The Olive Jar

My wife and I have a cocktail each evening before dinner.  I prefer a tall gin and tonic while JoAnn favors martinis.  Ice cubes and a slice of lime makes my day end complete.  JoAnn likes crushed ice and two large green olives.  She calls it her martini slush.  One drink  per night adds up, if calculated for over 30+ years we have been married, resulting in many olives and quite a few olive jars.  As you no doubt have guessed, this has to do with the title of this post. 

With the creation of a new vessel series, “empty/promises (e/p), I have been saving empty bottles, jars and other assorted containers to use as the container I build the vessel around.  Several earlier posts have shown examples of this and my web site, www.apatchablue.com has a gallery devoted to these pieces, showing the evolution of the vessels. My next vessel will be built around an empty olive jar using olive wood segments.  It is just beginning as shown in the photo above.  The fiberglass mat wrapped around the glass jar, is ready to be coated with resin.  You will also note several jars in this photo, all olive jars of various sizes.  I am working out the details of a new series within my series. These completely straight sided jars make it possible to cover the exterior with vertical strips of wood.  The strips can be interrupted in a random pattern to allow pockets for some special stones, tile or whatever fits the mood of the design.

To help visualize what has just been described verbally, a sketch of this idea is shown above.  It is helpful to do this step before starting the project.  Problems that arise can be though through and resolved before the production gets under way.  As each vessel is completed I will share an image and further detail in a post.   This current post presents some of the thought and planning that precedes the creation of this art and I hope this information has been of some interest to you. 

Monitor vs.Merrimac

For those of you who know your Civil War history you will recognize these two names as those given to early versions of ironclad ships.  The USS Monitor was built by the Union navy and the Merrimack was a make-over of a wood hulled steam ship by the Confederates.  They met in battle on March 9, 1862, and after four hours of fighting, neither ironclad seriously damaged the other.  On may 11, 1862 the Merrimack was ordered to be blown up to keep it out of the Union hands.  Some time later the Monitor sank 15 miles south of Cape Hatteras while being towed during a storm.  This ended the historic battle of the ironclads and marked the beginning for new designed war ships.

My art piece focuses on the change created by these two prototypes but does'n try to mimic their shapes or battle equipment.  The ironclad concept, which was such a revolutionary idea, (pardon the pun) has been simulated in my piece by mixing iron filings in the resin that covers the hull. That will be the extent of my critique of the design I have chosen, leaving other facets for you to ponder.

Dribs and Drabs

The title for this post comes from an expression I have heard used occasionally when describing the presentation of information in "bits and pieces".  Maybe bits and pieces would be a more recognized phrase but I liked the dictionary definition of "drib" to introduce my thoughts in this post.  Even better, why not combine the best of each phrase to label my current topic, wallah!  "Dribs and bits".  Rather than coining a new phrase I should move on and share my thoughts with you.

When creating art using resin, often more is mixed than needed for the job.  My general practice has been to pour this excess into a pill bottle.  The next excess resin is poured on top and so on until the pill bottle is full of cured resin.  To add interest to this resin filled container,in addition to the variation that may occur in color, also bits of resin collected from the work area drip sheet are saved and added to the mix as the pill bottle is filled.

This is far from art by design, but surprises often emerge when the tubes of cured resin are sawed into disks much like cutting up carrots to cook (see photo above).  These disks can be used in numerous ways to adorn an art object.  Now that their origin  has been explained here is an examples of how these resin disks or orbs have been used.

"Mosaic Tower"


 This vessel has a square bottle inside so it can be used to hold liquid.  A long stem rose will turn mosaic tower into a vase or a dry arrangement can be used.  This is a recently produced piece in my e/p series.  Other e/p vessels can be seen on my web site (Apatchablue.com) in the gallery, so designated.

Finished At Last

Have you heard  the old tale about a race between a rabbit and turtle?  Of course the rabbit (or hare) was much faster and left the turtle (or tortoise) in the dust.  The hare was careless and with his big lead took side trips and got involved with other amusements.  On the other hand the tortoise kept plugging along and eventually crossed the finish line with the hare nowhere to be seen.  When the hare remembered the contest he sped to the end of the race to finish second.  The moral of the story is to be a winner, keep your eye on the end goal and don't become distracted by other factors.













I just finished this art piece which I call "Butcher Block Tortoise".  The shell is made of 3/4 inch Oak pieces, glued together with the grain running vertically.  This is the way butcher blocks for kitchens or meat markets are made, hence the name for my tortoise.  I started this piece while living in Wenatchee, Washington and it has moved with us many times over the last thirty plus years.  I have decided to finish up several projects of this nature.  The under-frame for this piece was arc welded and built up when I could use this form of welding.  My pace maker now limits me being around such activity.

Several conclusions could be associated with the Hare/Tortoise story in the first paragraph.  This tortoise took a long time getting to the finish line, and typical of the hare, I got distracted by the many things that came along in my life until I realized the need to race to the goal line with this project.  It feels good to have it finished.  Have a good day and check for tortoise among your accomplishments.

Our Apatchablue Home

The first home my wife, JoAnn and I designed together and had built was in Wenatchee, Washington, high in the foothills overlooking the Columbia River as it made it's way past town.  A prominent rock formation called Saddle Rock, located immediately behind us, was a landmark seen from all over the valley.

We had just been married and it was an exciting time for us as we became thoroughly involved in the home building process, collecting materials and making decisions.  Much of our shopping was done in the Seattle area,Spokane and Portland, Oregon.  As the basic construction was progressing, we were locating unique item in these shopping markets and hauling our finds home to store in our little rented house until needed on the construction site.

