THE BACKSIDE OF WATERFALL ROAD

trees beside waterfall road

Drove to town today to pay a few bills due tomorrow. I set out on a leisurely drive. Didn't need anything from any store, my coffee shop friends don't go there anymore, no reason to stop there. I told self to spend no money in town. Don't need gas. Drive up to each of three drive-thrus, envelope in drawer, "Thank you, have a good day," never turn off the engine, drive on through town and make a circuit. Drove into town by way of Pine Swamp Road and returned by highway 18. Felt relaxed the whole time. No radio in the car, no problem. I'd actually rather listen to the tires sing on the pavement. New tires on the road have their own sound. I listen to the motor. It is a near perfect engine, the 93 Buick Century 3300 v-6, a classic motor like the Chevy Nova slant-6 that is used all over the Third World running pumps long after the bodies have rusted away. My motor is such a fine motor, doesn't burn but half a quart of oil per 3,000 miles. A healthy motor. All problems with the car are external to the engine. I love the engine as much as I love the car. It starts right now, in zero degree air as in seventy degree air. The car runs so reliably, just driving it makes me happy. I went on the one-gallon of gas round-trip to Sparta, out seeing the landscape, the slant of the light, the shadows on the ground, the trees, the houses, the sky, the mountains. Out for a drive on a sunny day. Took camera along, saw one scene of an old-time loading pen, a dozen black cows grazing nearby and a tree, stark winter shadows. I'd already passed the only place I could pull off the road and park. I'd need to turn around, go back, etc. Too much. 

 chance installation

Drove through Sparta feeling good, brief verbal exchange at each drive-thru window, pull up to the red-light in the middle of town on hwy 18, turns green and I'm on the way home. At Whitehead, I decided to drive up the back road, the beautiful road that goes through the woods and hasn't been messed with ever, but to throw gravel on it from time to time and let it wash down the roadbed in the side ditches every big rain. Big rocks beside the road that takes a ridge up the mountain, a more direct shot than taking Air Bellows Gap Road up the mountain, though rough, so rough I go slow and straddle ruts the best I can. It's an easy road to drive, just have to drive it like walking. It's a hurry slowly road. I passed some icicles hanging from a rock formation. Pulled up a ways to a place I could get off the road. Nobody uses the road, but sure as I park in it, somebody will come along. It's a natural law. I walked back to the icicles, got some pics of it, some rock and some trees the other side of the road. The road goes up the spine of the mountain. It is the old wagon road to Air Bellows. At the top of the mountain, the sides of the road are like any other. The pavement ends at the top and the further down the road you go, the sides of the road rise gradually as walls. By the bottom, the walls are as high as the car. A few centuries of erosion down wagon tracks in mud, the roadbed becomes a river during a torrential rain washing the mud away. Such a rain happens at least once a year. 

merlin the shop cat

In Whitehead, before driving up the mountain, I stopped at Maxwell Equipment to see whoever was there. Ross was on the phone. It was cold. The building is made of wood framing and tin-roofing walls and roof. It's merely a windbreak. The temperature outside and inside are the same. Ross had the stove going. It made a pleasant zone in a radius of about five feet. Chairs around the stove. Merlin the shop cat was in there staying inside the stove's aura. He sleeps in a stack of insulation in a high corner of the building. Merlin is a good old neutered Tom cat with a white hairs sprinkled randomly through his black pelt. He likes the shop for the mice. Must have left wherever he lived before. Ross and I sat by the stove talking and somebody came in for some minor work, and the three of us talked awhile. Harry came in and the four of us stayed near the fire and talked. Harry lives up the hill behind the shop. Merlin took up with him a few years ago. Harry and Ross needed to drive to Wilkesboro for some steel or a part. I came on home, driving slowly along Air Bellows Gap Road looking at landscape in afternoon winter light. This is where I decided to go up the mountain on the back part of Waterfall Road. The part of the road houses can be built on are at the upper end of Waterfall Road. From the point where the pavement ends, on down to the bottom, the banks are almost straight up on both sides of it. There are so many trees, it's not a concern leaving the road. I have walked the road with dog and photographed it many times. It was one of my favorite walks. In late winter when the two roads coming up the mountain are so rutted that getting stuck is an in-yer-face issue, I take this back road. People with new cars don't know they really can drive over it easily, so none of the new people ever use it. 

