CaribbeanRance.com

#41– a small gallery

rance — Tue, 21 Feb 2012 13:03:56 +0000

of rogues– this post is for my friend saul, who seems unable to claim access to some of my painted pieces via the internet– hopefully this will remedy your problem, saul!!
in all fairness, these first two are not really paintings, but rather some early drawing works in pen and ink, early pointillistic efforts of mine, but i like them and thought they should find a spot here– i do have more photos of these works for those of you who are interested.
then there is this “tweener”– really, it is a painted version of a much earlier pen and ink piece that i did in response to my friend marietta’s wishes, when the original got sold out, almost underneath her nose. in some ways it’s better than the original
there is a fine marina out towards the north of town called “puerto de abrigo”– and i have done three versions of this scene, using the nice little bridge located there as an axis– this first one in 2007.
and then another in 2008, somewhat different, both in composition and also intent, a little different palette too.
some of my work is of a more abstract variety as well– i feel pretty fluid in a lot of styles, whatever it takes to bring life to an idea or thought
and i play with an effect or two– this piece, an allegorical one really, seems to shimmer with the large flecks of color, like late afternoon sunlight.
or this one, the last i think of my “guitar shapes” series, and the only painted version– all the rest were in pen and ink
street scenes fascinate me as well– like this piece, an image of a construction site after some early morning rain. the owner has a personal title for it– “on thin ice”, and i like that view of it a bunch. unfortunately, i haven’t shot photos of all my street scene paintings, or have lost some to computer errors, i truly wish i had some of them back to look at and show you, but there are only a few.
or another painted version of an older piece, a scene from when i lived in colorado long ago– i loved the way the silver of the aspen trees would attain a violet hue in some kinds of light.
and i shall finish it off for this morning with an image from some ruins close by merida, a beautiful cenote with lily pads i loved quite a bit. hope that you can get to this posting, saul– happy as a clam if i can!! catch you good folks later!! all the best rance

#40– STICKY FINGERS!!

rance — Mon, 09 Jan 2012 23:23:34 +0000

but i’m not talking rolling stones here– i am talking about GLUE, my friends!! nope, not the kind you sniff either, but good ol’ sticky stuff for putting things together. sometimes glue can be good, but i have just recently concluded that glue can be a bad thing at times as well.

take, f’rinstance, the large seahorse ring i have been working on of late. this one is for a friend of mine in florida, using one of my large seahorse pendant waxes. i wanted a clean bond between it and the shank (portion of the ring which goes around the finger) wax, so i had the great idea of using superglue to make the bond. however, when i did the casting it ended up with loads of porosity and looked sloppy, even though my technique while casting was very good. at first i thought i must have overheated the gold, but when i looked at it closely, most of the problem areas were where i had used the glue. i guess that the glue isn’t affected enough by the burnout– the part of the casting operation where the wax is vaporised in an oven– obviously much of it remained and so i wasted a lot of effort and work on doing this wax. i am currently cutting a new wax for the piece, but using more wax to hold things in place– i’ll just have to deal with all the extra work involved with this. here you can see the crummy casting and the newer (albeit very primitive-looking still) wax– ugly now, but it is going to take off soon!!

but superglue is not all bad– about a year and a half ago i met a dude along the maleco’n– he was a person of the street you could say, but had a good heart. he drew portraits in the bars to earn money, and i gave him a couple of large boxes of bottles of different-colored inks i had laying about, just to help out. he told me his life story, which included– according to him– living and working in italy at a marble quarry, and cutting stone etc. he told me about using superglue to bond together “checks”– little areas where the stone seemed to have some hairline cracks. i really didn’t know whether to trust his word or not, to be sure– however, a couple of days ago i found myself needing to try SOMETHING in an area where my rasps were chewing up too much stone. with bated breath i tried out the technique– and it worked– amazing stuff, really. it made a big difference in that area, and here and now i send juan– johnny– a big THANK YOU!! direct from my heart.

