Finished up the second week with studio assistants. Things are going well. We’ve put about 20 finished panels into the large pallet crates, but I realize that we probably need to build smaller ones to keep them from leaning on each other, and to be able to move the crates around (and eventually get them onto a truck without a forklift).
Robert printed 24” tall scale drawings of the vestibule front wall and mounted one in my basement studio and one in the garage studio. It’s missing column 5 (see April 17 post), which my assistants quickly began calling “the mystery column!”
Studio drawing with the mystery column.
Little do they know that I’ve got that column all laid out downstairs, and it features three stages of the life of a monarch butterfly. There’s more than a little inspiration for including this subject: every summer, I’ve watched and nurtured the monarchs who thrive in our milkweed patch out behind the studio. Furthermore, during one of my visits to Makers Mark, Alex Bowie told me that Star Hill Farm is a way station for migrating monarch butterflies, which are a special sight for summertime visitors. I love the continuity of this… migrating species show us how connected we are, even across great distances. And, finally, there’s a symbolic aspect: Robert G asserts that the chrysalis is a neat symbol for fermentation, or for barrel aging, where earthly raw ingredients spend time in a mystical vessel before emerging in an even more beautiful and spirited form.
The mystery revealed!
A chrysalis outside the studio door.