icicle and rock

In winter with snow and ice, when the other two roads are nearly impassable, I use the old wagon road. It's like a bobsled run going down it on ice, a slow, very slow bobsled. I drove Ted Stern, whose farm I once caretook, down the the wagon road in his new Cadillac. He was mortified, but I never scraped bottom one time. I'd walked the road so many times, I knew it intimately. One winter, I drove preacher Millard Pruitt down the bobsled run in good packed snow in my 78 Toyota pickup, blue with the driver's side door red. He grew up on the mountain and this was the road he grew up on. I wanted to show him the old road of his childhood. I knew I could easily make it. It was just snow and ice. His eyes were bugged out all the way to the bottom. Never lost traction one time. It was the smoothest the road ever is. A few people like to four-wheel on it in winter. They pack the snow down good to make an easy road to drive. One of my favorite memories happened one day in winter, several inches of snow, walking along the road with my dog Sadie. A crow flew up over the ridge from one side to the other, passing just a couple feet above my head. I heard the wings, thought of the hymn, Come Angel Band, "I hear the sound of wings." In a world of white, one crow, appeared, flew over my head and disappeared down the other side. I felt like that was one of the most blessed moments of my life. The waterfalls are down the very steep bank beside the road. I decided to go to the waterfalls by that way one day years ago. Took a fifty foot rope to tie on a tree at the top. The first thirty or so feet was sheer rock covered with leaves, slicker than ice to try to walk on. It was a fun journey. At the bottom, close to the waterfall I came upon a huge area of jack in the pulpits. Big ones, maybe two feet tall, covered the bank above the water. It's an ideal a Japanese garden designer reaches toward, natural, the way God flung it.  

rock and growth

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EARTH DAY WITH PEOPLE OF THE EARTH

wrench

Yesterday I searched for my own definition of nature, came to see the natural world as whatever is not created by the human mind, natural meaning left alone by human mind. This does not mean to dismiss the human mind, which, itself is natural as a tree, a rock, a squirrel. The human mind, a microcosm of the Creator is a creator itself. Mind created civilizations all around the globe down through time. Mind created an historical legacy of art from beginning to present. In Athens, Greece, 1972, I went to the museum of Greek art. I saw some of the very first carvings in soft stone of the first human depictions in that part of the world of self representation. They were static, arms straight down for centuries. The Greek renascence, the Classical Age, depicted the human form in motion, in time. Art is one activity of the human mind, philosophy too, that a good case can be made for to include them as the same as the natural world. Plato continues to be as relevant to the human condition as Michelangelo and Matisse. Much of our own human behavior is natural as donkey behavior, or chimpanzee behavior, cat behavior. I believe it is that part of self, the natural world part, that I have aspired to find in adult life. To do it, I've had to separate myself from the games of the human mind like social climbing, making money as an end in itself, identifying with the most expensive house, car and clothes affordable, and the right people. That's the zone I consider unnatural; therefore, the world. The mind likes to attach itself to things as expressions of self. Of course mind is attached to things because things are creations of the mind. A rubber ducky, somebody's mind created it. God creates life, the whole cycle from birth to death, whereas creations of the human mind begin their process of entropy upon creation. I hesitate to use the word God, because its meaning varies from individual to individual, but it's the same with a lot of words.

ross

My way of living the natural world in human society is to have my right people be the people I naturally resonate with in varying degrees. Several years ago I decided to trim my associations down to the people I care about who care about me. I have enough people in my life I care about who care about me that I don't have room for gamers. When somebody starts gaming me, it's a very short time before it's a game of one, bouncing a ball off a wall. I quit playing bridge not long after catching on and finding it a fascinating game I believed I could learn well enough in a few years to become a player. But the temperaments of bridge players was something I couldn't handle. When I got cussed by my partner for playing the wrong card, I stood up, announced I will never play another game of bridge the rest of my life and left the table. How are we going to finish the game? I don't know, that's yours to figure out. My hillbilly blood shining through, back when I didn't know I had hillbilly blood, and sure as hell wouldn't have told anybody if I knew it. Blood is natural. I believe it is natural when somebody gets in my face cussing me to do something about it right now, whatever it takes, least violent recourse first, unless it calls for putting the individual on the ground. You don't have to be a fighter to be able to do that real easy. Just turn on the mode Justin calls survival mode when he's in a fight, when you do whatever it takes. Our feelings are natural as our bones. I'm recalling my friend Jr Maxwell in his 80s telling me, You have to go with your feelings. Another time he said, Patience is everything. He was a welder, a tractor mechanic, a sawmiller, heavy-equipment operator, farmer, bluegrass banjo picker and singer, husband in grief without his wife, a man of the real thing wisdom, who looking back over his life assessed himself a fool. I called him, in my mind, the wise fool. He used mind for a tool, for figuring out how to fix things. Money was what you needed to meet expenses, the rest of it was living your life, enjoying talking with friends around the wood stove in the tractor shop, enjoying playing bluegrass on weekends wherever the band played.