and finally– it was time to do something i had been anticipating– and fearing– for some time. the repairs to the arm of the upper figure on my sculpture, where the wild quarrying hole sat. over the past few weeks i have patiently sanded on the area, making a big flat spot, plus flattening a piece of marble to bond over top of it. finally i made up my mind to do it, and so i mixed up the special adhesive i bought a couple of years ago to use for just this job. oog. this stuff got ALL OVER THE PLACE– all over my hands, and all over the sculpture and in general made a mess. i had to stand in an awkward position and hold the piece of stone against the sculpture– it seemed to take eons for it to set up, but it finally did– with the sound a frozen river makes in the spring when it finally begins to thaw. of course, when the glue hardened up between the two pieces of stone it also did the same all over my hands– peeling that crap off was no fun, i can tell you!! this stuff is like super epoxy, and it makes a real bond.

and today i spent my whole sculpting time in taking that little slab of stone down and trying to make it fit in with the rest of the arm– no mean feat– but it looks as if it is coming along nicely. now i have a few other areas that i shall have to use this glue on, hopefully i shall have it a little more together when i do. the arm is looking pretty good though, and i am truly hopeful with it. i am going to finish this piece up sometime this year, if the creek don’t rise– stay tuned in and you can be there with me!!

#39– these rays ain’t faye

rance — Sun, 01 Jan 2012 22:13:48 +0000

a href=”http://caribbeanrance.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/12/eagle-1b.jpg”>well, our water finally has cooled off somewhat, and depending upon whose computer you trust the temps are somewhere between 81 degrees and 77 degrees. personally i find computers to be either pessimistic or optimistic– mine is the latter and my friend tony’s the former.

but no mind– with the lowered temperatures come the eagle rays, to mate and hang out. we see them more often on the park reefs– singles and pairs mostly. if you really want to SEE THE EAGLE RAYS you need to go to the north, to a wall that is called “cantarell”. we drop off the boat and proceed towards the wall, either fighting the current to get into the wall or fighting it to get out to the wall, as the current is always messing with you there. finally we arrive at a place where there is a little bit of shelter from the current and i get the clients to take the air out of their BCDs and settle down and wait a bit. it usually takes a few minutes, but finally they start poking their noses out of the somewhat darkened water to the north– as if stepping from behind an invisible curtain they appear– two, no three… ahh, five, nope six. finally at times there are squadrons of ten or a dozen of them, slowly moving up against the current, like stately ships they move.this last time there were only eight, but they kept on coming back and around, closer and closer. we maintained our positions and stayed down, making no agressive actions, and the eagle rays kept moving along, coming closer and closer yet. thanks to the miracle of nitrox, we could extend our stay along the wall, and the longer we stayed the closer they came. the rays are as curious about us as we are about them, and when they feel safe and secure they get downright friendly.it seems like they have sortuv cat’s eyes, with a vertical slit for a pupil, and they are checking us out pretty good. all super stuff, but their last pass before we had to exit the wall, our bottom time getting a little low and some people’s air getting a little low, was stupendous– they were maybe three four five feet away, balanced and majestic, hardly moving, watching us intently watching them.

i must here take the time to thank my friend joel cotton, www.reefsofcozumel.com for his great photos, which he has allowed me to use. the first photo-- i cannot remember where i got that one, i have kept it hanging around for reference when i do a larger eagle ray design in gold, but the rest are from joel, excepting the one close up showing the eagle ray's eye, which came from my good friend tony perez-- many thanks to everyone!! please check out joel's website, which i shall be linking to mine. and now i am going to attempt to give all you viewers a treat, by putting a little video that joel did in here-- thanks once more, joel, and thanks to all you people reading this little blog of mine-- happy new year to you all!!

well, i've tried and tried to get this sucker to turn blue on my page, but with no luck. if you wish to see the video, and it IS a good one, please copy this address into your browser and click on it. sorry that i am such a neanderthal when it comes to computer stuff, sigh.

