most likely i should have titled this “atlantean ponderings”, this being the caribbean, or even “caribbean ponderings”, but my choice has such fine alliteration– i like it!! it’s been a busy week for me here at rancho rance-o– i have been stuggling with several things, like opening up my new bank account– finished it up today, and it only took six trips to the bank…!! people who think it easy to move here take note– everything can be just like this down here, the frustration level can be immense. be afraid. other things have been a little more interesting though– i have made some progress in several areas. i began the cutting of my new design– a starfish, or to be more exact, a sea star. i wanted this one to be good in three dimensions, necessitating at least a two piecer to cast, but with the volumes of the thingum it was escaping me for quite a while. i do a lot of designing in my head, turning an idea over and over to see what it looks like from another direction, and i avoid a lot of problems this way– when i go to the wax work i usually have a pretty good idea what it is that i am looking for. still and all, i the first model wasn’t satisfactory, and so i began another. put it down again, as some of the shapes weren’t coming to me. last weekend when the boat was parked in front of the yellow house i swam around and located a cushion sea star and took a look at it– aha!! filling in the pieces, getting closer. but still i held off. then i went back to work on my new double sea horse earring design. i plan to dangle some pearls off these babies, but something about the piece wasn’t quite right, the area above the seahorse heads, where i would have to put the posts or hooks or whatever. it needed something, and i looked at a lot of shapes to fit in there– a shell, a sortuv half cone thingie, circle– but nothing really sang, y’know? finally it came in a small burst– a small sea star would look marvy!! this thing flowed off my tools like budda– and there it was!! perfect-looking, and also it will be the small pendant/earring alternative for the larger sea star. from there it was easy to do the larger sea star, so i just put that together quickly as well– it was a day-long burst of energy and inspiration. the cushion sea star has a nubbiness to it that would scratch, so i replaced that texture with a more organised ground one– good flecky tones and will look fabu i think. i searched around for a good bale for it, thinking of an alternative to my elbow bale or something, and cut a couple of examples, but what came to mind suddenly was a water droplet, and that is what i did. i have them all molded up to make more waxes from, and it is just possible that i might have time to cast them come sunday– wish me luck!! and then there is the new painting– or rather, the new canvas that i am slowly covering with grubby pencil marks. third in my “puerto de abrigo” series, a different view of the area. this one with the early morning light, sortuv green i imagine by the time it is all over.above you will see it as it was a couple of days ago, but it has progressed since then– the tower in the background, the “castle-like” club nautico, and the trees lining the little cove in the foreground. it’s coming together. wish i was one of those artists who are so facile with the pencil, throwing up the design onto the canvas, but alas i am not– i am slow indeed!! but i seem to always get there just the same– take a look!! and hey bonnie– after my seahorses and sea star are ready, think i have time to do a clownfish– are you still game?

having just a little problem with the computer, and it would seem like it didn’t deliver my last blog (#17– public hair, or…”), nor a couple of new images of jewellery– my mayan jaguar face earring jackets, plus the mayan jaguar face bracelet with red corals– i am not sure if i made some sort of an error with them, or perhaps a computer glitch caused it, but all these things can be accessed by checking out my website– www.caribbeanrance.com — and perusing them there. i just got my new computer, and i went through it and adjusted the webpage settings, so this is sortuv a test to see if it will actually make the trip– if you read this, i shall soon be writing a new blog, but DO look on my website for the others, won’t you?

“here i am, caught in this armpit AGAIN??”– two armpits, to be acutely correct. in the 70s, i used to associate the word “armpit” with the little town of cache creek, british columbia (apologies to all current cache creekers, i am sure that your burgh is quite spiffy by now), which was the nexus of two highways, one of which headed to the north and ended up in jasper, then further east to edmonton. the southern route took one through banff and into calgary. ANYHOW, it always seemed as if i would be dropped off in this place of poor energy– unfriendly townfolk, difficult to leave, and not even having a lot of visual joys to be found in the view. a little vignette here– my friend dodie had ordered a fresh fruit salad, and what she got was canned peaches, some prunes, a little banana and a part of an apple. when she complained she got bitched out by the waitress.

but my current two armpits can be equally as tough– it has begun to occur to me that i am truly beginning to approach the end of all this, this particular sculpture, no longer straining to find the vanishing point upon the horizon, but something, if a little fuzzy, still within viewing range. the past week and a half or so i have been trying to bring the lower figure up to a consistent finish, rasping and filing away, filling in some details as i went along. such is the case in the photo above, where i was forced to work in such a tight space, this narrow valley if you will, between the arm and body. but bits and pieces of the stone would drop away finally, tiny fragments, at the cost of some skin and blood. see all those red dots on the elbow of the piece, and down below? a day’s wages of blood, maybe less. hurts like the blazes too, even as i got a chuckle at the prospects of showing this off. awkward postures, sometimes working blind– chisels, rasps, knives, whatever to push that line back just a little further. it all looks pretty good now though, but hold on– there is another armpit to be cut. this one i have been working the past two or three days now, and it is difficult, but in its’ own unique ways– there is a big “stone”, upon which the right foot of the upper figure rests, and it blocks me very ably, so once more i am reduced to the “rat method”, gnawing away at something much greater than myself.

but i am making progress, finding ways to cut little bits out of the inside of the elbow. i ended up revamping the whole outer arm though as well, raising the shoulder off the surface and undercutting it at the elbow. today might be my last day of detailing on this part and then i can continue along with my path.

but– pubic hair!!– what the heck is this stuff anyow? it seems as if it follows rules from some other universe, and i am having great problems indeed in rendering it into the stone. the pubic hair on the upper figure resembles mostly bozo the clown’s ‘do, but it is acceptable. however, the lower figure is giving me great problems, which i am grinding my teeth trying to find a handle on. no handle jokes, please– this is serious!!