Finally, an artist captures the true essence of Mandolin players.

[ColdBeerGoCubs]

Your wife was right. You are a smelly, dirty, flea-picking flinger of crap with a stupid looking, miniature guitar. For years you tried to play it off like she was just in a bad mood. But you knew better, all those times you found yourself in the backyard, naked, picking a little afternoon snack out of the hair on your back. You knew. You knew that normal people didn't climb trees just to launch yesterdays lunch against the side of the neighbors house. You knew. You knew that regular humans didn't sit around for hours on end trying to figure out the next great version of "Old Joe Clark". You may have ignored it for years, but you knew. Deep down you knew and it hurt.

Nobody understood you. You sat down with your 8 string delight and even the guy with the kazoo and knee cymbals chuckled. A Lonely, Insignificant Speck On A Has-been Planet Orbited By A Cold, Indifferent Sun. But no more, for the art community has risen and come to the rescue to help show modern society what you really are.


Saw this yesterday, pictures aren't that great.

[ColdBeerGoCubs]

Double post.

[Ivan Kelsall]

That's as bizzare as it gets for me - left handed as well ????!!!!,
Ivan

[journeybear]

Charming. Next time I'm in Saginaw I'll have to check it out. Also available as a Christmas tree ornament. Clearly your tree has been incomplete until now. Also, another version in plaster, plus a companion piece, "Baboon Playing A Ham." Wonder what kind of tone it gets out of that? Note - not a ham sandwich.

[Shelagh Moore]

Good technique... no planting...

[jmagill]

.....A Lonely, Insignificant Speck On A Has-been Planet Orbited By A Cold, Indifferent Sun......

Uh, we orbit the sun, not the other way around......

Just sayin'.

[P.D. Kirby]

That had to come from the Banjo Hang out.

[Marty Henrickson]

Check out that classical guitar technique on the fretting hand, that ain't no part of nothin'!

[journeybear]

Uh, we orbit the sun, not the other way around......

Just sayin'.

Huh? When did that happen? Every morning I look across the flat earth and see the sun rise up from the Atlantic, and every evening I look over to the other side of the sky and watch the sun sink into the Gulf of Mexico. Seems pretty indifferent to me, though hardly cold. Otherwise ...

[Randi Gormley]

You know, at first I thought that was an ocarino on the baboon's left foot. I gotta get more tea!

[Ed Goist]

He'll have tendonitis in no time if he doesn't align those fretting fingers more parallel to the strings!...Been there, done that.

[3step]

I wonder if anyones ever tried it? Giving a mandolin or other instrument to a baboon that is. I hear there hands are alot like ours. Would he use it to make music?- interesting to hear what kind of music a baboon would play-, Or maybe just smash it to smithereens or find some other alternative use for it. So Maybe not the Gibson, Collings, etc, till he learns a thing or two.

[JeffD]

Uh, we orbit the sun, not the other way around......

Just sayin'.

That would explain how Bonepart could have crossed the Rockies. I am feeling better about all of this.

[JeffD]

It is a very interesting piece of art nonetheless.

[journeybear]

I thought Bonaparte retreated? This is all so unsettling ...

Randi - I think that might be his tuner.

[ColdBeerGoCubs]

Charming. Next time I'm in Saginaw I'll have to check it out. not a ham sandwich.

This wasn't in Saginaw, it was at a place south of there called Birmingham. In a little private courtyard.

Uh, we orbit the sun, not the other way around......

It's a Homer Simpson quote.

[jaycat]

It is a very interesting piece of art nonetheless.

As a friend of mine once remarked many years ago, after hearing Yoko Ono for the first time: "That's very interesting. I never want to hear that again."

[catmandu2]

Nobody understood you. You sat down with your 8 string delight and even the guy with the kazoo and knee cymbals chuckled. A Lonely, Insignificant Speck On A Has-been Planet Orbited By A Cold, Indifferent Sun...

Ha...nice. I think some here would prefer Camus or Kafka playing mandolin (lefthanded)...or Monroe...now that would have been art!

Beercubs, have you been out to Cranbrook?

[journeybear]

Sorry, Cubs fan. I searched on the artist’s name which led me to SVSU and the museum and sculpture garden devoted to his work and assumed the worst - I mean, the rest. BTW, I had no idea Homer was so ... DEEP!

And jaycat - I remember being very surprised when "Double Fantasy" came out to learn that Yoko could actually sing. Her voice still had that awful tonal "quality", but she actually was ... well, OK.

[jaycat]

And jaycat - I remember being very surprised when "Double Fantasy" came out to learn that Yoko could actually sing. Her voice still had that awful tonal "quality", but she actually was ... well, OK.

I suppose I should listen to that sometime. I'll put it on my to-do list.

[Bill Craig Jones]

I don't want to mess with the philosophical elements here, and I guess the artist has what they call "license," but that looks like a LUTE to me...

[journeybear]

I'll save you the trouble, jaycat. Here ya go. Warning - approach with caution. And bear in mind (at least) two things:

1) I don't want this thread to degenerate into some kind of yuck fest about some yucky art/music (might be too late, but thought it might help to mention that); and

2) Yoko is and was, ah, severely limited in vocal ability (unconventional at best), and even this example is meant not to prove otherwise, but rather that as this was probably the best she could, it was, as I said ... well, OK. And of course, the production helps, a lot. (Critiquing her is pointless, IMO.)

In other words, please permit this slight tangent, but let's not go off the deep end. OK? Thanks!





PS: I see your point, Bill, as it is indeed set up in single courses, but I give the artist credit for making sure it had eight strings, with four tuning pegs on the side of the headstock. Many artists are not even this close to accurate. Look through at least these two threads for ample examples of artistic license.

[jaycat]

That wasn't too bad. "Don't stick your finger in my pie??!?"

She came a long way since Live Peace in Toronto. And I was relieved that it wasn't a cover of Hank Snow's song.

[journeybear]

She does get a little atonal at the end, perhaps to please her fans, who would have been disappointed had there been none of that; perhaps just because she was feeling it. Taking a look at the track listing for the album, I realized I had forgotten how many songs she contributed. It really earned the "double" term. There are other songs that are OK, too, it's just that I recall flashing on this one on my first listening, and it has stuck with me ever since.

Back to the sculpture ... I read that Mr. Fredericks made plaster models before casting in bronze, and I assume the second image I posted is of just that. My understanding is that the customary procedure is to sculpt in wax, which is then surrounded in sand, molten bronze poured in, and the wax melts and pours out the bottom. There are some slight variations between the plaster and bronze versions, which perhaps represent a bit of fine-tuning of the image.

[Schlegel]

Back to the sculpture ... I read that Mr. Fredericks made plaster models before casting in bronze, and I assume the second image I posted is of just that. My understanding is that the customary procedure is to sculpt in wax, which is then surrounded in sand, molten bronze poured in, and the wax melts and pours out the bottom. There are some slight variations between the plaster and bronze versions, which perhaps represent a bit of fine-tuning of the image.

I know this isn't a sculpture forum but... Pouring molten metal in a mold still filled with wax would result in a lethal explosion of liquid bronze!

for one-off sculptures a wax form is carved , then this is enveloped in plaster-like investment material. The wax is melted out, and then the metal is poured into the void where the wax used to be.

For ones like this, it looks like he cast a plaster master (most likely still from a wax original) for making the production mold. This would enable him to make wax duplicates at will so he could cast multiples in bronze if needed.