Perpetual Motion: Monday: Day –1: More practice
We got things roughly right in the practice block. We learn from our errors and return to the various measurements that will guide us on Tuesday. We need to find many planes that can be used efficiently to remove material. The large number of holes in the sculpture and their relationship to each other — especially near the smaller holes — is what will provide difficulty.
The practice piece is not the most beautiful, but it teaches what it is supposed to.
Eva seems unperturbed by long travel, jet lag, and an almost a two-mile change in altitude. Good.
Her model is truly beautiful. She first made a ceramic shape using her standard technique, and then she thickened it with plaster. After the event she will bake it and the plaster will fall away, leaving the original which she can work into one of her signature thin sculptures.
From left, Dan, Eva, Stan, Rich, Beth. Photo by Joan Hutchinson.
By the end of the week the practice sculpture was in pretty bad shape, but that is because the snow is not very dense (unlike the blocks below) and we sculpted it fairly thin. Photo by Stan Wagon.
The blocks in Breckenridge are ready to go. They are huge (12 feet high, 20 tons in weight). They are composed of hard-packed, machine-made snow that is stomped several times by humans, and so are very dense.