jake pogrebinsky Posted August 17, 2011 Author Share Posted August 17, 2011 I'm sorry,Beth,i don't remember!It might've been the later,2a,but i'm not sure...It was a short-base TRACTOR,essentially,one big massive PTO(which had an option to be routed out the front,the back,either side,or up through the bed!!!forest service/fire truck basic model). What killed our relationship was the price of parts(i've ran into the president of Alaska Landrover Assn.,who gave me a price catalog,which turned my hair white,just reading those numbers(that guy,naturally,was driving a perfectly maintained,brand new-looking 110). For a while i drove around with a crack in my exhaust manifold.The entire manifold glowed bright-cherry(you could read a book inside the cab by it's light coming through several small holes).I drove it around stoutly keeping my mind off that steel gas-line,bolted to that very manifold... In other words i've failed it,just like i have many other neatest rigs in my life,my '55 Chevy deuce&a half,wyllis,a herd of ford pick-ups, unmaintained and dead before it's time...(I'll stop before i get carried away drawing parallels,i've not Michael's tact,and am bound to say something inapropriate!). But,yep,me and the whiteman's economy hate each other with an undying passion.I've never in my life had a bank account or,god forbid!a credit card.Just dirty handfuls of crumpled bills,falling out while i'm out in the woods,i'm forever loosing it.(Maybe Ceasar will find it there,laying there on the tundra dejectedly,it's his anyway,and i wish him all the luck with it!) But,not a great way to have wheels,for sure!(Especially the classy kind). Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
beth Posted August 17, 2011 Share Posted August 17, 2011 well i think your great jake and i wont have any of it. i hope your not too down stuck all the way up there with sad stuff happening... think about deforming the iron. your friend :mellow: Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
beth Posted August 17, 2011 Share Posted August 17, 2011 ps - i fail everything i own and have owned, and i do have a bank account so no excuse like that for me.. just get terribley distracted... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
beth Posted August 17, 2011 Share Posted August 17, 2011 your spares thing sounds a bit of a trauma - and of course you dont have used parts everywhere you look like we do here... i have a friend with literally hedgerows full of old landrovers for parts - we used to go up with a bill hook and a spade to get stuff out. he also has many awesome american gorgeousness rusting into the floor at his yard - loads and loads of them, all well beyond the pail. the thing is, in his eyes they are all concours standard... i love him and his sort! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
beth Posted August 17, 2011 Share Posted August 17, 2011 and for the record, i may have a bank account, but i never ever have had a credit card. nor do i intend to.. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jake pogrebinsky Posted August 18, 2011 Author Share Posted August 18, 2011 Beth,you're just the most wonderful-understanding person,wether it's ironwork,cars,art,grief,...I've so many reasons to be thankful to you for a chance to hang out with you here. You're right,as lovely as your shop is,i'm glad(for your sake,mainly)that we're far apart,we'd never get any work done,but philosophise till what little shop time you get will be gone! Continued plugging away at the cross today,seems like i'm done,now.Made that rosehip rose,even found the one amazingly late bloom in my rosebush,so posting a photo of that. Also of the Athabaskan version of the Sargeant Pepper coat,and some stylish boots,to show how this rose is a local design element(at least since white man brought glass beads,it was different before,this kind of work,more subtle and better in many other ways). The whole deal is made from the dump-found material,from brazing rod rivets,to that copper sewer pipe and knife-switch,to the waste oil that gives it the nice,matte black.One friend in the Old Country tells me that the addition of any sourse of Sulfur will make waste oil produce even deeper black. It was again fun to use copper,but i'd still prefer iron,any day.Although there's probably a lot that i don't know about copper,just using your basic forging tecnique on it,and not utilising it's potential fully. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bigfootnampa Posted August 18, 2011 Share Posted August 18, 2011 That cross is almost too pretty to bury! I like the flower Jake! I hope that you get the chance to show it to your friend before he goes. NICE job! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jake pogrebinsky Posted August 18, 2011 Author Share Posted August 18, 2011 Thanks,Clay,but,you know,when you're burying someone...you're burying lots,the whole life,an entire universe,you may even say...What's a goofy metal object,compared to all that? I was thinking about my rose bush,and how strange that it produced a flower,so late in the season,when obviously it's all fruiting away? Made me think that i shouldn't be so mad at all the drunks that visit the forge,for urinating into this very rosebush(it seems to draw them).Looks like i should be thankful,instead,for it's fortuitous mutation,and their part in it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
