It is about the Numbers

I thought my morning through and through, about the difference between Five and Six. Odd and Even, each projecting a way towards and end. There is a big difference between these two numbers. I wonder if it has a greater or lesser difference between 5,285,000 and 4,582,361. What are the odds on an elephant falling on me. There was a "place", at one "time", where this could have happened to you. It is different with flowers, in that world the numbers meld. I meld, you meld, they meld, we all meld. Right in by giving and receiving, start to finish, end to end. Bodhisattvas all. We just lost Leonard Shlain, his was for us all. I know that some feminist friends disagreed with him. I never could figure out why. If any one out there wants to give it a shot on the "why" part, please let me know. May be that I should stick to 5 and 6. 

James on May 17th,  

A word on an all black sculpture

I have made another all black sculpture, it is figurative in nature, with a very large head, this head is made up of a "wading up or knotting up " steel rod to look as though it were thread, with this thread running through the eye of a four foot long steel fabricated needle, all coming from a split neck, the other head is a large flower, both are growing out from a burned torso made from a root off of a large spruce tree that washed down from the mountain into lake Rudi. This sculpture reads as a silhouette for it is black in its entirety. This sculpture is called "Me, the Black Flower and the Knot and threaded Needle", This sculpture hangs from a cable and is about 8 feet tall, and it will also be in the May 28th exhibition at the Charles Cowles Gallery on 24th in Chelsea.

May 14th, 2009

A Knife, a Tree, and a Morning Glory. One title or three? As all three, I will say the knife is blood red, and cut from a mahogany heart, once it was sucking life in the Amazon, now it lives again and rests on it point, and is life size, tall as me. From its handle grows a bronze Pinion Pine, and a stainless steel Morning Glory, side by side, each as big as the other. Bottom up, it stands 9 feet, the Knife is 6 feet and the Tree and Morning Glory are three foot high and across. This sculpture stands on the point of the knife. I am going to drill a hole in the floor of Charles Cowles Gallery and stand this piece by inserting a one inch stainless steel rod 18 inches up through the knife blade and 5 inches sticking out of the point of the knife that can be stuck down into the one inch hole in Charles Cowles Gallery. The show opens on May 28th. This is but one of the 7 pieces in the show. 

It is Thursday, May 7, just before sun rise, spring is in the Rockies and buds and birds show themselves. Charmaine and I have been home for a few days. We have been down in Texas where I had a show at the Grace Museum in Abilene. It was great fun being there, they rolled out the Red Carpet for us. On opening night the place was packed with people, all kinds of people from all over the country. It sure made me feel good to see so many old friends and so many new faces.

After the opening about 350 of us walked down the street a couple of blocks to have diner in the court yard of a "cowboy museum" called Frontier Land. There was a stage set up for a group called the The FLATLANDERS, they have just released a new CD called "Hills And Valleys, I got to chose who I wanted to play that night and this group made up of Jimmie Dale Gilmore, Butch Hancock and Joe Ely was my first choice. Charmaine and I danced every dance, and loved every minute of it. These guys are really great.

My time in Abilene, Texas was the best, I loved it. And the fact that they published a beautiful book called "JAMES SURLS / From the Heartland" sure made me happy. I have had several books done on my work, but this one is on new work, 28 drawings with an essay by Susie Kalil that is the best essay on my drawing ever. There are also 27 sculptures in the book, with a great essay by Patterson Sims. Folks, this is a good one. I will post how you can get it a little latter.

But back to now, today I work in the yard, back to birds and buds and water in the irrigation ditch. It is a good time to be alive. In a month or so we will have flowers all around our house with bees and humming birds sounding off and looking good.