Nally White contacted me and I've helped out with the Christmas, the charity
ball for many years and they wanted to get some kind of a new project going
similar to the painted ponies down at Santa Fe and that you see all around and
so I'm a sculptor and I was doing a big grizzly bear at the time and so we had
once I got finished with that we went ahead and enlarged it to a life-sized
grizzly
I have always loved Van Gogh and when I saw that when I realized starry starry
night it blends itself to mosaic and I like the colors and I like the the
flowing of the work and it's got some pretty vivid color in it which I'm pretty
happy with Phoebe has her style of painting I have my style of painting so
what we did to work together because we wanted the bear to look uniform and not
like one side Phoebe style one side Jane style we both sketched our design on
the bear and then Phoebe went around and she did what we call middle ground and
that would be the mid-value range and then I would go back in and I did
highlights and dark shadows and I just marveled when I came home from our trip
we'd been gone for eight days that she painted and it is the first thing I got
out of the car even though I could hardly walk I was so tired I came and
looked at the bear before Suzanne locked the front door and I didn't even
note anything I just came and looked at the bear and I'm really pleased with it
being the sculptor and metalsmith I I didn't want to just be involved with a
paint job not that that can't be great but you know I felt like if I were to
be involved I wanted to do something physically to the bear so so we seized
upon this idea where we could you know alter the bears form and kind of cut
through a cavity if you will just a geometric cavity cut through the mid
section of the bear into which we could glass that in and kind of in casing but
respecting the form of the bear but have this beautiful scale model airstream
kind of in it in the bears gut I use the dark blue to push it back and forth if
I make a mistake and I can always respray it if I make a mistake but the
dark will allow me to push it back and forth kind of a at the light and then
subtracted the more I thought about it I said here once I brought the bear I
said and I looked at it I looked at it and all of a sudden it's just the idea
popped into my head and that's the most difficult part to come out with the idea
once you have the idea it's just a matter of executing it it was overwhelming
for a while it wasn't really the the bear that was overwhelming it was just
knowing I was going to have to learn a new skill and thinking that I would
probably be alright but still not real sure of it and and then how big it was
I knew it was gonna be life-sized but still when it ended up in my garage it
was the actual sketches on the bear were bigger than what I had sketched on
paper which is fine because we wanted that that that that you get so where
we've placed this and also we're thinking about dress we're dressing the
bear barely dressed for dinner so we're thinking pants down here so that's why
we have designs here connected with the gold once again to signify the economic
value to the valley and as it flows through here that's what we're thinking
of we're thinking of dressing the bear and so some of the major the bigger
designs will go on the bigger areas of the bear the face the salmon is giving
up its energy and transferring it to the bear so the bear can live so that's
what I'm gonna try to incorporate into my design the energy will come it'll
flow from the fish through the bear this way all the way back and then it'll
end up in the design of a heartline coming right to the middle of his mid
section even this fiberglass this energy itself everything is energy and
that's a Native American that's a pre-Columbian belief that all we are is
flowing energy in the universe so in this case it's perfect because the fish
has the energy and it's gonna flow from the fish to give life to the bear once
I got started applying the glass it it seemed to take on a life of its own and
when I when I work close to it I have to back away because I don't get a good
view of it until I back away and when I back away I'm usually pretty happy it's
slow-going but I'm pretty happy with it so far it's gonna it's gonna take a
long time but it's it's exciting to keep working on it I don't dread working on
it I look forward to to coming out getting everything done so I can come
out work on it and that's the beauty of having different people are coming
because everyone will have a different idea and I think it'll be great to to
see the bears displayed together that would be good and I told her I said no
matter what happens I want us to still be friends and so we've had we've had a
great time I just love her dearly so yeah that was what that I do think this
Phoebe one of the main projects or reasons that this has been so beneficial
is that we do get to paint together and you know even though it's the time
consuming project I think I'm gonna be kind of sad when it's over for for being
able to come over here and paint in this beautiful room and paint with Phoebe and
we just have a you know it's a bond we like to be a part of the fantastic
organization of a pointe however we can to support their mission and and you know
time is is of the essence for everybody and we felt like if we did this as a team
that we could make an impact hopefully do something that would really help them
out and be something that we can be really proud of too as artists so we're
excited to be on board with it we're too consumed with thinking of ourselves so
we need to start thinking of others and maybe this will be a good project to do
that you know the whole idea of the La Puente has always appealed to me I had a
brother that went the way of homelessness and and later his own
self-destruction and it so it's always been close to my heart and I don't I
don't donate a lot of my work or my time but this is the one that I feel is is
worth it and it's personal
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