Studio Move and birds

I am moving the studio from one space to another (but the batteries are dead in the camera). I'll post pics in the next blog. In the meantime, I'm posting some of my photos that I find interesting.
After the dedication of the Home of the Innocents sculptures, we walked around Cave Hill Cemetery. I was amazed to see a Woodcock there. I didn't think they would be in the city.

I feed birds on the window sill of the studio, and so I have a lot of birds that come up to eat. This is, of course, a Blue Jay.

The other day, I opened the window of the studio to let out a huge number of ladybugs (should have taken a photo of that, ah well). I left the window open for several hours as it was a nice day, and this wren came in the window. It was really checking out the room, looking all over the place. It perched in front of the mirror, started singing, then attacked it's reflection -twice. It eventually left the room and I shut the window.

I took a walk down to the creek in the evening. I managed to catch this shot of a heron flying past at sunset.

While I was walking by the creek I took this photo of the moon and trees. It may look a little odd, actually it's a reflection. I have flipped the image horizontally to make it appear an actual shot of the trees...

I accompanied Don to Victor Oolitic when he went up to pick out some stone. While he looked around for something, I took photos of the stone blocks. Here I am looking through a stack of blocks at the sky.

I found this guy on one of the blocks, no idea what kid of beetle it is, but I thought he was pretty cool...

I found this miniature landscape on one of the blocks in the quarry. This formation in limestone is called Stylolite.


As we head towards winter there's not a lot of interesting things to photograph close-up. But this plant gone to seed looked interesting, with the sun behind it...

Home of the Innocents sculpture dedication

There was a preview party for the sculptures the day after they were installed. Hosted by Sharon Receveur, we had a lot of great food and we got to meet a lot of great people.

The dedication cememony began with Sharon Receveur giving words of welcome, followed by Home of the Innocents CEO Gordon Brown and then Linda Speed spoke. Sharon Receveur and Linda Speed were the catalyst for the project, and they gathered a committee for which this project was obviously a labor of love. Many, many hours were spent finding all the names of the children. They were a great group of people to work with.

Ciaran Brown played Sister Emily Cooper in a production called "Remember me"

Each of the child actors stepped forward with one of the names of the children. Some had a short description of the childs short life which ended with the question "Will you remember me?" It was a quite moving performance.

Becky Riddle unveils a historical marker about Sister Emily Cooper and her work at Home of the Innocents.

Doves were released as "Ascension" was unveiled.

"Ascension" unveiled. The prayer and blessing of the sculptures was led by Rabbi Stanley Miles of Temple Shalom and Bishop Reed. The Ballard High School Madrigal Singers gave a performance before the unveiling of "Ascension". Linda Speed is on the right in the red jacket.

Metamorphosis in her site. The butterflies on the blanket symbolize the children. THe sculpture represents how Sister Emily Cooper, through her care, symbolized by the blanket,helped the children achieve spirituality

Detail of "Metamorphosis." Here you can see how the butterflies transform from flat patterns to fully dimensional butterflies, symbolizing the children's spiritual transformation.

"Metamorphosis" from the left side.

"Ascension" from the front. This piece represents Sister Emilys work with children, guiding them to spiritual growth.

Detail of "Ascension"

The back of Ascension.

Cave Hill Cemetery donated this marble bench near Metamorphosis as well as a bench next to Ascension. They beautifully set off both sculptures.

Home of the Innocents sculpture installation

We had picked up the bronze plaques for the sculptures from Eagle Sign and Design, and were now ready to receive the granite bases, to which the sculptures will be mounted.

The granite bases arrive and Don is getting ready to receive the stones. The granite was cut and lettered at Century Granite, which is located in Georgia.

The granite is loaded onto our 2 ton truck.

Don drills holes into the granite base so that the sculpture can be mounted to it. They will not be epoxied to the stone at this point, this is basically a dry run to make sure everything fits properly. The plaques also will not be epoxied. All will go separately to the Cemetery and will be reassembled and epoxied there.

There are nuts welded into the bottom of the sculpture, into which Don will place stainless steel threaded rod. These will
fit down into the holes that Don drilled earlier. Careful measurements of the nuts were made to make sure that the holes were drilled accurately.

