New Season of the Weir

[wizard3]

It is a new season for the WEIR GROTTO. As it takes its form a community will be forced into a new form. Critique what you wish. Such things have nothing to do with art. It concerns only dining centerpieces at best. Real art is an act of aggression aimed at changing everything. It succeeds or fails to do so. The GROTTO always succeeds.

[ehoeveler]

I think you've achieved a nice, attractive melding of nature and art.
I like how you've bowed to the lovely shapes of your grotto and incorporated
your colors and shapes instead of overwhelming.
I love the beads and your metal coils and other colorful scraps wonderfully
placed in this garden oasis. Thank You very much, E

[wizard3]

Oh, but it is overwhelming. You are seeing only one small pool. There are many. The pools are in the ground and in the trees. The environmental sculpture goes to a depth of about four feet deep below ground level and about twenty feet high, not including trees, so far... and still being sculpted upward and deeper. It includes robotics and digital projections done in Flash and After Effects that are visible for more than ten blocks and across two highways. It challenges all this area of the country considers to be art.

Those colorful scraps are no such thing. They are the finest Lucite money can buy heat formed and carved. The iron pieces are gathered from the Neosho to make a statement about the rape of my river by the residents here who challenge my dressing a yard as I do with what they dressed the river with for so many years.

[wizard3]

I should add there are many living creatures involved in this work. Most are very comfortable with some of us humans. Many of the exotic lizards and birds will perch in hand. The squirrels and raccoons will eat from hand. One catfish and many of the perch will. The flora and fauna are props and actors for the many digital productions for web and projector that are a part of WEIR. Some will pose for much longer than anywhere else. My favorites are the dragonflies and treefrogs. We have Chinese water dragons and bull frogs this year. Looking forward to shooting them. Already have many shots of the anoles. They are free range and very friendly as they sleepily sunbath in the afternoons.

[rhknigh]

What a lovely place to just lose yourself in and let your mind wander. I bet it is a fantastically relaxing grotto in both action of setting it up and for the sake of immersion in your own created setting.

Thanks for Sharing.

[ehoeveler]

Oops, sorry about the 'scrap' remark. I should have said, they look like 'scraps' of lovely color.
It would be great if you could send us more pictures of this beautiful place.
Thanks, E

[wizard3]

Will send more soon. Got a major move forward that will keep me very busy. Mastering (maybe) Away3D to insert content into Flash interactive panoramas and move camera view from center for a walkabout effect.

[wizard3]

What a lovely place to just lose yourself in and let your mind wander. I bet it is a fantastically relaxing grotto in both action of setting it up and for the sake of immersion in your own created setting.

Thanks for Sharing.

For me, the nearby river is my escape, but one of my partners owns a therapy service and it is where she goes to get her own head on straight. One is surrounded by the gurgling of water and frolicking of nature. There are many mirrors. These were originally installed to bounce projected images of fantasy creatures through the mist. It turns out the birds love to play with their reflections for hours on end.

[wizard3]

This is one of the pools high in the trees that falls to one lower and so on until finally it reaches one in the crotch of seven elms grown together into one trunk. That one is home to tree frog tadpoles and falls into a pool of bass and perch.

[wizard3]

One of the denizens of the bottom pool:



and where he dwells:

[wizard3]

I do have many birds come inside the studio to visit. As one can see they are very comfortable inside as well as outside in WEIR GROTTO.

[wizard3]

The WEIR is not so tame it is contained in my garden. It wanders and breeds with the river and the community. It changes the view of an area known for its intrenched views. This is just one of the many SPAWN. It is known as MINNER. It is shown here attached to a replacement bicycle while the intended one is being beefed up. It is known as BALL HAULER. Needs beefing up because it hauls most of the large logs and rocks that populate WEIR GROTTO.

MINNER is not complete in this shot. I will post one later of it launched on the Neosho. Maybe up projecting a show on the face of the Old Mill Dam. The slanted turret in the middle serves several purposes. It is a re-purposed five gallon bucket with a plate glass insert. In one use it is for underwater photography in shallows. In another application it is used to house a projector to display animated light-shows on the dam and bluffs. With a mirrored acrylic on the underside of the solar panel it is also used to project shows on the surface of water viewed by visitors at the top of the dam.

The solar panel charges gel batteries housed in the nose and the rear is used for storage. The back also contains an inflatable helium canister for added rear buoyancy. Not shown is a float that rests around the camera mount to the front of that rear seat and then mounts beneath the seat in use. It also floats free with the underwater shoot bucket mounted glass downward in its middle when in use. The wheels are individually removable from the frame for floating. For more buoyancy still, the hull can be removed from the the frame. As with all SPAWN, transitions are executed in single operations and take seconds.



There are now a total of eight SPAWN of different purposes and types of construction. Some are very large (eight feet tall by eighteen feet in diameter – a twelve sided thick steel bunker stocked with all the gadgets and gizmos a crazy wizard might need to change time) to a three foot robot that follows me about with a laptop at the ready.