http://reefsofcozumel.com/pages/reefs/cantarel.html#/discussion/12/cantarel-eagle-ray-wall-



#38– rina, or the little hurricane that
rance — Fri, 28 Oct 2011 15:35:03 +0000
wouldn’t!! welcome, everyone– here it is, the morning after rina danced into our lives. it’s been a somewhat chaotic week, first finding that we were right in the sights of the hurricane, and then everyone in town frantically boarding up their houses and businesseswhen it became clear that really really REALLY it was coming this way. canned goods flew off grocery shelves, everyone trying to buy their booze before the “dry law” came into effect, it was quite dizzy for a fact!!the day before rina came– well, really it almost seemed like the day before the day before her, as at that time we were still expecting impact on thursday morning– and the air was sodden and still, nothing much happening and the ocean like a pewter plate spattered with the occasional raindrop. i walked the streets like a character in a parallel  universe movie, nobody to be seen anywhere, last person alive and all that.any number of scenarios played through my head as i made my normal roamin through the gloamin morning walkabout. but it was still a cool and shivery feeling to stand in the gazebo on the zocalo– the plaza– and see nobody at all, except for the three policemen, sitting on a bench. “dintcha know that there was a curfew?” asked a couple of friends of mine, but it was really more of a suggestion from the authorities, and besides which– who could resist such a plum opportunity to shoot some interesting photos?feeling a little “on the beach”-ey only intensified the vision-like quality of the morning.but about then rina seemed to develop a run in her stocking– as a category 3 hurricane it had been pounding down towards us like a pack of malevolent clydesdales on PCP, but then there were sudden signs of weakening– first it was going to turn into a category 1 just before it arrived, and after it left it would turn into a simple tropical storm. i almost felt disappointed– ALMOST!! not only that, but– no surprise!! rina was running late. typical. thursday dawned gloomy and without much to speak of, weather-wise. no wind, no nuthin’. i took a turn through the barrio in the early afternoon just to stretch my legs at the delay– now rina was going to be a mere tropical storm by the time it got here, so no worries, mate!! the drizzle began to pick up though. i watched a couple of movies in the afternoon and the drizzle picked up and picked up and got steady and strong, raining like it came from a machine in your basic torrential manner. i heard we got six and a half inches of rain, which reminds me of a rude joke that i shall NOT share. during dinner there was a little snap of light and suddenly KA-BOOM!! and KEE-RASH!! the thunderboomers began, without prelude. my cats levitated, turned on their axes and disappeared, leaving tiny puffs of smoke behind, headed for their hideaways. the power went out once and then twice, and i turned off the final movie and went to bed.in the morning there wasn’t all that much destruction, some branches in the streets etc. the city has been working on the drainage, and with some results– not nearly as many flooded streets as there would have been in the past, although in some areas it looked a little deepish. people were picking up and bailing out and the mercado was opening for whoever needed some veggies or an avocado. now rina has not really left us, as it appears to be curling around like the tail of a scorpion to come back our way. i seriously doubt whether it will sting us this time though, she’s just a tropical depression now, but i didn’t see too many signs of depression in the streets this morning– nope, everyone was enjoying another day in our little tropical paradise.



