Soundtrack to this here blog post…Beachwood Sparks The
Tarnished Gold (stream it)…very Neil Youngy, Byrdsy, Bandy, Big Stary. Big thumbs up for
that one. Like it a lot.
I went with Libor to see Phil Shoenfelt at U vystřelenýho oka last night. It’s pretty amazing and a unique place. It’s on a dead end side street here in Zizkov. They have music outside. It's cool. liked the music. People were dancing and stuff.
Libor’s an interesting guy. He’s a sculptor. He restores statues and facades of churches around the CR. He has a team of workers and everything. It’s pretty interesting. He also has his own personal sculptures in shows around the city. He has some stuff right now somewhere. I asked him the name of the place and he doesn’t even know. He drew me a map. It’s funny but I guess he’s been doing it a while so he doesn’t think about it too much.
He wanted to know about Nepal because he wants to climb to Everest Base Camp. We got to talking about the trip and I was like, I’d go back, but if I did I would pay a Sherpa this time to carry my bags. Sounds strange maybe. It’s not that different than going somewhere and hiring someone local to help you get around. Sherpas know a ton. I told him how I met a few on the trail and they were interesting dudes. I learned they carry a max of 30 kilos (about 70 pounds) on their backs. My bag was probably 14kg or so, not super heavy but heavy. I even saw a man carrying a man in a chair on his back. I felt dumb passing that dude. One guy told me that carrying bags is one of the higher-paying jobs. He didn’t live anywhere near the Himalaya, so he came from far to work carrying bags.
Libor told me that once back in communist time he traveled with some friends to Bulgaria. They had to carry everything (tent, food, etc.) on their backs since where they went was nothing. They came across a house where they helped a guy cut tobacco. The guy paid them with bottles of alcohol and they all got drunk together. After that the guy offered them a place to stay, and his daughter. Libor said he was like ‘why not?’ I didn’t ask any more about that but that’s funny.
Libor’s a smart guy who knows a lot about materials. Once I was like why should I buy expensive paints? I like using the colors I can get from any store. I should be able to use anything, right? I don’t want to spend a lot of money to make a picture. Then he bought me 4 tubes of oil paint and a few decent brushes for my birthday and I was like, oh, so that’s what the hype’s about. Oil looks better, has more texture, doesn’t fade, etc.
But last night I was asking him about working with glass. He’s made sculptures entirely from glass before but I was curious how you go about making a colorful window, like a church window. I told him there’s an atelier down the street where they make custom glass windows. He said it’s better to go to north bohemia. There’s a factory there near his weekend house. If you bring them a relief, for example, they’ll produce a glass relief for you, which sounds amazing. He says it’s simple and relatively cheap, 3 maybe 4 thousand crowns. I asked him but how do you make the relief tho. What do you use? He said just use polystyrene, but then of course you’d have to cast the polystyrene form in gypsum. Then you bring that gypsum form to the glass makers and they make the relief in glass. Then you gotta get it home though. He laughed about that. And I was like, where to put it. Our apartments already cramped.
I have one painting on glass I made a while ago. Actually there are two, but this one’s the only decent one. It’s heavy as hell. I like paint on glass when the sun shines through the back of it. I like it when you paint on something, on any surface, and the natural light shines through the back of it. I don’t have a full color picture of it with me now because I’m at work. I only have one picture of it and it’s just partial. I shot my girl through it once…
I hope I actually get to make something with glass at some point. I always thought it would be interesting to use messed up glass, broken maybe, to make a church window. A real window not a fantasy window. I always liked Duchamp’s The Large Glass. We have a messed up window in our apartment block that looks like someone put a golf ball through it. The hole is interesting though it looks a little bit like a sun. You don’t even necessarily need colored glass. Why not just clear glass arranged nicely. That would be interesting. Hope I can do that at some point, but it’s also a question of having space to do that.
Hope you’ve enjoyed my rambling.
Peace y’all.
I went with Libor to see Phil Shoenfelt at U vystřelenýho oka last night. It’s pretty amazing and a unique place. It’s on a dead end side street here in Zizkov. They have music outside. It's cool. liked the music. People were dancing and stuff.
Libor’s an interesting guy. He’s a sculptor. He restores statues and facades of churches around the CR. He has a team of workers and everything. It’s pretty interesting. He also has his own personal sculptures in shows around the city. He has some stuff right now somewhere. I asked him the name of the place and he doesn’t even know. He drew me a map. It’s funny but I guess he’s been doing it a while so he doesn’t think about it too much.
He wanted to know about Nepal because he wants to climb to Everest Base Camp. We got to talking about the trip and I was like, I’d go back, but if I did I would pay a Sherpa this time to carry my bags. Sounds strange maybe. It’s not that different than going somewhere and hiring someone local to help you get around. Sherpas know a ton. I told him how I met a few on the trail and they were interesting dudes. I learned they carry a max of 30 kilos (about 70 pounds) on their backs. My bag was probably 14kg or so, not super heavy but heavy. I even saw a man carrying a man in a chair on his back. I felt dumb passing that dude. One guy told me that carrying bags is one of the higher-paying jobs. He didn’t live anywhere near the Himalaya, so he came from far to work carrying bags.
Libor told me that once back in communist time he traveled with some friends to Bulgaria. They had to carry everything (tent, food, etc.) on their backs since where they went was nothing. They came across a house where they helped a guy cut tobacco. The guy paid them with bottles of alcohol and they all got drunk together. After that the guy offered them a place to stay, and his daughter. Libor said he was like ‘why not?’ I didn’t ask any more about that but that’s funny.
Libor’s a smart guy who knows a lot about materials. Once I was like why should I buy expensive paints? I like using the colors I can get from any store. I should be able to use anything, right? I don’t want to spend a lot of money to make a picture. Then he bought me 4 tubes of oil paint and a few decent brushes for my birthday and I was like, oh, so that’s what the hype’s about. Oil looks better, has more texture, doesn’t fade, etc.
But last night I was asking him about working with glass. He’s made sculptures entirely from glass before but I was curious how you go about making a colorful window, like a church window. I told him there’s an atelier down the street where they make custom glass windows. He said it’s better to go to north bohemia. There’s a factory there near his weekend house. If you bring them a relief, for example, they’ll produce a glass relief for you, which sounds amazing. He says it’s simple and relatively cheap, 3 maybe 4 thousand crowns. I asked him but how do you make the relief tho. What do you use? He said just use polystyrene, but then of course you’d have to cast the polystyrene form in gypsum. Then you bring that gypsum form to the glass makers and they make the relief in glass. Then you gotta get it home though. He laughed about that. And I was like, where to put it. Our apartments already cramped.
I have one painting on glass I made a while ago. Actually there are two, but this one’s the only decent one. It’s heavy as hell. I like paint on glass when the sun shines through the back of it. I like it when you paint on something, on any surface, and the natural light shines through the back of it. I don’t have a full color picture of it with me now because I’m at work. I only have one picture of it and it’s just partial. I shot my girl through it once…
I hope I actually get to make something with glass at some point. I always thought it would be interesting to use messed up glass, broken maybe, to make a church window. A real window not a fantasy window. I always liked Duchamp’s The Large Glass. We have a messed up window in our apartment block that looks like someone put a golf ball through it. The hole is interesting though it looks a little bit like a sun. You don’t even necessarily need colored glass. Why not just clear glass arranged nicely. That would be interesting. Hope I can do that at some point, but it’s also a question of having space to do that.
Hope you’ve enjoyed my rambling.
Peace y’all.
No comments:
Post a Comment