Debra's Dream Leg

In the mid-1980's, Lynn Williams, my father, sculpted a larger-than-life 5-piece fragmented female body in stoneware.  It included a head, a torso, a leg, a partial leg with hands grasping it, and a thigh with a forearm across it.  The complete work was titled "Debra's Dream" because it was based on a dream that his sister had described to him.  In the dream, the subject was separated into pieces and scattered in a landscape, with feelings of being lost, trapped, and broken.

The pieces are all very thick and sturdy, with networks of support structures running along their inside surfaces.  The limiting factor in their size was the size of the kiln that had to hold them for firing; the head and torso were both about as large as could possibly fit.  These pieces have also spent some time outdoors, and they are virtually weatherproof.

The sculpture was displayed in its intended form for a period at Uptown Gallery, my parents' business in Eureka Springs, Arkansas.  The pieces were set onto wooden pedestals with a thin layer of sand.  The two legs stood together, one standing on the sand, and the second buried midway up the calf.  I may be able to add photos of this display at some point in the future.

When Lynn passed last year, I came into possession of "Debra's Dream," minus the head.  I believe the head must have been sold separately (if you know who owns the head, I would like to find out!).  In the photo below, the four remaining pieces are on the floor.

Three of the pieces have elegant standing positions as-is (the torso and the leg with hands both stand upside down).  In the pictures below, you can see how we have displayed the leg with hands and the thigh and forearm on a shelf next to the stairway.  Currently there are Christmas lights, but in the future we intend to install track lighting above the stairs.

The fourth piece, the full leg, with its angled foot, needed additional support to be displayed in a standing position.  In the gallery, it was held by an internal wooden pole (a broomstick, I think) that was inserted into the pedestal.  So my concept was to make a very simple base that holds the leg upright with a rod.  The hole in the foot is exactly the right size to fit a 2 x 4 board at an angle slightly off perpendicular to the ground.  So with a little measurement and a little trial and error, I cut a piece of 2 x 4 at the correct angle and bolted it securely to a 24 x 24 inch piece of thick plywood.  Then I cut a piece of threaded steel rod to fit as high into the leg as possible and drilled a hole in the 2 x 4 at a steep angle (again partially measured and partially guessed because it is very difficult to judge the exact angle of the rod inside of the leg).  I used threaded rod because I had initially envisioned screwing it into the 2 x 4 for a tight fit, but in practice it was actually easier to give it a loose fit as long as the hole in the 2 x 4 was deep enough to hold it securely.  Below are pictures of the assembled base with and without the leg.

In order to determine that the base was going to provide good enough support and not slowly bend or separate, I left the leg standing on it for a couple of weeks.

After proving to myself that it would work, it was time to finish the base.  I got out the jigsaw and cut out an oblong shape that I had drawn freehand.  The longest part of the base points in the direction that the leg leans, in order to make it as stable as possible with a small footprint (ha ha).

Next I used a coarse grain sandpaper to smooth and round the top edge around the base.  I did not bother with a finer sandpaper because the plywood has some deep wood grain that was going to stay regardless, and I planned to paint the board.  I really just wanted to get rid of the sharp edge and leave an otherwise natural look to the surface.

Next it was time to spray paint.  This photo is after one or two coats.

Here is the final base with the rod inserted.  See how nice that wood grain looks?

And here is the final piece from multiple angles.

From the top you can see how the lean matches the shape of the base.  The center of gravity is well within the area covered by the base.  The sculpture thus gives the illusion of leaning too far but it does not try to tip over.

 Thanks for looking!

Project 4: Redo the second bedroom, Part III

The weekend my grandparents were visiting they helped us install a new fan (actually the old Hunter ceiling fan from my childhood room in a David Weekley house similar in some ways to this house).



N and I picked out a color for the bedroom. We considered the artwork we wanted, the other colors we have selected in the rooms near it (green and orange), and our preference for bright, striking color. This shade of blue is Valspar's Enchanted Sea.

