AH! Cool air! I came inside under the guise of posting a message about our installation – man is it hot!
And so it the orb work! Can’t do any picture uploads at the moment, but let me give you some visuals.
– The entire bed of a full size pick-up truck was full of willow rods, with their leaves – which were then off loaded/strong armed/carried/drug to our work spot along the sculpture garden path.
– The orbs already woven add up to 75 in various sizes of zero to eight. Most are willow, some are rattan, one is chicken wire, one is barbed wire, a couple have copper wire, some have gut.
– The sculpture garden path wiggles along a stretch of trees, some big old ones, some young saplings, various kinds (walnut, oak, maple, redbud, tulip, others that I can’t recognize at the moment.
– Our work spot is in the range of the daily irrigation system – misty water is wonderful! And this afternoon when the sprinkler system was not due to be on, the groundskeeper brought out a hose and sprayer. He gets to water some plants and we benefit from the spray.
-Yesterday it was Bonnie and I and one of Bonnie’s students, Cindy. The biggest thing we did was to determine how many and what sizes of orbs we already had plus what trees and notches we would use and how many more orbs we would need. While Bonnie and I did the determining and walking around, Cindy got started on lacing monofilament through the orbs to give a bit of added strength.
-Today we have additional crew of another student, an intern and a half from the Indianapolis Art Center and a gourd artist, Nancy who have been stripping the leaves from the willow rods all day.
-While the crew has been stripping and chatting – someone likened it to a quilting bee – Bonnie and I have started the gigando mundo piece that we want to place between two prominent trees on the sculpture lawn. Reffered to as ‘the VW bug’ piece, it will be close to that size by the time it is finished. We have it propped between the base of the chosen trees at the moment, knowing that it needs to be bigger than that since the trees spread apart farther up and we want to be able to have it wedged between the trunks. We are closing one end of the piece right now – hoping to fnish the basic structure tonight so that our helpers can do the filling in tomorrow.
I better get back out to help since Nancy invited us over for drinks, maybe dinner, tonight! The sweat has cooled and dried sufficiently, I think I’m ready.