#37– blood, sweat, saliva, tears…
rance — Sat, 27 Aug 2011 22:11:03 +0000
in fact, most bodily fluids get massaged into or spewed upon a sculpture as it moves from block form to a finished state– i guess that i haven’t ever peed upon the sucker though, and as for…..– well, i have heard that pre-christ christians used to have orgies and then “baste” their idols with their precious bodily fluids. although this is an interesting image and notion, i haven’t done that either. yet.offseason has sortuv descended early upon the island, and so after my morning walkabout, where i have been shooting pictures, i end up in my sculpture studio. i’ve been getting mega-hours in there, concentrated and intense hours, and i have been doing some great carving, unfortunately it may well be wasted upon the viewing audience, as for the most part i have been churning away along the side of the “matrix” area– the part of the sculture that the lower form is embedded in. i have been moving a fair amount of stone, and making these sides a sortuv sculpture in themselves– causing it to undulate and slither like the reptile woman in the peep show at the carnival.it has a definite movement and flow. now, if i could only figure out what i am going to do with all these quarry holes– when they  mine these blocks for sculpture, or even just for cutting into tiles, they first drill a row of holes in the stone before “snapping” it off along this line.in this photo you can perchance see five out of the  six holes that formed this line. i guess i can fill them up, but they are going to show somewhat i am sure. my current thinking is to fill them, but to immerse the work in sand when it is finally shown, to a depth enough to cover them up for the most part. this area will be textured with a “frosting” tool or tools, which look somewhat similar to a meat tenderiser, either on the head of a hammer or on the end of a chisel, and it gives a coarse texture.as i say, the carving itself has been very good, and i have been going to town on it. here, underneath the head of the lower figure, is a piece whose design i used some gaudi-like notions on– i read an old british magazine a year or two ago that spoke of how he arrived at some of his organic designs. fascinating, it lodged in my brain somewhere and suddenly there it was spewing out, bubbling out, flowing out– the stone cut easily in there, something it doesn’t do everywhere along this bottom part. i think that the heat from the drill bits (even though they use a lubricant/cooler– looks a little like a wax to me, as some of it is still lodged inside those holes) has affected the  crystaline structure in there in places, making the stone flaky and unpredictable– stone doesn’t have a “grain” similar to wood, but it does indeed have a way it likes to be cut, only it can change suddenly as you go from one spot to another. i went all the way around the piece, and am doing at least a partial second pass along the sides, refining and modulating, incorporating the ideas that i have evolved during this orbit.but the terror is growing in that little studio behind the blue iron gate at rancho rance-o– this piece is slowly edging its’ way towards completion. when i am finished doing the sides of the matrix area, there are a few little jobs remaining– some repair work, or i guess you could call it fixing up problems which have always been a part of this chunk of marble– a wild quarry hole, for one. but then, then, then it will be time to begin the actual finishing of the stone. this is frightening enough, as you can just imagine all that surface area  i must sand– over and over again, with finer and finer grades of paper– i am going to lose almost all the skin on my fingers in doing this, not looking forward to it. but what the hell am i going to do when it is all over? by the time i finish with it, sometime next year i calculate, i shall have lived with it for about 20 years (i bought it and drug it home in january of 1992!!!)– more than a third of my life, if you want to be melodramatic, and my life will be changed when i put the last coat of wax on parts of the surface. mind you, i haven’t worked upon it for all that time– i have had other projects, many sculptures for instance, and my jewellery/drawings/paintings/all the rest of the shit i do, plus i damaged my back somewhat at one time, working on it, very painful and a lot of rehab to restore it to the state it is now (not fabu, but i can live with it), so i put it down for a while. when i was selling my house and moving down here there was a further hiatus– BUT IT HAS ALWAYS BEEN THERE, BEGGING AND GOADING ME, ALL THAT TIME!! what will i do when it is done. a tickle of fear creeps up my spine at times, thinking about it.but enough of my fears, i’m just being obsessive, as is my wont. one thing i have been doing of late is putting together another folder for my photobucket site– this one all about cozumel, and there are quite a few good images in there. i think you could access it by going to www.photobucket.com and looking up my files via my user name– ranceroo– try it out, won’t you?          tired now, i didn’t expect to write this all in one session, but i guess i was ready to put cyberpen to cyberpaper and spew. will talk to you again in the not too distant future i hope



