Started

Just to let everyone know, I am taking pictures and I hope to post as many of them as I can very soon. I am having some issues with internet access and am unable to post pics at the mo. But it is a beautiful spot.

I have started work in the studio. Just the basics. For anyone who has tried to cut plate steel you will know what my day has been like. 3/8inch thick steel being cut with cutoff wheels on a 4 1/2inch grinder. But 23 cutoff wheels later I now have multiple mounting plates. That's right, more than one and deer don't have six legs. But as I was drawing on the walls of my studio(white washed plaster: think Italian fresco) an idea sat firm. A gift to the people should be for the people; a reflection of their beauty and strength. For them to see themselves as a work of art. An introduction of the highest esteem.

It is strange that as I worked, the studio had an unfamiliar smell. The smell of steel is somehow different; the cutoff wheels, too. Even the grinder had a foreign feel as is moaned in my hand.

But as I was working(wearing down cutoff wheels more than steel) students from the school would wander in to see what all the noise was about. It is nice to think about the sculpture from fresh eyes. I have a vague idea of the final outcome; they do not. What a surprise it will be when all the work I am doing now is simply a means to mount the fianl sculpture(s) to a footing. Engineering. That the pile of steel still on the floor will be something organic, sinewy lines repeating for volume.

I have made friends with a few 5th graders. They have taken to teaching me Romanian and have been very helpful. I, on the other had, have been teaching them "knucks" and acting like I am in 5th grade(the basement is a big hit). But some of the students have taken a keen interest and I have showed them some of my work. It was the least I could do after they plyed me with candy. And we all get plenty of exercise boxing around the town monument after school.

The students have a great spirit about them. Full of energy and relative innocence and full of knowledge and learning ability.

Today is the first day that the clouds have rolled in. Rain began to fall, light as it was. The mountains are covered by mist and/or heavier precipitation. The clear night sky and bright stars are veiled.

I'll leave with this. My hostess is still trying to teach me Romanian, although she knows little English. When first we met she said, "Hoowdy Doody." And today she greeted me with, "Pre-Madonna" as my arrival in her kitchen was of an hour unbecoming to her. All with many smiles of course. Smile.