beth Posted August 18, 2011 Share Posted August 18, 2011 jake - the cross is now breathtaking - the rose flower is perfect - so perfect - youve done it just right - how lovely that you put a flower on it at all - like you said a real man would want that stuff. we have that rose here too and i love it - its loose and natural not like some hybrid mad budding thing... i dont know what to say about your friend because i dont know him, but he must feel amazing in some part of himself despite his illness that youve done this lasting thing for him. ive got literaly a house ful of kids swarming round me while i try to write this, so im a bit distracvted! i loe the sarg pepper coat! it somehow reminds me of the nudie suites the country singers started to wear, like gram parsons etc will find a photo hang on... not the best example s but like i said im distracted! jake i REALLY do love your cross, and more so due to what you made it from - such a sad reason to make something, but it brings out all the best you have to give - if only everything we make could be made with such heart... in ref to making friends with you jake - fabulous - you are of extreem encouragment to me and a jolly good laugh - dont stop talking! did you read your private mail recently ? i remember saying happy brirthday to you ages ago when i saw on the page you had same birthday as me - and so its no surprise we make friends so easily - both born on a very auspicious and classic day! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jake pogrebinsky Posted August 19, 2011 Author Share Posted August 19, 2011 It was an auspicious day in England,but quite the opposite in the cold,windblown steppes far to the East... where the Monster,the future terror of all the decent,god-fearing blacksmith forums was birthed,yes,on that very fateful day... Beth,i hope that your sanity survives the kid attack!Good luck with it,and thank you for your kind,wise remarks.Here's a quote from Teresa of Avila that i like so much(though can't get there yet myself,alas):"All shall be well,and all shall be well,and all manner of things shall be well!". Obviously,it's in regard of Everything,so i won't even have to give a reason for why i suddenly drug this into the discussion on ironwork.. . Too many things going on here to concentrate on serious forging,so just played with those hooks a bit.The client made a mistake of giving me a free rein on these,so i went with as eclectic of a form as i felt like,today.Alas,our brave and valiant Danger,braving the society's ire with purely abstract work, will never know the joys of sneaking behind the "traditional" clap-trap,an opportunity to snigger with impunity from behind the,supposedly,time-hallowed design!As in "show me the book where it says that iron was never meant to be that shape",and all without ever going out on that limb of "art",sculking,rat-like,in the sewers of "craft" instead... Now,something happened with my silly camera.I think that some inner little micro-brain of it had had a micro-stroke,as i'm having a REALLY difficult time to take an in-focus picture(maybe it's my pea-brain that had a micro-stroke,i really don't know ). Anyway,more crapulous photos than even usual,i swear that the real iron looks vastly different from THAT... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dillon Sculpture Posted August 19, 2011 Share Posted August 19, 2011 Poor Jake, have to sneak and skulk around, I would feel for you but I to far away In fact I’m past the point of return! I’ve felt the freedom and I will never return (without a HUGH monetary return anyway) Know this, I too was captured by the hand that fed me for 15 years, I don’t feel it was a waist of time, I was just not ready. After my mothers passing in February from liver cancer I could not live the lie any longer. I am an artist, I have a vision and I have the resources to apply them in IRON, so this is what I do no, excuses! I don’t think it’s the pinnacle of the ironwork or that my work more specifically is better, I do what everyone else does, grab a piece of material, get it hot and beat on it. Everything is well, but she is defiantly not abstract :wub: Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bigfootnampa Posted August 19, 2011 Share Posted August 19, 2011 I like those hooks Jake! I think your customer will be happy with those. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jake pogrebinsky Posted August 19, 2011 Author Share Posted August 19, 2011 Michael,i'd have to say that your non-sculking is well justified-she's beautiful!And not at all abstract to me,either! Those joints are gorgeous,man,i absolutely envy you the idea of concieving to make them that way,as well as the GREAT satisfaction that you must be experiencing as it's coming together for you,coming alive! All that even quite apart from the sheer MASS of the parts,the sexually explicit joy of handling chunks of iron that big! Oh yea,that is VERY good,sir,very good indeed,and a very far cry from all that i've ever seen in this gauge work(so many sculptors come to large steel structures not through the venue of smithing,that they simply lack that vicseral understanding of Fe.The years of being fed,don't forget,have given you all that vast,intimate feel for the stuff(in as much as distorting small stuff comes close to the BIG stuff,not quite ever the same,but,at least you get an idea,right?) That is very,very neat to've looked at such photos of IRON this fine morn,thanks,man! Someday soon,when you're rich and famous,maybe you'd like to make a trip up here,i'd take you out on the River,we could go hunting or just camping,whiskey or tea,would love to have a long bs session about steel,and sculpture,and all of that!The internet is fabulous,but... There's a man in Fairbanks who some years back has bought the F.E.Mining Co.They used to be,and now he is,the largest private land-owner in the State.Anyway,he now owns their repair facilities that include the early 1900's shop equipped to repair their giant dredges,draglines,and all that.Repair as in fabricate all the parts(other than casting,never heard of them doing much of that themselves).The shop has a couple of Nazel-type machines,a 3 and a 4 ton,i believe,plus much other similarly sized metalworking toys.The shop is pristine,with all the tools still set up,and in very good shape. I've made feeble attempts to sneak my way in there somehow before,and may resume again,it'll depend on my smithing fortunes.But if i ever do get the use of similarly gauged stuff,and the werewithal to do something with it,i'd definitely try to get you to come up here to do something wild-build a giant sculpture of some sort. Hey,the AlCan is all paved now,you could have one gorgeous motorcycle trip up here Again,great going with that,Michael,all the very best to ya! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jake pogrebinsky Posted August 19, 2011 Author Share Posted August 19, 2011 Clay,thanks,they were fun to make.My camera really makes it look like crap,which is very unfortunate.That is some of that old chain,great stuff to work with,and the texture of it is very rich and cool looking. I'll get another handful done today,and off they'll go to Saint-Petersburg...About the last thing that i needed to be doing right now,but couldn't resist,vanity-wise,to ship this small order to the Old Country. Out great state,Alaska,is such a strange place,everything seems to be government,makes me feel sometimes that the bright age of communism has finally dawned,as i've been promised when i was little!So,it pleases me much to be exporting work oversees,from my funky facility beyond nowhere,to be actually productive,in the face of these funky times... B) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
beth Posted August 19, 2011 Share Posted August 19, 2011 jake - the hooks are gorgeousso as per usual - i dont think your hiding at all - on the contrary - you are living and breathing through your work likewise danger - the Lady looks so good, and infact jake said all and more of what i would have tried to say if he hadnt! about your work . i do feel like arguing my abstract point though - guys - unless it is utterly realistic (regarding figurative/natural objects?) surely it is abstract - even if the abstraction is minor. i reckon abstraction is on a sliding scale, a line on which many works of art are on. ? it doesnt have to look like cubist tribal art or whatever ( although danger i find your lady quite tribal personally) she is your personal representation and therefore , i argue, slightly abstracted.... ps - jake if im ever rich, can i come too? ^_^ Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
beth Posted August 19, 2011 Share Posted August 19, 2011 pps Jake - youre with respect wrong about the nature of the day on which you were born - you were born under a star of endless mental/creative energy and utter genius communication skills :) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
beth Posted August 19, 2011 Share Posted August 19, 2011 danger - also regards living the lie of i am anything but an artist - you are so right and it is a breath of fresh air to hear you take the title artist by the balls and totally own it - i have spent years and years in various simple and more complex ways behaving like i am not an artist despite the fact of knowing that i exactly am one! - what a waste of time - nobody cares what you call yourself - and being an artist is in no way related to how 'good' or successful you or anyone else thinks you are. this should not be the frame of reference - only that you follow your inbuilt instincts to create to the best of your ability and jump through every open door regarding creative opportunity - i guess knocking on the shut ones too.? tune in and all that !!! :D Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jake pogrebinsky Posted August 19, 2011 Author Share Posted August 19, 2011 Beth,dearest,i'd be absolutely overjoyed to welcome you,and your whole family here!It crossed my mind before,when reading about your frequent camping trips.It's,as you can well imagine,a complex issue: I'm as ignorant as it gets in monetary matters,but,i'd say that one