 

zak

 

Had to make a town run today for cat litter and gas for the car. Stopped at the Exxon station for four gallons, 80 miles. Walking from the pump to the station to pay, I saw Doris putting gas in a car for a woman I didn't know. I spoke to Doris, the woman started to drive off. Doris started drumming the trunklid with the palm of her hand and hollering for the woman to stop. She stopped. She was up in years. Inside, paying Doris, I said, That's me in a year or two. She said, I'm afraid I'm gonna be there too. It was an amusing moment, but it was not funny--if we live long enough, we will each have such lapses. It was a moment of empathy both Doris and I were feeling. I'm glad we spoke of it. I was thinking this is what I love about country people. Doris knew the woman and knew she could not put gas in her car, went out to work the pump herself. I just now heard the yipping of a pack of coyotes in the donkey meadow. I jumped and went out the door hollering GIT, loud like the giant that can kill you by looking at you. I had to holler several times. Each time I hollered, one or two stopped, until after half a dozen or more monster roars they quit. One stayed behind. It sounded hurt. But their yipping sounds like they're screaming in pain anyway. It continued to squeal for quite awhile after all the others were quiet. I hope Jenny nailed one. If she did, word will have run through the pack by now that donkeys fight back. I don't know how Jenny responds to coyotes, but I do know they scare her and Jack. It tickled me to show Jenny and Jack my psychic power over the coyotes. When the ice cream man brays, the coyotes scatter. After attempting to frighten coyotes by clanging shovels together or clanging pots and lids, I learned quickly they paid these noises no mind. But holler GIT in a bold monster voice, it gets their attention. They know it's the monster that lives in the barn. I don't mind the donkeys having coyote experience. Donkeys can kill coyotes, but Jack and Jenny don't know it yet. A highway of trails the night animals use runs just the other side of the donkey meadow. The night animals know two donkeys are living here by now.      

 

harry

 

I stopped by the tractor shop, Maxwell Equipment in Whitehead, to breeze with the fellers, smoke cigarettes and talk. It was Jr's shop, which Ross has now. Ross and Jr were friends since Ross was a child like Justin and I have been friends since he was a child. Ross is the natural next one to keep Jr's shop going. Zak went to UNC Chapel Hill in philosophy and makes pottery at home. He has a short-legged black and white dog named Rimbaud. Harry is a retired Army and Air Force jet and helicopter mechanic. Harry gets so much in retirement, he doesn't need any more money, so he hangs at the shop and works all day for something to do. All three of them have fast minds good at taking IQ tests, putting round pegs in round holes. Every job that comes in is something to do the first time. They use their minds figuring out as they go. All three were involved in work today they had to focus close attention to, so I left them to work without distraction and walked around with the camera. They know I stay out of the way. I've known the shop for so many years, it's as comfortable as being at home. I remember sitting in wooden chairs with Jr gazing at the cars and trucks going by outside the big garage door, talking for hours. These are people devoid of pretensions. None of them is going kiss anybody's ass to get ahead. In New Age speak, you might say they're grounded. All three are from here, all three from families that have been here a long time. They're Appalachian Americans, hillbillies, and wouldn't have it any other way. We are each very different people who share a respectful memory of Jr Maxwell and a love for these hills, would rather live poor here than rich someplace else. We are all people who have withdrawn from what we take for a fake society and live our lives the way we want to. Patti Smith sings in my head, Outside of society, that's where I wanna be. These are people I value, people I look up to. I see them natural human beings as opposed to correct or right or best. I call them good people. Some may not. I don't care. I present them as examples of people I am drawn to who live closer to the earth than to the world.

