The energy in this next part is incredible.

Moving on to the next part of this project. The foam does not look like much now. Poor pooch. It will soon be an amalgamation of the look, and energy of 8 seeing eye dogs. The creative energy on this part of the project nearly has me jumping out of my skin. Here is to...
1. Villa November 21,1953
2. Inky February 15, 1964
3. Pepper May 1, 1977
4. Gordy April 7, 1979
5. Steffie January 4,1989
6. Corinne September 20,1993
7. Robyn March 29, 2003
8. Eben May 23, 2014

So excited to get started on this part.

I can feel the dogs. They have been haning in the studio for months waiting patiently for their turn.  I can also feel their love and commitment.  What they have done, what they have provided. This is such an honor. 

Keep watching. 

Some relatives posted :

"Hope this all goes well. I'm very excited. Each of those special dogs has been important in our lives beyond comprehension. They were unique, brilliant, loyal individuals. You've got a lot of greatness to work with!"

Night and day tag team

Many pieces of the sculpture are cut off, added on, taken off and added again.  You will see, after our final approval, that John and his dog will be cut apart one more time for mold making.

We have a night and day thing going. It is is also a tag team effort.  I work late at nights and early morning and weekends, then my interns come in and clean up after me and smooth the clay.  They really rock this part and make my life so  much easier.  Sometimes they can work on things that are cut off while I work on the torso.

I love listening to books while I work.  It is funny. I have been overdosing on a young adult novel series about spirit animals.  Just realized how significant that is to this project.

My studio in the early morning hours. 

It is much easier to work on hands while they are off of the body.
The hand on the left is holding the harness portion. I would have
loved to get a real harness and cast it. I tried, but The Light House
said they destroy them. I was sent one by the Turners, but I can't
make a mold of it as it is very special.  Having a harness to cast
would have saved me so many hours of work. Instead
we are fabricating one.

Working night and day

Let me catch everyone up on the progress at the studio. We have been so busy working it is hard to write blog posts. The foam of John Turner came back.  As I may have said, this foam is taken is from the small maquette that we scanned. Seems like a lot of work to do to get an enlargement that is really very vague in form.  The reason it is like this is that milling can't capture everything and the more time on the mill the more it costs. Also, what works as something small does not always work as something large.  I can hardly wait to get my hands on the foam, it is here that everything comes to life. The foam and the maquette did two things.

• Gave us a pose from which to work. 
• Helped us enlarge the sculpture in a more timely matter. 

What we do with the foam.

• Secure the foam together using spray foam insulation
• Carve foam to give detail
• Cut foam and change positions of appendages to get a better movement of overall design
• Put a layer of wax on the foam
• Put a fine layer of clay on the foam
• Cut pieces again and arrange. 

The foam came right before the Christmas Party.  We
hurriedly stuck him together so others could see our intent.
This picture was taken around December 10th. 

This image was taken January 14th. Still much to do.
We changed a lot of things since this picture.