Huitzi

One great thing about living in the midwest is that there are craft breweries everywhere. Because these are small companies and can't afford huge ad campaigns, they have to work to stand out. I think it's such a treat to walk through the store and see product design for each company.

Many companies have a theme in which all their beers are named. One of my favorites is called Five Rabbit. Their beers are animal themed with a Central American twist.  I found this beauty at the store during the end of Polar Vortex and let's be frank, I'm a sucker hummingbirds. I stopped to examine the label and realized (of course!) that it is a Five Rabbit product.  The side of the bottle says:

Art journal page (where I should have used a thinner Pen)

"Huitzi is a winter beer that doesn´t wallow in the dark cold days of this season. Like it’s namesake, the Aztec hummingbird god Huitzilopoctli who smashed the winter to allow the sun to return, Huitzi looks forward to the brighter promise of spring. We think of it as a winter cooler."

WHAT--Did I just read that correctly: "hummingbird god?" Yes, yes there was an Aztec hummingbird god. Sort of...

Huitzilopochtli was a warrior and sun god.  In art he is depicted as a hummingbird (sometimes an eagle) or a warrior wearing hummingbird feathers. As the son of the earth goddess and a sun god, the legend says that he created the moon and stars from his siblings who tried to kill him and their mother. According to the legend the spirits of fallen warriors would join him in the sun and then be reincarnated as hummingbirds.

The product design for this beer and the stories its name honors caught my imagination. Over Christmas break I found an Art Blanc Modo Arte journal on clearance at Hobby Lobby and bought it as I always do art and office supplies: on impulse.  But like so many journals, the beautiful cover and blank pages keep me from using them. Not this time, Huitzi bounced around in my imagination as the snow fell and became the first entry in my new art journal.

Ice Dreams

 Sculpture has a nearly irresistible lure to me. No seriously, I have to take a friend with me to museums to keep me from touching the statues on display. I learned this about myself in high school. We'd taken a field trip to the High Museum of Art in Atlanta, Georgia and at the time they had several Roman pieces on loan from the Louvre. I'm not sure if I'd ever seen real sculpture before then and oh it was misery to leave the museum that day.

Sketch from ice carving at the University of Chicago

Since that time I've wanted to try my hand at sculpture. The artistry in sculpture leaves me breathless with awe over the skill and planning it must have taken. Still, because I know in part the artistry required and I think because it moves me so I've wanted to try. But the thing about traditional sculpture is that it's BIG and messy. Trying to sculpt just hasn't fit into my life for the past eight years, until today.

My ice angel when I stopped for the night

I'd been writing in a coffee shop on the University of Chicago campus when I looked out the window and saw people standing around blocks of ice. Well, naturally I stared out the window. When I realized that they were sculpting I stopped to make a quick sketch (above). Sketching meant looking at the place with focus and I realized that people were sculpting and leaving, and then others came to keep working.

By the time I finished a five or ten minute sketch I realized that it was an open event. I can hardly imagine how frantic I looked as I packed up my things and dashed outside. I was given a chisel, an ice pick, and a six pronged ice pick. A gentleman showed me basics for each tool and then I was alone.

All these years of wanting to attempt a sculpture and yet I had never considered what I wanted to sculpt. I asked the people working on either side of me if they had ever attempted such a feat. Neither had. So without further guidance I stared at the ice wondering what to attempt. The only thing that came into my mind was the words of Michelangelo that I had memorized as an undergraduate:

"I saw the angel in the marble and carved until I set him free."

So I began with an angel. Can I just say that an angel is a pretty overwhelming first attempt? An ice sculpting company was providing the ice and tools and because I asked them, they gave me further instruction on how to chisel out faces and depict feathers. In all I only had about an hour to work before the company (and tools) left.

My angel doesn't look much like an angel, but I learned a great deal.  When I left I still had to walk a half mile home alone in the wind and snow with already numb toes, fingers, and face. Even so I felt more blessed and seen than I have in many days.

Blind Giraffes or lab 2

Blind contours have always seemed to me a mark of arriving as an artist. Certainly not the only mark, but high on the list. Knowing one's hand and tools so well as to be able to render what the eye sees without concern for the hand is basically magic as far as I can tell.

Lab 2 in Sonheim's book is all about making blind contours of a single creature again, and again and then on top of the renderings made! As I rendered a giraffe multiple times I examined exactly which parts of the creature were clearest each time. It was a little discouraging to realize that my contours looked less and less like a giraffe as I worked. I mean I should be getting better with practice, right?

But the thing is I was improving! No, not improving in the goal of rendering the outline perfectly without checking on my hand, but improving. It wasn't until this exercise and examining my results that I realized I've been assuming the goal was a feat of hand-eye coordination worthy of the greatest athletes. In fact this exercise was strengthening my observation skills and helping me realize the details that make a giraffe a giraffe.

Layered contours with color added