Cyclopses I Have Known

There have been times when I have wandered into a subject (mythological or otherwise) and found that my first 'take' didn't satisfy.  Cyclops is one of those.  I revisit, literally, each piece I do when I enter my studio or review the series on Flickr: https://www.flickr.com/photos/97140136@N08/sets/72157643013508483/.

Here are three takes on the motif.

The center one went abstract on me.  The stone becomes dominant.

The others focused, it seems, on the one eye and the menacing arm clutching the remains of one of Ulysses' men.  In the last version, Cyclops can be said to be in drag (if it is a male) OR alternatively, it is a creature of both sexes.  We never see its mate and unless Cyclops is immortal (even though blinded) we might wonder about the 'species' future.

As to why I have gone to the effort to portray this particular character from Homer's Odyssey, I may reflect that the one-eyedness of this creature calls up a monomaniacal quality that I find disturbingly pervasive today.

You can take it from there.

Dream of Androgyny

I didn't actually have a dream of androgyny.  The title and piece grew from the refrigerator thermometer and the baseball cover (both found objects of course).

Carl Jung, whom I've been reading, proposed that we each have a feminine and masculine aspect (given Greek mythology this wasn't an original statement).

Still, I couldn't resist the impulse to imbue the baseball cover with a bonnet-like appearance.  I tried numerous other uses for it.  Often additions follow that reinforce the recognized form. 

Jung said, “In reality, the work of art grows out of the artist as a child from his mother.  The creative process has a feminine quality, and the creative work arises from unconscious depths.”

Couldn't have said it better. 

It's Complicated

Many of my sculptures contain simple forms and materials that in association create strong whole images.
BUT... at times, I continue to add material until the piece is rather complicated.  The challenge then becomes viewing these as something closer to an essay than a poem.

The piece shown below is (was) named 'Bad Stork'.  Once I saw the bird's body in the cow jawbone and added a beak (partly real from a great blue heron skeleton) things took a turn for the dark side.

I had the porcelain leg of a 19th century doll on my work table.  (Slight aside here: I don't set out to invoke darkness, but the leg seem to 'fit').
From there is was and would be 'Bad Stork' and as a storyline it made sense to me that not every baby that is carried by a stork got delivered intact.  The stork either got hungry or had a bad disposition.  Either way, both the leg and part of the swaddling cloth were all that remained when I got to portraying the deviant.  Don't shoot the messenger!

On a more prosaic note, the two photos below are of a piece entitled: 'Ghost Town'.
Having spent a few years knocking around the Southwest (one year working in Death Valley), I came to know the detritus that was left behind when a vein of gold ran out.

Those ghost towns were often home to dreamers, thieves, and victims, with an occasional rich scoundrel.  The photos on the Bingo card are tintypes from a found album dated the mid-1800's.  The rest of the material is what lay on the ground near a rail yard in Asheville, NC.

R.I.P.