#36– a little blubbering, or rance gets a taste of the “wee beasties”!!
rance — Thu, 04 Aug 2011 21:12:55 +0000
THESE ARE NOT ACTORS!! THEY ARE REAL PEOPLE!!
well, the long-anticipated and waited-for trip to isla mujeres has come and gone– i’ve been back for over a week now, and am just now finding a little time in which to write about the experience. but perhaps “experience” is not the right word, as i had taken trips out of holbox to see the whale sharks in the past, but i had heard that it was somewhat different. and i HAD tried last year to check it out– take a look at my old blog “awwww, ratzzz!!”– maybe not quite spelt that way, but you get the idea. still, isla mujeres had been a good time for me, and so i took heart and decided to check it out again.
and so i left cozumel, trailing a variety of people– the sharkbaiters as i call them, little buncha people out of iowa, my girlfriend lynda and several other odds and sods– the ferry to the mainland, then by bus to cancun, and taxi to the second ferry over to the island– a matter of about maybe 3 hours really, although it might seem a little longer coming back all tuckered out. much more convenient than holbox, although not quite the same “feel”– holbox laid back, a tetch dumpy and much more comfortable– isla mujeres a bunch more uptempo, a little higher scale dumpy in my opinion, but also interesting to walk the streets of. once again i stayed at the world-famous hotel d’gomar, as did all the other victims, assembled here for the “official crew shot”well, mayhap not quite WORLD famous….
beverages optional, repeatedly optional. some chips that had obviously lain in someone’s store window since the gettysburg address and assorted other munchies. everyone left alone for almost an hour until it was time to go looking for some dinner– “la lomita” or some such, i remembered it from the last visit, and the black bean soup as fine as ever, also the fish tacos and a couple of bottles of something cold. the service not exactly the ritz, nine people putting the waiter a little “in the weeds”, but plenty of laughter to make up for anything.
i was up early the next morning to test the coolth of the sand betwixt me toes, take a look around the island and relax, aided and abetted by one of the famed sharkbaiters (truth be told, THE bull goose looney sharkbaiter hisself!!), and then up on the roof of d’gomar’s pile to shoot the town while the sun began to leap up out of the blue ocean– the water so shallow it is quite teal for long distances, courtesy of all that bright sand.
8:00 a.m. and we arrived at the pier, shipshape and ready to rumble. the boat and boat captain i had anticipated not there, but rather another, captained by toro (bull), driven by cholas (this means “mestizo” or “half caste”, but i was informed that in the vernacular it referred to the size of his head, which was of grand proportion indeed, a true yucatecan head. as a sidebar though, my  most enduring– not to mention endearing– memory of cholas was when he leaned over to rig a rope at the bow and blessed us all with a huge “plumber’s butt” of truly EPIC proportions!!), his son. two stroke motor though, and plenty of burned oil smell, but i was to find both of the crew to be quite adept and helpful and easy to get along with– they knew their stuff and i was impressed with how they handled things– the boat and all the snorkelling etc.
bang bang bang!! went the boat, a launch, as we revved it along, heading out to see the whale sharks– hard on the kidneys, and reminiscent of why i don’t much head out to dive on fast boats too much these days. a shorter trip than from holbox though, and toro kept telling me how much superior the clarity of the water was than coming out of holbox– i had a good memory of how cloudy and green that water could be, and was excited to see the whale sharks in their entirety (of course, i have been recently informed that the boats coming out of holbox go further, out of the gulf waters, and also enter into the clearer caribbean depths, don’t want to give the wrong impression here). it took a total of about an hour and twenty minutes to reach the site. and there they were, one or two at first, and some of us jumped into the water and pedalled around with the whale sharks. just small groups, twos and threes, to keep the stress from the sharks to a minimum– but the feel of being in the water with such magnificent animals immensely satisfying– they seem to be motoring along in a mellow manner, but one can only keep up with them for a couple of seconds before they slide on past, wagging their large-scale tails behind them. to see them in the clear water was like a magical opening into another dimension, hard to believe that you were actually there, having it happen up close and personal. i took as much advantage of my turns as possible (pain in the front of my ankles all week, i kicked so hard, making finning as a guide this last week somewhat of a trial– but worth every moment!!), we all did, finally wearing out and lolling back on the boat cushions as the boat turned round and made for port once again. we’d seen something in the range of 50-60 “wee beasties”.