The granite bases are loaded using a crane. Paul Roerig, the new owner of Brummett Monuments, helps Don position the granite, while Johnny runs the controls of the crane.

Steve (left), Don and Johnny(right) load the bronze sculptures into the back of a pickup truck for delivery to Cave Hill Cemetery. The sculptures and bronze plaques will be permanently affixed on site.

The crane is set up to install the granite base.

Don (on the left), Johnny (on the right) and Paul carefully adjust the granite base.

Ascension is lifted into place. Someone said, "it's the Flying Nun!" Actually she's a flying Deaconess! I'm not going to post finished photos of the pieces until after they are dedicated Sunday.

The second "Flying Deaconess" is held in check by Paul. The dedication ceremony is this Sunday at 2:00. Everyone is welcome...

Home of the Innocents bronzes come home from Colorado

Don made a 2,500 mile journey this week, to get the bronze sculptures from the foundry, Art Castings of Colorado.


"Metamorphosis" and "Ascension" are loaded into the Thrifty rental van at Art Castings.


Two days later, Don and sculptures are back home. Steve McMillen helped unload "Metamorphosis" (shown) and "Ascension".



The completed sculptures are now ready to be attached to their granite bases.



Another view of the sculptures.



A photo of the morning fog...




This is a photo of a minnow in the creek with reflections of the branches overhead.

A New Commission and a Museum Exhibit

I was just awarded a commission for Terre Haute's Hux Cancer Center. Over 160 people applied for this $42,000.00 commission.

The sculpture is entitled "Light of Hope and Healing" and is composed of an adult man, adult woman, little boy and little girl
standing atop a pedestal of black granite raising their hands toward a lighted sphere. The granite represents cancer and all the negative emotions that accompany it; fear, despair, hopelessness. The lighted sphere symbolizes the positive emotions which help us overcome cancer; hope , joy and courage.

Don and I were invited to submit work to 2 exhibits at the Ownensboro Museum of Fine Art in Owensboro,KY. The two exhibits are entitled Holidaze, which is a gallery exhibition and Holidazzle which is geared more as a craft exhibit with more affordably priced works. To move the work we rented a Ryder truck. It has a lift gate which made moving the work much,much easier.
Ely is getting loaded into the Ryder truck. Don's posture was so like Ely's I had to get a photo of it. Don's piece River Vessel was loaded next. Don has several small pieces ($280.00) of bronze and stone in the Holidazzle exhibition. I also have a bronze(Persephone Falling) in Holidazzle as well.

Don and Tony Hardesty pick up River Vessel to place it on the cart. The sculpture will be placed on top of it's base at the entrance to the Museum.

Ely is escorted into the Museum.

This is a close-up of Jimson Weed I found it in our lower field.

This is an ultra close-up of a morning glory in my sister Liz's yard, thought this make a nice contrast to the Jimson Weed.


This pretty guy (or girl) is a jumping spider. I found it in the lower field.

A couple of get togethers and Ely readies for a trip

I have several jobs I am trying for right now, but as they are in the sketch stage I can't post anything yet. So, I'll post some photos of other stuff.
There have been a couple of get togethers lately; one is my nephew's 5th Birthday party and a reunion of Don's fraternity at Centre. Some of these guys haven't seen each other in 25 years...

Joe's party was held by a lake in Hoosier National Forest. My sister-in-law Denise is on the left, Joe's sister, Beth, is on the right.

Of course there was a cake - 5 candles - and lots of presents.

After the party we walked up the trail into the woods. Joe had fun throwing rocks into a creek.

My niece, Beth (on the left), brought her friend Destiny.

My brother Mark (on the left) fishing, and my brother-in-law Charlie watching.

Don was invited to a party of his Phi Tau Brothers from Centre College. I went as the designated driver. I had heard a lot of stories about the college days, it was good to finally put faces to names. Great bunch of people. Everyone is posing in from of a banner with cartoons of each person. Check out Don's blog for a closer look at the banner.

What would a party be without the requisite bonfire?

A closeup of spiderwort.

A Green Metallic bee...
Ely will be in the Holidaze exhibition at the Ownensboro Museum of Fine Art which runs from November 6th to November 31st . He will be installed this week, look for him in the next blog.