Chapter 31 - Art II
My artist friend, is one of a small number of what I think of as my inner circle friends. My criteria for such nomenclature, you mght well wonder. Its over a period of time, first and foremost. No matter how well you present? The number of times someone presents perfect but over time morphs into a walking flaming asshole, I lost track of. I've known artist dude for years, which should tell you something about his character and nature.
After a certain amount of long time, you lose track of exactly how long you've known them. Measurements like less than a year, about a year, then year and a half, two years... after a certain fairly low number of years? No more internal accounting. With no compelling reason, you lose track. And if all through that time, they're a positive constant and don't become an asshole? Well, that's inner circle.
People you can count on.
My inner circle? I ask nothing of them. They're not a resource to me, of anything tangible. I never ask inner circle to borrow money, ever. I rarely ask them for anything, and in general attempt to monitor them, and see what I can volunteer that I might be able to help with. I know I'm an odd duck, and in the bargain I go slightly overboard trying to be friendly, polite and useful.
After several months, he claimed to have an address he wanted to go to. He needed a ride. His old lady's car had shit the bed, and she had his for now. I asked what it was, and he was cryptic about it. He said it was a surprise.
This was after several months. During which time he had taken his sculpting inordinately serious, even by his standards. He made little clay statues and took molds of them and cast and sealed each in resin. I wormed my way into his big art project early on before his mysterious ride. I popped a few twenty dollar bills to get gallons of resin or gallons of silicone rubber to pour molds from. To make additional little practice statues. He already had clay.
We were driving to his mysterious surprise destination.
"Hey. Thanks for the ride."
"Ah. I'm bored anyways. You know my story."
He knows my Rain is dead, and that as near as the police could come up with for sure? It was like a serial killer rolled through her city. The police never could close her case. Its what I told him, and moreover its no lie.
"How are you so into my sculpture now. I mean, I appreciate the help, I just wondered."
"Honestly? I need something to do. Has to be something completely new, too. I'm enjoying watching you, and doing this. Now. Follow my logic, here. I'm going off road. Stay with me. You play chess, you can do it."
"Smart ass. But what."
"You're the artist. If this thing works, like you tell me it will? There's going to be, a big statue somewhere. You're the artist, you can point to it. It... makes you a real artist. Its proof. You, get more work because of that. Right?"
"Definitely. Every big artist? Somehow, some way, got that first big important job. This one? Its mine."
"Right. And its free to you, so why would you mind... if I got myself a title out of it, too."
"What. You want to be... assistant artist? I don't get it."
"No. But why can't I pretend to be the project manager."
"Huh?"
"Yeah. I don't know what one does, either. I mean, I had engineering classes in college. For software engineering. They wanted us to think like engineers. I mean, I understand project management, from that kind of end of it. But, if anyone ever asked? Why couldn't I say I was the project manager, on the big statue."
"I guess you could. Is that going to make you a project manager, then?"
"Well. Its making you a real artist, isn't it?"
"Yeah."
"Its going to make me a project manager. Deal?"
"I guess. Hell, you bought me how many gallons of resin, and powdered metal, and silicone? Now I need rides. Christ. You can be the director and producer, too, if you want the titles. I don't care."
I grinned.
"In reality? I'll be... more of your assistant. I think you might need me, though."
"For what. I made you make something in clay? You're not... artistic."
"I know I'm not. But, picture this."
"Okay..."
"Little statue? Little blob of clay. Its fine. What happens, when you need a blob of clay over fix foot tall. Taller and thicker than a person, because you need more to take some away, to make your statue. Its wet clay, and its hundreds and hundreds of pounds of it. It it slumps, or falls over as you make the pile uneven? You're dead. If you're just trapped for 24 hours until I'm supposedly due back? You could be dead, or lose limbs."
He suddenly got somber.
"I... never thought of that."
"That's because you're an artist. Why would you. Tell you a story. My first time. Being around... industrial sized amounts of shit."
"All right."
"I found out the price, of a 20,000 pound coil of steel. Its those couple of giant coils you see strapped to the back end of a tractor trailer sometimes. A couple huge coils? That's coils of steel, usually. I was thinking about designing and making things, out of that coil of steel. I knew the price of the coil of steel, and how much shipping and dropping it off by truck would cost."
"I could see that."
"I knew the thickness of steel I picked, and how wide and long that coil was. And that would determine how expensive what I made out of the coil of steel sheets? Would cost someone to buy."
"What were you thinking of making."
"Sheds. My little shed kits I sold, or put up myself on site? Were going to be advertised... as the thickest, sturdiest steel sheds you could buy. Anywhere, at any price. I was going to put a steel roof on my old house. Steel siding. And make all the sheds and garages I felt like making, because a coil of steel, depending on the thickness you buy it in, is a shit load."