 sandwiches were served, basic whale shark launch lunch, but later there was some decent ceviche closer to land, even better when we spiced it up with some good habaneros picados.
unfortunately i had to return to cozumel that afternoon, some prior engagements, and as i mentioned earlier, the trip back seemingly considerably longer, but the weariness leavened considerably by being able to stop in at our fave east indian food place in cancun and chow down on something curry. however, the sharkbaiters stayed behind and went out again the next day, reporting an even better time– this time the motor was a 4 stroke and not so hard on the lungs or stomach.
and there you are– isla, your whale sharks left me agape, mouth wide open, wanting to go back for more– in time, in a little time……



#35– at his organ again
rance — Sun, 26 Jun 2011 18:31:41 +0000
or at least, there should be some organ music accompanying this little  blog, as it is more of an inspirational thing that i am writing about today, and to be quite above board here i should also tip my do-rag in the general direction of firesign theater for the title above.it’s a nasty rainy morning on the island today, and i wasn’t exactly disappointed to find out that the port had been closed– i was already WET all over from getting rained upon when i dropped a regulator off for a tune-up and picked up my nitrox tanks from the fill place– HOME, JAMES!! was my thought, and i changed into warm dry duds when i got here. i wanted to work on some waxes, but every time i sat down in there i did just that– sit– and so i have let it go for the day, deciding to get some other stuff done.
this last week i went out to work for a friend of mine in town, who uses my help when things get a little busy, or she needs something special done. jorge (the other divemaster) and i were to go out and guide some people from a dive shop called, i think, saguaro divers out of arizona (as much as i have a great memory, names somehow escape me), along with another divemaster dude called flash, who had a smaller, but affiliated, group. nine peeps in our group, composed of 5 regular divers and 4 quadrapalegic divers. first, i must explain that i was as dumb as a stick here, i had always ASSUMED (and we all know what “assume” does, no? makes an ass of u and me!!) that the term quadrapalegic meant that the person had no use of all four limbs– however, i was soon to find out that in reality it refers to the point in the spine where the spinal cord was cut/damaged. all four divers had some use of their hands, and one was able to walk, although with a little care.
getting them all aboard and off the boat into the water, back into the boat and then dropping them at thier pier took a little learning, but one of the first  things i found out about them was that there was not a whiner in the bunch– they were all pretty darn motivated and easy to deal with. each had his/her own handler, to help them with the actual act of diving, but two of them pretty much did their own diving with little or no assistance.i dove all week with these people, in conditions ranging from easy to downright dangerous, and they were all first class clients, full of sass and good cheer. now, i don’t want to homilise about this, but i was truly impressed with their vigor and courage, the way that they interacted with their handlers– who, i should mention, were perfectly splendid men and women in their own right– insert sounds of applause here– and the way that they all kept putting themselves out there, pushing the envelope as it were. i was humbled and impressed. i salute them from the heart!!
after the five days i was tuckered out and ready for some serious kicking back, but late in the afternoon i got a call from another dive shop– they had a sudden call for a night dive, and could i come and help them out PLEEEEEEZE? sigh. all right.
oog. 23 divers and 4 divemasters on one boat. i had six people and we jumped where we usually get out of the water, as the current was running backwards. they didn’t mention that it was also sortuv raging out there– ZZZZOOOOMMMM!! not much time for stopping, but we did find a lot of big crabbage, plenty of lobsters, a couple of octopus, some toadfish and, right at the end, a beautiful large squid. what formed a constant during the tank was the huge gi-normous school of silversides– small fish– that were everywhere– so many of them ran into me that at times it was like being peppered with buckshot!! beautiful and sparkley and moving like an ephemeral mood at times, shifting in and out of view, it formed a little optical illusion as background for the tank.
it was 10:30 by the time i was driving back home again, and i passed by palapitas, a local place on the beach, where i knew the saguaro cats were all having themselves a ball, but i was squoze dry by then, and i just waved as i passed on by– thanks for the memories, you peeps– hope to see you again!!