 

found art

 

 

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DONKEYS AND RED

 

 

 

maxwell equipment

by tj worthington

 

Justin came by today on his day off to pick up five bales of hay from the barn and bring them up to the fence where I feed the donkeys. I could get my car into where the barn is, but couldn't get it out. The barn stands on a flat place at the bottom of a pretty good hill. Water washes down the hill in rain and snow and settles in the bottom. Most of the time it is dry, but seldom in winter. A heavy four-wheel drive pickup with big tires can do it easily. Justin visited with the donkeys across the fence, noting how gentle they are and easy to be with. He said, "You spoiled em." Maybe so. I hope so. When Vada wants to come see the donkeys, I want them so I won't have to be afraid they'll hurt her. I want her to be able to walk around their legs freely in the meadow and them be happy to see her. A day or two ago the grown daughter of my friend Lynn Brooks, Erica, stopped here on the way to the waterfall to meet the donkeys. I took her inside the meadow to be in there with them. I told her they don't like being touched and they'll be cautious of her hands. They just don't like hands all over their faces like people tend to do with horses. It gives the donkeys the creeps to have hands rubbing their faces. I was struck by how gentle Jenny was with Erica. She ran her upper lip over Erica's hand and jacket feeling the textures. I told Erica that's what Jenny was doing so she wouldn't be alarmed that Jenny might be wanting to bite her. Jenny took to her. Never threatened the first time to bite. I feel like Jenny recognized the feminine. Her previous human caretaker was a woman. That's my own projection. I don't really know. Jenny kept Jack away. So I petted on Jack and talked to him while Jenny and Erica had their communication. I like the donkeys to meet my friends. I want them to meet gentle people who don't regard them as stock. They like everybody I've taken to them. They love connecting with humans who appreciate that they are conscious.

maxwell equipment

by tj worthington

During the visit with Jack I put my forefinger inside Jack's mouth to see what he'd do, just under the teeth. He bit down gently holding the finger like with pliers, then he started gently squeezing, very gently, bearing down to see where he could make me yelp. I yelped and he let go. It tickled him. He was checking me out. It was like the time he ran at me full speed and stopped with his nose a few inches from my chest. He wanted to make me jump. I didn't jump and it bewildered him. I like them to pull tricks on me. It tells me they are comfortable with me, comfortable as with another donkey. I connect with them, consciousness to consciousness, and it doesn't matter that they can't talk and don't understand my language. We communicate by paying attention to one another. I feel both Jack and Jenny are comfortable here and comfortable with each other. They don't kick so much anymore, and when they do kick it's a symbolic gesture that doesn't even connect, like saying, Don't make me have to kick you. Jenny appears to be content with Jack, even acts like she likes him ok. They spend all their time together, so they surely get bored with each other from time to time, but their focus is on each other at all times. They might be as much as a hundred feet apart grazing, aware at all times where the other is. The farthest I've seen them apart is when one walks to the creek to get a drink. Mostly, I see them just outside kicking distance of each other. Most of their issues are around Jack's libido. Jenny is on rape alert at all times. Jenny appears to have Jack more under control as time goes by. She's not a controlling woman by nature, it's just that she has to control him in self defense. He's a serial rapist. She has to kick the shit out of him to stop him, and he doesn't feel a thing. They are much calmer together than ever before, though all Jenny has to do is go pee, Jack goes and sniffs of it, then he's ready to get his jaws kicked some more. Pain is no distraction when Jack's focus is zoomed in on his curly-haired baby doll.

 

maxwell equipment

by tj worthington

 

All week I've had colors on my mind from the question Monday about favorite color. It's not something I think about. I wrote in one sitting that I was partial to all three primary colors, red, yellow and blue equally. That didn't feel completely right. I felt a leaning toward one, but couldn't find it. Reading what my facebook friend Darlene wrote, she was saying her favorite color has changed along the way between red, yellow and blue, I realized then that mine had changed too. This may be why I have not taken the question seriously, never thinking about it changing. I can see in my early years a clear preference for blue. Then it switched to yellow and stayed yellow for several years. It seemed a while before I caught on yellow was coming forward. I see now it has changed to red. This is why I said I like all three equally. Each one has held the title of favorite in its time. I find myself drawn to red in color selection often in this time. In the West, in Christendom, red is a brazen color, scarlet, and it symbolizes blood. In the East, red is an important color. Chinese artists use red consciously. Red also is the color of the base, the "lowest," chakra, thus not considered a spiritual color. Red is the color of Mars, anger and aggression, both of which are frowned upon by ones on their own spiritual path. There is a self-consciousness about liking red, an underlying belief that red is not a spiritual color. I entertained that notion for a time, until I saw there was nothing to it. None of that is my concern in terms of visual art. Red is a dynamic, bold color that makes its own statement. It has its own vibration that I prefer to see without Christian symbolism, the blood of the lamb, sacrificing sheep, Jesus on the cross. I refuse to let that symbolism have a place in my head. I am free now to see red for itself, it's embracing vibration, its ability to stand out in front of other colors and hold its place indisputably. The Jet Li of colors.

