what is going on? no postings for a month?!? how completely un-disciplined.

but i was sick – really sick – for like – 2 weeks. i couldn’t do anything.
and then… and then i was on vacation for a week – out of town – completely
offline. i swear. i mean, i could check email, but i certainly couldn’t post.
i was in the middle of the caribbean… it was very primitive – they only had a p.c…

to catch up… i’ll be posting every day for the next several days, rather
than once weekly-ish (the posts are already written, so you can trust me on this…)

anyhoo... the last thing i did before i fell ill (and “fell” is really
the right word here. it was definitely a falling of sorts; a losing to
a force as determined as gravity) was pick up a new statue to restore -

Our Lady of the Snow:

i usually work on the marble statues on site, but this one needed
to come back to the studio, which was another maneuver for the
dreamteam (scroll down to the giant jesus .pdf). this is my big
summer project. the statue will need to be cleaned and have
the paint removed. (oddly, lots of white marble statues i encounter
have been painted white, presumably to mask the carbon staining
from auto emissions or to mask repairs. this is no good for stone.)

i’ll also be reattaching the broken parts (the statue fell over
during the church’s previous attempt to clean her) and rebuilding
the missing ones.

people often ask me how the restoration work affects my studio work.

sometimes it’s more obvious than other times.