HEEEELPPP!!
rance — Sun, 19 Jun 2011 21:50:24 +0000
i have been trapped in a circular wordbooker problem, and had to call in the BIG GUN– ms jo lynn, who proceeded to make her magic and so hopefully this little bloggeroo will make it all the way to the facebook page.
BUT!! this means that my last REAL blog– as opposed to all those other ones that i wrote, explaining why the blog hadn’t shown up on the facebook page, which i have consigned to the deepest locker of davy jones (a tip o’ the do rag here to johnny depp), and which you shall be unable to read– hmmm, where was i again? oh yeah, i have a new blog that can be read now, on my website, so you’re gonna hafta punch a few buttons to see it, but well worth the effort if i remember it correctly– first, go to www.caribbeanrance.com, and then prop your feet up, haul a cold one outta the fridge, and read away on “#34– a thousand pardons, effendi”– let me know how the trip was!!



#34– a thousand pardons, effendi!!
rance — Fri, 10 Jun 2011 20:46:23 +0000
for it has been quite some time since i have blogged. busy i suppose, but also not the right energy that i like to have to compose one of these things. this would tend to suggest that today i DO have that specific energy, but for the life of me, i cannot tell– still and all, here i am, babbling on in my official “preamble”, heavy on the “amble”.
shot the above photo one morning walking along the maleco’n– the avenue running along the waterside– with a good friend of mine. i usually take a walkabout on the mornings when i am not going out to dive, but like all stupid humans i become a victim of habit, but this particular morning we walked at an earlier time than i usually do, and voila’!!– as those of perhaps a french persuasion might say– the good light and a great shot was found.
brujas– “witches” in spanish– is the name of these ubiquitous flowers that bloom in profusion at this time of the year, magically springing out from nowhere, lining walks and streets all over. it is a signal that the rainy season is here, but we have had precious little rain, past a couple of deluge-like days less than a week ago. the island is parched and thirsty, and i have been watering my tomato plants faithfully, hoping for a bounty– so far i have had about a half-dozen cherry-sized samples– good, but i want to have tomatos galore.
the brujas line my sidewalk towards the front yard, where i walk out, passing under the coconut palm tree in the yard, or maybe i should say i pass through the arch of the palm tree and its’ support, which has stood there since the hurricane– i don’t know if i should take it out or not, but it is like entering a different place when i go through it, so i leave it there.
and it IS a bittuva different world that i pass into, walking under that portico– it’s the entrance to my sculpture studio. lest those of you of romantic bent swoon, it is merely a cochera– carport– but it really is a separate reality i find in that space, so feel free to fantasize if you wish. hands– i have about six of them, eight including the ones on the end of my arms– i have been laboring over hands lately, hands in all sorts of forms, in many different poses. the one thing that they all convey is the sense that the substance they are embedded in is in some way being deformed by their influence– squeezed and compressed in some places, in others the “plastic” stone seems to stick to their surface, as if it might have some sort of a miraculous surface tension, the fingers ambling like water walkers on the surface of a pond. but this project i am undertaking, bringing the entire piece up to one consistent finish, is slowly driving me mad. THERE IS SO MUCH FREAKING SURFACE TO DO!! every time i move one line just a little bit, it affects others, like a stone in the abovementioned pond. slowly but slowly i continue to make progress– hey, i have even begun the process of repairing that wild quarry hole in the arm of the upper figure– it is now filled, and awaits a cap, which i am preparing.
i’ve been doing a buttload of diving of late too, with friends and clients and occasionally taking care of some other people’s clients– it went on for several months there, but it would seem i have a sudden “clear spot” here, nothing much happening. 
if there is anything i have NOT been doing, it has been photographing my new big seahorse pendant design, to get it onto my website in an official manner. very dumb i know, but it never seems that i have the thought and the energy together at the same time. i shall try to get it together and do the work sometime this week, make some forward progress.
and spain– spain rides the blue horse of my dreams in the night– the mighty lapis skies of spain. trying to scrabble together some sheckels to take another trip come offseason. this year a little closer to the bone, the belt a little tighter, the shoestring a little more frayed. there will be less lucre this year, but it means turning up the “adventure dial” a tetch more. come, let’s toast spain!!happy dreams, y’all!!