A couple of Thursdays ago N removed the remaining baseboards in the room, and I began taping off the moldings around the windows and doors. After sanding and texturing the patched areas of the walls, we began to paint every area except the patch from the previous door.

I decided to remove the plate for a telephone line that was run into the bedroom, and left it as is in the closet. There was a bundle of wire/cable that ran up from the electrical box through the closet ceiling and into the attic. I simply shoved the cable up the hole in the ceiling, and patched the bed room wall. There was no true electrical box: the phone line and cable were hanging out next to a two-by-four. I kind of made a mess of the wall cutting a hole to pull out a non-existent box.





N sanded down the wall patch (after a disastrous attempt at painting it - did not do a neat enough job with the MUD), and we spread out the patch significantly.







But, not enough. After N finished painting most of the room and everything dried, we realized that it was not as smooth as we had hoped. N sanded the area again, and then applied MUD. Less of the area needed sanding/mudding, which is a sign that we're getting closer to the right job. Here's a spot with a little of texture on (a different texture - the knockback texture without the knockback).



Pictures of the painted room:









Meanwhile, I sanded down the window sills and painted them with the good white alkyd paint. They and the door frames and doors will need to be painted completely.

Project 1: Redo the Half-bath, Part III

After the mud dried, we sanded it down, and sprayed the texture on. I bought a can of orange peel texture from Lowe's, and using the fine texture we were supposed to get a maximum of 110 feet of texture.

We first tested the texture against the old vanity in order to get a feel for spraying the walls. N had much better control of the can, probably because he's done more spray painting than I have.

The orange peel texture is nice looking, but after the one can was finished, we felt that the walls needed more texture. We grabbed one of the cans that we found in the garage, and used that one up. The combination of the two actually looked pretty good. We decided to let it dry for a half-hour, and then we'd paint.

I should note - if I haven't already done so - that this bathroom is under the stairs, and therefore has no natural lighting. We had to turn off the power to the half-bath (which is connected to the lights and power in our master bath, and was marked on the circuit box as either "dining room" or "hallway"), and uninstalled the old, ugly light fixture, and now we are using a trouble light only to illuminate our work.

We decided to begin painting around the light fixture hole and the whole vanity wall so that perhaps we could later install the new light fixture and have better lighting for the remainder of the job. At first the job seemed to going okay, and then...





BUBBLES!

(The color of the paint isn't very vivid in these pictures.)

Another consultation with my folks, another rounds of sanding and then using mud. And yet more bubbles.

I read some online, and it turns out that not only are bubbles in the drywall when painting, priming, or using mud a very common problem, I couldn't find any true consensus on the preferred solution. Some swear by adding dish soap to the mud, others declare that the way of stirring the mud is important, and still others say that the problem doesn't exist if you use good materials, use multiple light coats of mud, and pressure down hard enough to make your arm sore. I've decided to listen to this last advice, along with the layering advice of my mom, and we have had reasonably good results.

We covered the bubbles in the areas that we painted with mud, got everything nice and tight, and then use a spray primer (KILZ) on all areas where we feel that the drywall may be prone to bubbling. We sprayed another round of texture on the sanded areas, as well as nearer the ceiling, which we had previously missed, and we noticed that the bubbles no longer seemed to appear. N has since applied one more round of KILZ, then another bit of texture, and has begun to paint the bathroom. Hopefully (hopefully!) when I get back to town the walls will looking good enough that we can move forward with the next steps.

Lessons learned: when redoing the master bathroom, which is also wallpapered, we now know that after removing the wallpaper we should prime the walls using an oil-based primer. Then we can texture and paint. I bought a water-based texture, which we put on the walls without priming them, and I think this aggravated the existing problems of the drywall. The water-based texture is marketed as less smelly, which I thought was important because this room doesn't have good ventilation. Next time, I will just live with stinky air for a few hours and run the air filter throughout the house.

Sanded, mudded bubbles:



Next steps: tile the floor, replace the baseboard, and install the new vanity. Oh, and get the new light up, new hardware installed, and hang the mirror...and replace the light switches and outlet with new white ones. And maybe rehang the door.