I had a woman contact me about making her a swan in the style of my hanging driftwood fish. I gladly accepted, and since I know her and she knows my process, I didn't give her a timeline. I figured it would be an easy project to work on, and to my surprise, nothing has gone as planned. I immediately went to the beach to collect all my driftwood, and clean the beach. I found a plethora of amazing pieces, not once thinking this wouldn't go as planned. I got home and soaked all the driftwood in a bleach solution to clean off all the gunk and laid out my frame. At first I loved the shape.
As I sat on this shape for a bit- I couldn't see a swan, only could see a sand hill crane, so I set aside these pieces to make a sand hill crane at a later date. I laid out every piece of wood I got that day and started over and came up with a whole new design.
I had to figure out a way to get all these pieces together, and again, never sensed any potential issues. I figured I could easily build a frame to attach the bird to, blast a few nails in it, and be good to go. After a few nails, I realized that I had actually attached them to my workbench, the nails were way to long. Started over. After about a thousand nails, and a frame, when I picked it up it was too unstable due to the soft driftwood. I moved it to the grass and decided it wasn't going to work and it could go to the burn pit.
I kind of gave up that point, and figured I could find an answer. Generally I get the answers in my dreams, or while working on other projects. I set it aside. I came back to it later, and really liked the shape and wanted to try anything to get it to work before sending it to the fire pit. I make a lot of pieces with resin, and figured what the heck. If anything, it could hang outdoors with the resin. I mixed up the resin with no expectations, and poured in all over the top layer. To my surprise, it kind of worked to stabilize the piece. What I lost was the beautiful colors of the natural woods. Resin makes everything shiny, and makes the wood look wet.
I decided to finish what I started and layer the back half too
.
I really love all the different colors of the wood, and how the head and chest are all randomly dark, and the wings are lighter. I am currently waiting for the resin to cure. The woman wants copper incorporated in as well, so my plan is to hand tool copper feathers throughout. After throwing away any expectation I had, I have found a few pleasant surprises!! I am going to keep working on it until I know I am done. I figure, even if this is not what she had in mind, it could potentially be a beautiful process in releasing expectations?? I will eventually figure out how to actually do the swan in the style of the original fish, but for right now I am celebrating all the happy accidents.
Update- The Swan is now finished, and I love what it became. The swan no longer looks like the driftwood version I imagned and planned on. It became a version of what I remeber from the movie "The Black Swan", dark and twisted. This swan, like the movie, took on a life of its own with many shocking surprises. Here is the finished versions, because of the size it is photographed outside. Too big to fit in my light box.
