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Sculpture

Seahorse Effigy

We were asked to make the effigy for 2008's fall Playa del Fuego, a regional event affiliated with Burning Man and held in Delaware each spring and fall. The burning of the effigy is the culmination of the event (no, it has no specific significance, just tradition). The photos below are of our creation, from conception to realization to burn. It was our "creative liberty" on the usual effigy theme for this event: a pony (our neighbor Wayne thought up the seahorse idea, we'd initially thought to do a Trojan Horse). The seahorse alone was 10' tall and made of driftwood Kevin and I gathered along the Potomac. It sat on a burn stack 5' high.

Kevin built a 16' bamboo and tarp structure in our driveway for us to work in. He constructed an armature (support structure for a sculpture) to my specifications. Using sketches I'd done of a seahorse as guidance, we proceeded to cover the armature and fill out the seahorse over two evenings, taking a total of about 7 hours to essentially "finish" the piece for transportation. It was remarkably easy; I'd pick a piece of driftwood and determine where it should go, then Kevin would wire or screw it in place. Naturally, once we were at Playa Del Fuego we spent another day putting on finishing touches (like the "spines" along the back and head, fireworks, etc.). At the same time we laid out a bunch of natural materials (pine cones, interesting roadside brush, seed pods, weeds, string, paper, markers, wire) and put up a sign saying "Build Your Own Effigy!" Folks did, and we ended up with 40-50 little effigies, most of which were put in the belly of the beast.

Before the seahorse was burned there was a performance by a parade of fire artists spinning poi, dancing with fire fans, twirling fire staves and batons, fire whips and swords, etc. We lit the seahorse with flaming staves and it took roughly a half hour to finally fall. You can see the first two minutes, thirty seconds of the burn.

Two of the photos, of the fire spinning and the blaze with the fire guardians, were taken by Abject. Kevin took the photo of me finishing the seahorse's tail. The rest of the photos are mine.

Forest Fungus

A year before the seahorse, I built these two giant 8' mushrooms with the help of an art grant I received from Playa del Fuego, (fall 2007). Matrials included plywood, wood, pvc, fabric, el-wire and various types of fasteners. The whole project took less than a month (the time I was given), and the actual cutting / painting / building phase only a week and a half.

The sculptures were interactive in two ways: a) they included benches which many people used while eating, socializing or watching activities going on nearby and b) I wrote "What are you growing in your life?" on the stems and left markers, which people used to write on the fabric scraps stuffed in holes on the stems.

Anatomy Sculpture

These two photos were taken during a 5-day class on sculpting the head, working from the inside out. I was unable to attend the last day (to finish the piece), but was quite pleased with my first efforts at sculpting. This was circa 1993:

bone structure		muscle and cartilage

Paintings

		Satire (Satyr) Pastel on acid-free Paper Board Collection of Andrew and Kristin Looney 1994
		Jack Nicholson Pastel on acid-free Paper Board Anonymous collector, Annapolis, MD. 1994
		Fear Pastel on acid-free Paper Board Collection of Greg and Emily Frock 1994