 

 

 

maxwell equipment

by tj worthington

 

I use color for depth in everything I paint. Kandinsky's book, Concerning The Spiritual In Art, approaches colors scientifically. He discovered wonderful things like red, yellow and high-contrast juxtapositions come forward; blue, green and low-contrast juxtapositions recede. I've found I'd rather give the illusion of depth by way of colors than by perspective. I can counter perspective with colors too. It's more challenging and more fun. I've been with this Daily Creative Practice bunch over a month, having turned my attention away from politics and bogus news to the people involved in the DCP group. Everything that appears there is true, from an individual's imagination. No deception going on. No propaganda. No coercion. Plenty of support, flowing with support. I've connected with some awfully interesting people there. The writing is my primary art form in this time, though I like to do some visual art as well. I'm letting the influence of these people actively working on art projects of whatever sort stir up inspiration inside self to search for something new in my own painting, something totally new, something more in line with my present aesthetic. One's aesthetic sense changes all the time. Not fast, but it's constantly including something new or letting go of something old that didn't work. One thing I'll do soon and document with photographs: take a spray can to the tunnel where Air Bellows Gap Road goes under the Blue Ridge Parkway. Two cement walls covered in spray can graffiti by local teenagers. I call it the Air Bellows Outdoor Art Museum. It constantly changes. No addition is ever put on with the thought of its relation to the whole, in color or placement. The two walls are covered up in words, colors and shapes placed randomly that have nothing to do with each other, but the whole makes a mosaic of colors flowing in and out of each other in layers over time and unpredictable compositions. I want to add something to it, now that the temperature is warming. Next week is looking like reasonable temperature every day.    

 

maxwell equipment

by tj worthington

 

 

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HILLBILLY ART---GETTIN ER DONE

cy twombly

 

 

Jr Maxwell has been with me in spirit today. This morning I picked up some motorcycle wheels from the motorcycle skeleton yard, a frame with a motor, 5 old rusted flywheels from I can't imagine what, a short crankshaft covered in rust. That's my treasure. I want to do something special with it, thinking of displaying it upright like Brancusi's Bird In Space. Might play with putting chemicals on it to make different colors of rust. Everything is possible when I have no box. I've decided to jump out of whatever boxes I've been functioning in where art is concerned. The box gives structure and foundation. I can find them outside the box, as well. I can't lean on the wall of a box. All the more fun. I want to make abstractions, though I also want to make crazy things like flamingos and giant insects, whatever happens. Anything goes. I spent the day in Jr's tractor repair shop that is now Ross's. The shop was built by Jr, has his name on the sign. It will always be Maxwell Equipment. The place smells like it smelled in Jr's time there, the old grease smell covering the cement floor over about thirty years. A mechanic's hands are always black with grease, a thin coat of black remains on everything he touches. Over time the black thickens until the handles of tools are black from much use. The shop was also Jr's man cave.

 

tony smith

 

 

I spent a few hours sitting out of the way by the wood stove not in use taking apart the gears and axles of the two back wheels. It was quite an adventure in bolt removal. I'm looking as much forward to disassembling these motorcycle skeletons as much as reassembling them in original new ways. Saving all bolts and nuts, sleeves, rings of every sort in a particular box. I want to use the bolts and screws from the bikes themselves putting them back together. Getting acquainted with my palette.  Tomorrow morning I'll tear into the frame with the motor and back wheel. Disassemble the whole thing down to the pistons and the rods, valves, sparkplugs, crankshafts. Every part of the entire mechanism I want to have available for use. Break them down to their nuts and bolts and tiniest parts. This is the time of deconstructing the dead bikes to their parts. Axles with bearings could be great for something that turns in the wind. I know I'm not the first to do something like this. Far from it. It doesn't matter. I don't want to look and see what other people have done. I want my own vision to emerge from the parts themselves and my experience putting them together into something new, something worth making. I'll let Ross decide about prices. I don't want that in my head. All this will be worked out conversationally over time. I can see I'll be spending a lot of time in the shop. It's not like we're starting a business. My only agenda will be never to get serious about it.