"Yeah, that's you. You were... what. Calculating how many four foot by four foot sheds you get out of one coil."
"I was."
"Where... is the dangerous, wet clay can kill you part, in all this."
"My neighbor. He was a construction worker. He pointed it out. When this coil appears in your yard. How do you plan on cutting a big sheet of metal off, to start cutting and riveting and playing with it."
"I said, I guess I unwind a couple turns of this four foot tall coil, and cut some off. Start playing with it. He says, so... you plan on cutting that band around it, right?"
"I said, yeah... why. And he laughs. Says if I do that? I'm a dead man. It will literally, cut me in half at the waist. Plus? If that doesn't get me, maybe it wraps around a tree or a post, and that accidentally saves my life that way. The metal coil? A four foot tall waterfall is going to expand outwards several feet in all directions? When the tension comes off that coil of steel. He explained, you need big huge come-along chain binders and big Egyptian shit like that, to do it and not get killed and destroy everything nearby."
"Wow."
I nodded.
"I was wow, too. I'm just passing this on. Your six foot tall lump of clay? I'm seeing a framework under it. We pose metal rods, and you set them to be artistic, but... it needs a skeleton."
"I think you're right. Thanks."
"Another one?"
"Sure."
"We're talking about a six foot tall clay statue. To make the mold off of."
"Yeah. Same thing I already do. Just... scaled up."
"Because that much resin? Is dangerous to pour all at once."
"Really?"
"Yes. I know I didn't know anything about cement forms. I made myself little... sidewalk kinds of forms, stepping stone forms. Thought I really knew something. When I went to make a big square cement pad? Glad someone was there that knew what they were doing. My forms were for thin shit on the ground. If I tried to pour it all at once, a whole truck load at once, like I envisioned in my pea brain? I blew the sides out easy, and I'd be lucky not to get a broken hip out of it happening."
"What was the right way."
"I could do it my way, as long as I poured in little lifts. So many inches and sit a little, at a time. You can keep a little water now and then in the cement turning. If you pay the guy to wait a little, he will."
"How much resin even is that."
"Six foot tall, four foot by four foot? Lots of gallons. Every gallon is way over seven pounds, that's just water weight. We either pour in little lifts, or we need massive reinforcement around it. Estimating it by weight? I'm seeing, what. More than one 55 gallon drum, right? Four foot by four foot square, more or less. A hand is reaching up? Over six foot tall. A leg is stretched, a hand is out? It goes way over four foot wide. That's a lot of gallons. When the statue is completed? The rectangle we build around it, I can calculate how many gallons. I can subtract off, the exact gallons of the statue and make it exact."
"You're right. You? Just became the project manager."
I pulled into a really small and old fashioned gas station. Rather than a regular convenience store, a small mom and pop gas station had managed to keep up the modern pumps and tanks, and they had their own small version of a convenience store to go with it. I explained to him.
"I'm gassing up, and getting snacks and drinks. Might not find another place."
He agreed.
"Yeah. Its not a long trip, but we went to the sticks, quick. I was never out this road before."
"Join the club. I didn't even know this road existed. You? Gave me coordinates, not an address. To get to your surprise."
My phone finally liked where we were, versus what coordinates we were at.
"We're very close."
He looked around.
"Where is it?"
I grinned at him.
"Like I know. You said it was a surprise. Now I have to find it? All I can see... is that trail, right there."
We drove through it, a part in the underbrush, then there it was. A cement walled and roofed garage building. Maybe three cars, total. Guessing by size. He had a four digit code, and the big metal door rolled up. He looked at me, and extended his arm.
"Surprise."
I had to ask him.
"What are we here to pick up."
The door finished slowly rolling up by a motor somewhere.
"Surprise. This is my studio. I won."
We looked around. It was... a mostly empty cement tank, essentially. It looked like a big three car sized cement tank had been poured, all at once. Cement roof, when I looked up. There were pallets with steel bands around layers of large cardboard boxes. Plastic wrapped around the whole thing, binding pallet to box pile, for monolithic shipping.
"This place is... truck shipping."
He blinked at me.
"What do you mean."
"See that I-beam going over our heads?"
He looked up.
"Yeah."
"See that thing with wheels, that rides the I beam? With the big hook."
"Uh huh."
"You can load, or unload, big things off of trucks with that in here. Back the ass end of a semi in here, with that big door. See those chains, in that pile?"
"Yeah."
"You... bolt those chains carefully. You lift pallets up, and you roll it over, and you can put it on the ground. Where those pallets are, now."
"I wonder what's in them."
I shrugged.
"Lets see."
It was boxes of modeling clay. Boxes of resin, and powdered metal. 55 gallons drums of silicone mold.
He wanted to fool around and make a little test one, right away.