#33– with friends like us,
rance — Wed, 27 Apr 2011 21:56:48 +0000
who needs anemonies? yeah, not the sharpest nor the truest flying joke in my quiver, but it is somewhat apropos, as will become more obvious as you read along.
this last week my friend tony asked me to help him with a family coming down to dive– the alts– parents, julie and myron, and the boys, brian and wyatt, both of whom we were supposed to certify for diving.
normally, when we are asked to certify young people it brings on an reaction between us, something like your cat coughing up a hairball– and to continue the cat metaphor, taking care of young people is much like trying to herd felines– they have no interest in what you want to do with them, and the attention span of gnats, making for a lot of work and not much satisfaction, not to mention stress on the part of the parents. in other words, we were “somewhat apprehensive” when they were due out to the boat to meet us, and wondering just how bad it could get.
“SURPRISE, SURPRISE, SURPRISE!!”– as gomer pyle used to say– they turned out to be excellent students, attentive and really striving to learn what we had to impart to them. they snapped quickly to the theory of what we had to say, and were calm and easy under the water. their skills they did as if they had been doing them all their life, and without fear or trepidation. in almost no time at all they were kneeling down on the deck and tony was pouring buckets of water over them (with a little communal spit to make the whole thing ring true), baptising them in the  name of the sea god neptune and securing their certification– congrats, guys, and thanks muchly for your efforts.
that was nice, wasn’t it? BUT– FAST FORWARD NOW, into the future, their last dive. my good friends the sharkbaiters (one of their email names, easy handle to call them by) had left with us three rubber “hats”, if you can call them that– silly things that one needs to haul over the head and look silly with during a tank. julie, brian and wyatt all donned them for this historic last tank, after watching me use one of them on the first dive.
cedral wall, the tops of the reef, and very beautiful that day. we saw plenty of turtles and a couple of sharks, if my memory serves me properly, but the real story begins at the end of this reef, when we were sailing along, headed across to spend the end of the tank on the tippy tops of santa rosa wall. there are a huge bunch of groupers in there, and at times they even school up, you may see as many as perhaps twenty or more of them. but this story concerns the bull goose looney of the bunch– the big guy. now, someone has obviously feeding this behemoth the past year or so– i am not sure who it is, as it is not legal to do so in the park, but the attitude and habits of this fish make it quite certain that it is being fed by someone. anyhow, wyatt sees the grouper and sortuv does an imitation of going for a head butt with it– only the grouper doesn’t back off, no– he gets closer– and Closer– and CLOSER!! coming within maybe a half foot of wyatt’s face– by this time it is the young alt who is suddenly backpedalling– only the grouper keeps after him, and it suddenly becomes apparent that it is the hat that is what it is looking at– very hungrily, i might add!!– and not particularly concerned with what might come off with the hat. tony comes over and tries to shove it away, but it is quite INSISTENT!! but finally it does move a little ways away, and WHOOSH!! tony pulls the hat off, it had looked like an anemone i guess, and the color really made it look snackable. wyatt’s eyes were as big as dinnerplates, but we were all laughing so hard it was difficult to show him any sympathy– “with friends like us, who needs anemonies?”– indeed!!
thanks for such a good time, you alts!!