doesn't have to be that rich to come here.There's a cheap-ish direct flight from Amsterdam to Fairbanks(a major international cargo hub,Fbks is),and once there i can find you friends to stay with,and take you around town for whatever you may need(i've actually have close friends that are not scum like me,but perfectly normal,well-ajusted people with kids,cars,cats,and even aspidistras(will have to think of who i know with an aspidistra...hmm...). Certainly here,on the River,you'd need no money at all.Rent/borrow/steal enough canoes for the family and you can be here in 4-5 days of easy paddling.And,once here,you're in God's Pocket! However,here's a bad side,the seamy underside of Alaska in general,and my stomping ground,the Western Interior,in particular:It's generally BLEAK...It ain't like the few nice photos that i take at times...The country is vast,and forbidding,the vegetation is stunted(not too many miles north lies the Arctic Circle),and the weather mostly sucks!It rained every day the whole summer,this year,just beginnimg to be nice now. And the bugs CAN be awful bad.Once,i helped friends guide an "eco-tour"down Yukon,we had 7 people out of which 3 were little kids.The gnats that year were outrageous,it was hard to breathe,impossible without the head-net.It was a kayaking trip,but the gnats were out over the river too.The kids,without the coordination enough to keep all the chinks out of their gear,looked like meat-balls at the end of each day,making their mother weep.Open,festering sores over the entire exposed area of skin,any part of your body... And stuff like that.BUT:There are,here and there,some marvelous periods.It would be hard to plan on,but possible. And i'd be MOST happy to help you plan anything of the sort! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
K. Bryan Morgan Posted August 20, 2011 Share Posted August 20, 2011 Wow, I stop looking at the internet for a couple days to do work on the house and I missed so much. Danger, I must say, that is amazing work. Absolutely stunning. Jake love those hooks. I have been trying to do a segmented ball like that but failing miserably. Beth, the bugs are fierce. But manageable. I've been putting sheeting, 3/8" plywood, on our poll barn. The former owners thought tarps were good enough. Umm, no. Anyway after scabbing in a stump at the bottom of a rotted out telephone pole and doing that pretty much for the last two days. One more day and I'm done. Jake I spoke to Mark on Tuesday and gave him 3 of those wrought chain links you sent me for knife furniture. He was real happy to get it. He wants your email address if its ok with you I'll call and give it to him. I normally would just go ahead but I thought I should ask first. Oh and I met David and I think his wife's name was Carol, from Ruby. Nice folks I here he has something like 6 tons of metal at his shop or house, I didn't quite get a clear picture of where. They were down selling some items from an estate in Ruby, Mark was helping them. I've been busy but with winter quickly approaching I have lots of work to do. I'll post some work soon. I've been planning a few things. I tend to think things to death before executing them. Its part of my make up. Think about it for a long time then, when I have a fully formed plan I go for it. Sometimes it really holds me back and I wish I could be more spontaneous. I see your joy in the making of the cross and rose. Beautiful work by the way. So after I gimp around tomorrow and finish the barn I have the rest of the weekend free. I will see if I can get some spontaneity, and do umm sumpin. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
beth Posted August 20, 2011 Share Posted August 20, 2011 you lot are ace and very hard core !!! if i ever get a chance to go on proper family trip i will vote for Gods Pocket!! bryan - go for it re the sponteneity - i wish you all the very best!!! jake cant believe here you actually live - its so out there - looked on my map and the bit you are on ( i rthink ) is right on thre corner and its ripped off!!!! how normal.. ^_^ Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
beth Posted August 20, 2011 Share Posted August 20, 2011 bryan saw this in local paper yesterday - ways to get yourself creating... just thought of you - i know its painting but its all the same idea - a sketch a day of whats in your head - even if its all nonsense for the first month http://www.thisisgloucestershire.co.uk/Painter-Dan-Young-set-hit-landmark-personal/story-13162757-detail/story.html have only recent;y learned copy and paste - can you tell im not even nearly over it :lol: Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