We found a beautiful irregular cut floor tile in Seattle that had blues and greens in various hues,  mixed in a high glazed surface.  This is how it looked on our bathroom floor.

We found and ordered a truck load of flat blue cement tile for our roof.  When the builder was ready the tile arrived and was unloaded on to the roof.  It gave a finished look and provided a lasting surface.

A substantial change in elevation occurred at the back of the pad which required an eight foot high retaining  wall.  The builder cast a cement wall in place, giving it a pleated pattern to provide strength.  He exposed the aggregate on one surface and left the apposing surface smooth with several recessed
grooves.  The notches this wall design created were ideal spots for planting dwarf fruit trees.

In this scene several features can be seen in addition to the fact that it snows a lot in Wenatchee.  The exterior of the home was covered with vertical fir siding as were many of the interior walls.  Secondly, a cupola had been designed to snuggle into the roof over the second story bunk house, so named because it had extra beds for visitors.  The cupola had padded seats all around for comfortable viewing from this highest vantage point.  Several large pillows were available if one wished to stretch out and relax.

This house wasn't designed for the mobility challenged individual because of its many floor levels.

 Starting in the sunken living room ...

it is several step up into the music area.

Two more steps up reaches the ground floor.  From there a curved staircase leads to a balcony and entrance to the bunk house.              

To enter the cupola it is necessary to scamper up a padded ladder and you are at the top of the house.

Did you notice that deep blue rug in the living room and music area?  On the way up the curved             staircase, a close look is provided of our art collection, hung on the tall sloping wall.

There were many special features in our home such as this carved door at our front entry.  A local artist had a business established in town, producing a variety of patterns that were mechanically carved in the door. The leaded glass window on the far right of the door is shown in detail below.  It is a wisteria pattern and is located in the corner of the master bath.

The bank of clear story windows across the front of the living room and music area gives a tremendous view of the Columbia River.  The fog along the river as shown below, gives the sensation of floating in the clouds.  We decided to give this special home and studio a name and chose "Apatchablue."  I guess it is't too difficult to identify the rational for that choice.

Little Red Pot

I have been making smaller vessels primarily because of limited shop space in our down-sized new home and my physical limitations won't allow wrestling the six foot plus, 150 to 300  pound vessels around as was my former creative style.  I have also started a new line of vessels that use cast-off containers for the internal cavity.  This method which I have dubbed, Empty/Promises or E/P for short has been explained in previous posts and in detail in the last section of my book, "Unique Vessels: How Do You Make These Things?  It can be accessed on my web page at Apatchablue. com.

This post is focused on one of these E/P vessels, just completed this past week.  The Empty container used is an olive jar as shown here.



 The exterior shape of the jar was modified with the addition of Styrofoam rings.  I chose a unique wood I had in my collection that had a smooth gray bark and a natural red colored wood.  I'm not sure what type of tree these limbs came from, but by asking around and showing the leaf and seed structure to the experts their diagnosis was a unique Eucalyptus tree.

When all parts came together and an oil/wax finish was applied the results are as shown below.

Too Many Irons in the Fire

Where did that saying come from?  I have heard some interesting derivations of common terms or sayings.  It would be challenging to put them in a post and ask you, the post reader to add to the list until we end up with a dictionary of saying with derivations.  But not now.  I have too many irons in the fire to take on a new project like that.  My last post was May 8, 2013.  What the heck have I been doing?  Well, I'm back with a bunch of excuses.

JoAnn, my wife, and I have taken over our web site.  We weren't pleased with the way our original site had been designed and had been given very little access to make changes.  We decided to do it ourselves, from the bottom up with some assistance from a knowledgeable woman who teaches this in college.  For what we wanted to do with a web site she advised us to use FrontPage 2003 and arranged an account with Godaddy.  FrontPage has been around a long time and is more understandable than many other programs.  We got a "how to do it" book and started to set up our web site with four galleries to exhibit our work and a number of the other bells and whistles.  It has taken longer than planned, but we want to get it right so the viewers can find their way around easily.  I will be adding to the galleries as new work is completed.  Take a look and let us know if you like it.  Suggestions are welcome. Go to www.apatchablue.com
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Another "Iron in the Fire" has been my art work.  I am developing a series of vessels shown in Gallery 3 on our web site that I call empty/promises.  This process is explained in the heading of the Gallery 3.  My work is limited to smaller pieces now(12" to 20" tall) because of the down-sizing of our home.  More on that in another post.  I have six pieces in various stages of completion.  This is common practice as some of the steps require a curing time and I can keep busy on other pieces while this is taking place.  Most of the six pieces currently on the workbench are well curried.  I must confess I haven't been able to focus on them.  It's that irons in the fire thing.

In addition to the web site I'm using Facebook and Pinterest to get my word out.  I like to take a short segment of a post and put it on Facebook with a picture.  Then I will pin that same picture on one of my boards in Pinterest.  It isn't that complicated but it does take time.  I invite you to look at these two social media sites,   www.facebook.com   www.pinterest.com.

This past week I have spent 100% of my time on the book I'm writing.  It's my autobiography entitled "Growing Up in the Country" which chronicles my journey from boyhood on a dry land Montana ranch to retirement in Arizona today.  The 600+ pages have been written and currently are undergoing editing.  A potential of over 700 pictures, maps and sketches are collected to augment the story line.  I plan to use short portions of text and pictures from the book on future posts.  They will be identified with the book to give a preview of it's content.

This sums up my leisurely life of retirement and I am enjoying it immensely.  I guess you have to use judgment about when to put another iron in the fire.