Just how and when the vision of a shipwreck entered my head during Beached Boat's carving process is a question for speculation. At seven and a half thousand feet in the Rocky Mountains, not to mention a thousand miles from the sea, there aren't too many shipwrecks around these parts. My guess is that a photo album that I recently 'rediscovered' opened the floodgates to memories of the years when I spent so much time on so many beaches that sand was apt to come spilling out of any and all outdoor clothing, hiking boots and camping equipment alike.
A working title for 'Beached Boat' was at one point 'Sheer Folly', such was the extraordinary amount of time it took me to figure out the schematics of this piece. The mandate I originally set myself was to carve a sculpture that looked to be fundamentally 'implausible'. I wasn't quite sure where that would take me, but as I set about carving a horizontal, long, curvy bowl the imagery and ideas kept pointing to a shipwreck of some kind. However, actually working out the angles required to balance so complex a project and proved something of a challenge, for with walls so extremely thin, and very, very curvy, I can assure you that there is absolutely no room for error whatsoever. For just one tiny mistake, and I really would have a something of a wreck on my hands. Thankfully everything went according to plan and Beach Boat actually proved quite a pleasure to carve, once I had it all worked out, of course. As with all of my signature Hand Carved Marble Bowls however I feel compelled to repeat my claim that my Curvilinear Marble Sculpture is carved with a firm structural integrity: meaning that Beached Boat, no matter how tippy she looks, will not tip unless tilted to a most outrageous and unreasonable degree.
But from random boat concept to particular idea everything clicked into place as I stumbled across a few grainy photos of just such a perfectly beached boat from which to take my cue. The occasion was a Geek holiday on the remote, rugged and extremely beautiful island of Karpathos. And there I had it, right out of the blue, there lay my model, and off I went; carving my version of the ill-fated 'Gemari'.
This entry was posted in Gallery 3: Autumn of 14 Collection, Gallery of Boats, Gallery of Bowls, Gallery of Curvilinear Marble Sculpture, Gallery of Marble Sculpture, Gallery of Sculpture, Gallery of Whimsy and tagged Art, Aspen, carving, Colorado, curvilinear, direct, direct method, fine art, Gemari, Hand Carved, Marble, marble bowl, Martin Cooney, reductionist, sculptor, Sculpture, shipwreck, Stone, Woody Creek, Yule marble. Bookmark the permalink.