beth Posted August 20, 2011 Share Posted August 20, 2011 infact bryan - if jake is going to give his morning pages artists way a actual go (when it arrives) then he wont want to send his copy to you very FAST... so if you think you would like to try it i will gladly send you a copy too - it didnt cost me much actually and i reckon its the sort of thing best given to you by someone else - maybe thats just me! i dont think danger needs it as he is shaking his fist at all comers as an artist and rightly so,although anyone can benefit from its simple help... danger i only think the Lady is ever so slightly abstract... dipping her toe in the waters of abstraction - are we still friends? :ph34r: Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jake pogrebinsky Posted August 20, 2011 Author Share Posted August 20, 2011 Guys,i think that it's a great idea,i'll read the book and pass it on to Bryan,what can possibly make more sense? Bryan,darn,i thought that EVERYONE knew my coordinates,in Alaska for sure...Absolutely,please give Mark my e-mail(or i can just e-mail his shop),and my phone # here is 907-656-2183.I'll be happy to set Mark up with the gnarliest of the stuff imaginable,for furniture. Funny that you've ran into David B.,i heard that he wanted to try talking me into (the four-letter W word)for him,so it scared me out of my annual trip to check in with the Ruby crowd!He's a nice young fellow(i love that aging biz,now i can talk like an old codger!!!),and a really competent mechanic. Bryan,i know now that you've a tendency to kick yourself for not forging,i wouldn't do that.The infrastructure that you're building is important,many things in life,besides forging,are...It would be great if you'd get a chance to forge a few times a week,then your progress would be steady,and predictable,but some time between a rare manic episode of forging works too...It's all good. There's something constructive about being a psycho-smith,(my preferred method),but in many ways it's counter-productive too. I've been mulling over an idea of putting together an axe blank out of WI for you.The trouble is that WI is fibrous and wood-grain-like,and would be hard to slit without parting at the seams(and possibly impossible to drift).There's actually a neat axe posted by Tonn on the neighboring forum,check out the bottom of the eye on that,if you've a chance,that'll be what i mean. I can bend it in a U shape for you,then the drift can simply be inserted,as well as the steel bit.But,it'll put you before the necessity to make a major weld,at a VERY high temp,wasting an incredible amount of fuel... Really,the best thing would be for you to do both,or actually all three:A slit/drift in mild,a wrapped WI,and a solid steel axehead.Maybe we can get together on some of this in late fall-early winter. Beth,looks like my terrible secret is out.now...You've discovered that my part of reality has tore off from the rest of other people's,and is now drifting,helplessly,out in space!We still have some communication channels open,but even those signals are becoming weak! Cheshire Cat-like,a disembodied voice from the tore-off patch of reality,i like that!Here's a photo of the lovely morning fog,as the air is cooling off now,and in the morning the water is warmer.It IS lovely here often,sometimes,anyway... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
beth Posted August 20, 2011 Share Posted August 20, 2011 the hooks! they are looking more and more like something out of a russion fairy tale! bravo make more make more! i think you should aim to leave as much of this stuff to remain after youve gone as is humanly possible jake. they look like iron candy... as for the other shot - its just so calm. never seen a view like that. you amy be ripped off my map but dont dissappear completely will you?!! am thinkig about iron (cast and wrought) wall braces or bearing plates, i found some i made for fun years ago and im going to make some more. .. i like the fact of what they do, to tighten and secure ancient walls (lots round here) and also how they look and are made - the x shape, the s shape, cast patterned ones, and also the x that is more like this )(... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jake pogrebinsky Posted August 20, 2011 Author Share Posted August 20, 2011 It's completely calm and quiet sometimes,Beth,and violently nasty at others,and it can change as a matter of minutes.The range of conditions here is really vast.(A fiend just told me that apparently we already had a frost that killed her zucchini quite a while back now,couple of weeks...). Absolutely,Beth,that is our job,to litter the universe with our iron objects,in direct compliance with our mandate as creative folks.To pay homage to the Creator,and to puzzle and annoy everyone else! By the way,(speaking of annoying),i've remembered yet another proof of the correctness of the direction of the Bellybutton creed.This is from Patrick O'Brien:"The Captain drives his ship by an effort of his will,and the contractions of his belly muscles".See,surely in the Royal Navy they wouldn't practice a technique that wasn't worthwhile. Beth,the bracing sounds intriguing.As a smith AND a builder,i'd love to see any examples that you may come across,especially,as always,something that YOU've found interesting. And thank you,the fairytale allusion is flattering,and really is an important one.Wether one does or not have an annoying habit of over-intellectualisation(the second Mortal Sin,as per Aldous Huxley),stuff like studying Joseph Campbell is vastly important to an artist. Myth.Big part of the reality that the artist operates in.BIG!!!:) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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