doing at that time. My favorite piece of the eighties was the Rich Pink Planter.

A few years ago I experimented with Hypertufa, or tufa, as it is commonly refered to today. Having already developed carving skills and seen what was out there I naturally assumed that I was already ahead of the game before I even started. The thing that held me back was the cost of the potting soil. I was used to buying five tons of sand at a time and that was cheap. A friend of mine told me about a greenhouse that I could go to and get used stuff for free as they always needed to transplant into sterile mix. Bingo. I sifted a pick-up bed full of used Pro-Mix through ¼ inch hardware cloth and ended up with 4 or 5 large trash cans full of material. I applaud anyone who is making their mix by hand because it's a real work out. Over a couple of years I made 3 or 4 dozen pieces. The technique is essentially the same and I made a number of legged pieces by sand casting the feet. I liked the long working time, and the fact that small adjustments could be made a few days later. The formula I have in Sherri Hunter's books, 3:1, is to lean so don't use it. It should approach 2:1. I found a lot of my pieces began to crumble and ex-foliate after a few years due to the freeze / thaw cycle, even with fiber mesh embedded. Here are some of the tufa pieces that I made.

Recently, since I'm nearly 60, my direction is to do what generates the most money for the least amount of work. Basically the opposite of what I did for a long time. I wonder sometimes how many of these things I've got left in me. But as I sit here typing, with stinging forearms from the day before, there is a fifty-two inch pillar for the first "Fairy Light" sitting across the room in the kitchen. Hardest carve I've done in a while so it must not be over yet. The things I intend to do are the pieces of that scale. That is, organic, or geometric pieces that are made in a few sections that fit together and make a whole. Working this way allows me to design an intricate and involved piece. It makes work that is manageable for both me and the future owner. Many of the sculptural pieces were done in this way.

I enjoy and plan to continue with the planters. I have made a lot of planters and what you see in the gallery is just a smattering of examples. Over the past few years I have been tinkering with the miniature land-form garden planter idea. I think bonsai is the penultimate example of a miniature plant. To me bonsai makes the observer feel larger and more dominant by giving them a God's-eye-view of something, lets say, an ancient, weathered spruce tree. Shadow boxes and electric trains can elicit the same sense of perspective also, and in a healthy way. Probably its as simple as human nature doing cool things and having fun. The thing that got me thinking about all of this was the Flat Top Planter. It was too awkward and heavy to move around so I kept it and eventually planted it with the small Portulaca Talinum teretifolium, whose common name is Rock Pink or Fame Flower. Around here this species has evolved in the Ceder Glade Ecosystem and its habitat is the thin margin of soil around exposed "glades" of limestone bedrock or other isolated pockets of soil. The mighty Fame Flower, a few inches high, throws up vibrant fuchsia colored flowers and can live in a place so harsh that even Stone Crop and Sandwort struggle to survive. So the epiphany was that the large flat surface with the tiny planted area represented the natural environment of the plant, more so than if it were simply in a small pot. An ancient weathered spruce clinging to a refrigerator-sized planter would be quite impressive in that not only is the plant made small but proportionally its surroundings had been depicted to enhance the perspective. Admittedly this is an extreme and for practical purposes unrealistic. The genesis of this concept is also rooted in something Jack mentioned years ago about his time working in Tuscon. Surrounded by the Sonora desert environment he found himself designing the planters to fit the plants.

So given that concept my intention is to continue to explore these types of pieces. Landforms Planters, as good a name as any, with pockets of vegetation. The two Canyon Planters and the two Hoodoo Planters were generated from this idea and the Mesa Planter is the most successful of the lot. The pieces will tend more towards a "slice of desert" theme with cacti and small succulents. Some pieces will be designed strictly with bonsai in mind and mindful of the need to attach an anchor wire. Mostly that depends on if anyone shows an interest. Comments and advice are welcome. The other attraction for this style is that the pieces would be relatively small and easier to ship as parcels rather than as freight. By mid-summer I hope to have the Available Pieces page up where these works will be presented.