 

ai weiwei

 

 

It will be fun to make yard ornaments, even wall sculptures that hang on an outside wall or an inside wall. Things for indoors and outdoors. I see houses everywhere now with a black star hanging on an outside wall. I've heard they indicate a retired sheriff. I don't know. Whatever it is, I find it a very unfortunate image to put on one's house. A black star. That's kind of like an upside down cross. Not that it is anything at all, but the emotional symbolism is there. The black stars strike me sinister. They make me pause with a frown, like that aint right. Of course, it is right for the people who put them up and I remind myself it's their right like having a bird feeder in my yard is my right. It's just that they're creepy in my way of seeing. I don't want to make creepy things. I want them to express delight in one way or another. In this period of bike deconstruction, I'm discovering parts, shapes, designs, patterns. I like the rust. I will want to paint very little. Though some things will need painting. That can be decided per piece. No gotta-oughta-should-better-needta-benefit-from. I'll let Ross handle the money totally. I don't want to get mixed up with money. I'm doing it for the fun there is in it and that is all. If occasional gas money comes from it, hooray. Beyond that, I don't care. Even that, I don't care.

 

donald judd

 

 

This project will be done in a spirit of in memory of Jr Maxwell. Inside the shop is a sense that he is living. Jr was important to Ross and Jr was important to me. Ross and I did a kind of male bonding struggle around Jr. Men who don't like each other and have a fight come out of the fight best friends. The fight somehow, maybe even subliminally, becomes a bonding. Hierarchy is important to men. Knowing who can kick whose ass is important among men. I attribute it to 6,000 years of armies at war. Boys grow up to be soldiers and take orders. Boys expected to grow up and be killers for awhile, then raise a family. Warrior society. It's got our working class men, the ones that shoot guns and get killed, believing blind obedience is patriotic, masculine. Yes Sir! Easily manipulated by propaganda. Ross believed I was setting Jr up to rip him off. When I went home the day Jr's spirit left the body, expecting or asking for nothing. What I was there for was done. I never attempted to convince Ross that my intent was what he would want it to be, to allow Jr to leave the body in his own bed. That was important to him, and I was the only one who could make it possible for him.

 

dan flavin

 

 

I understand Ross's suspicion, because everybody around here knows somebody or of somebody who moved in on somebody feeble and alone to get everything signed over to them in the will. It happens. People you'd never suspect. I knew my purpose, but knew I could never be convincing; words are not convincing to anybody of these mountains and I understand. When it became apparent I had not imposed myself on Jr for property or anything in any way, the day he died, then I became ok to all who had been watching: Whitehead. All of Whitehead. I had no idea until the day he left the body that all of Whitehead had been watching. That day I became a naturalized citizen of Whitehead community. One of the great honors of my life, if not IT. In some way I don't understand at all when Ross and I are around each other, Jr is with us. I see Jr in him and he sees Jr in me. In short, we've become friends in memory of Jr. I like that. It keeps Jr alive for both of us. Like Jr said, "Patience is everything." The shop has become a gang of misfits, doing whatever needs doing. Today this old boy from town was there repairing the bottom of a fiberglass canoe and he'd never worked with fiberglass before. The sound of power tools, the satellite radio playing bluegrass sometimes and hard metal other times. The smell of grease and WD-40. Laughs happening frequently.

 

 

ai weiwei

 

 

We're ready to make hillbilly art, put up a sign misspelled like somebody who didn't pay much attention in school painted it, who got passed along year after year until he graduated illiterate. Or quit first chance it was legal, whichever came first, sixteenth birthday or finish eighth grade. That's how it was with my generation. I don't know what it is now. Probably not much different. Hillbilly. I think of it as exploiting expectation. What Ross and I are wanting to do is #1, get rid of his old motorcycle skeletons and parts that go with them, and  #2, have some fun. Humor. Funny. I'm already thinking of what I can do with maybe twenty valves from motorcycle engines, gas tanks, fenders, wheels, frames, handlebars, pistons, chains. I'm excited anticipating taking the motor and wheel off the frame to see what the frame itself looks like. I'm looking forward to having several different frames to see what can be done with them. Spoke wheels, rusted chrome, some with tires, some without. I want to leave the tires. I enjoy taking the bikes apart. It's like a potter kneading the clay before creating the form with it. I am thinking that instead of putting my name on them, finding a way to sign them Maxwell Equipment. That name acknowledges the group effort it is. I may be the one with the designing eye, but maybe not the only one. And everyone involved in the shop will be helping in varieties of ways, if no more than telling me how to use a particular tool, like a welder. Everybody will be involved. I don't want the credit to be all mine. That would be taking it seriously.

I want my part light hearted.  

 

 

frank stella

 

 

 

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