PREGNANTISM

Hi everyone,


Abbie is home again from the galvanisers! She had a slight bump on her head and a minor dent in her belly. Not surpising, as she had to share the big tank of molten zink with a ship's anchor and a bollard and other nautical things. But both flaws take only minutes to fix again. As she is now, she is far too shiny, which makes it difficult to see her true form in a photo. Next stage is spray-painting her to make her shape easier to see, and the base she stands on has to be partially (or wholy) covered with either pigmented cement, or, if she has to go to other centres like Whanganui as part of a travelling exhibition, I'll use polyester bog instead. More expensive, but lighter and stronger. - Anyone around Whangarei needs a bag of pre-mix cement? - We'll just have to see how the pregnantism exhibition will develop. Here in Whangarei it will be in the Yvonne Rust Art Gallery, in "The Quarry", from 3 to 23 October next year. Will take me that long anyway to make enough sculptures of different sizes and different materials.

Birthday number 79

Yes, my birthday was perfect, The day started well, with a long phone call from my brother Arthur in Holland, then our friends Rachael and Matt called in on their way home from the hospital to show us their 2 days old baby David. Still time to catch the bus to our favourite Thai restaurant, where as a friendly gesture the lady brought us a wedge of cake with icecream and cream and a burning candle! That candle is now lying next to me, near the keyboard.


Leaving the restaurant a solid curtain of rain kept us sheltering, but the cloudburst was over before our bus into town came. We bought a litlle present for David. Walking along the road a lady stopped next to us to offer us a lift. We had never seen her before, but she took us to the postoffice so we could send the parcell. Finally more than an hour at the Fat Camel, the only Israeli rstaurant, and home again. Everyone we saw was friendly, no, FRIENDLY. More calls, also of course from son Roger.

So yes, my birthday was prefect, except there was no sign of life from our eldest son Gino - Luigi Cappel - nor from his family. No more hoping. He no longer acknowledges us as his parents.

It feels like a large funeral to us. Our son, our daughter in law Charmaine, our granddaughters Gemma and Tracy, and even our great granddaughter Madison. All gone.

A funeral, but no Kaddish, no closure.

Claes Compaen

Karen, behind the wheel of Claes Compaen. The hard dodger made for comfortable sailing in rough weather, and even gave some extra space to grow herbs.

Claes Compaen

The Claes Compaen was big, but not big enough the time I had to do a whole series of sculptures for a solo exhibition. So I bought a small caravan, took off the wheels, axle etc, mounted her on a pontoon of 40 gallon drum, and floated her next to our yacht as extra studio. Ideal!

PREGNANTISM

In 1982 I gave birth to my biggest creation, the ketch Claes Compaen, after 7 years. 54 feet long, with a 14 foot 6 inch beam, and weighing 17 tons. She was named after a pirate ancestor of mine. Cleas Compaen was a very sea-kindly yacht, with a traditional rig. Reacher, staysail, yankee, main sail, top sail and mizzen. Having so many sails we could just drop one instead of reefing. And of course it was the kind of rig I was familiar with. I did design her to be a cruiser rather than a racer, but even so with just Karen and me sailing her, she did easily 10 knots.


A few days ago our friend Rachael gave birth to a son, David! Not long ago Katie had her second baby, Zoe, Stella's sister. And Louise her first daughter, Liberty. Stella, Zoe and Liberty are our great granddaughters.

So all in all with all those pregnancies our PREGMANTICS exhibition fits in nicely. So far there are four of us. The exhibition will first be shown for three weeks at the Yvonne Rust Gallery, the renewed gallery at the Northland Craft Trust Quarry, Whangarei in October 2013.

The pregnant mother Abbie is the first for the show, and Deirdra will be next. The only artwork I have to finish in between is a painting/sculpture combination. The sculpture part is finished, the painting only needs two more days of work. After that it will be PREGNANTISM.

PREGNANTISM DATE

Don't get confused by the date above these posts, here in Whangarei we are half a day ahead of much of the world, so here it is already Monday, the 13th. And the date "the 13th" has always been lucky for us.

PREGNATISM or should I say PREGNANTISM?

I have just this afternoon booked the Yvonne Rust Art Gallery at "the Quarry" here in Whangarei for three weeks in October 2013. The Quarry is a well established Art and Craft centre, and the gallery has recently been rebuilt. I was the very first artist ever to exhibit in the original gallery, more than 25 years ago. I have exhibited there again since, and look forward to the next show: "THE PREGNANTISTS" or whatever the others who will be joining me will decide as title.

Beware though: an hour ago I tried to post something on facebook containing the word pregnant, or pregnantism actually. Both times the post disappeared straight away. Is it still a taboo subject for the Big Brother Facebook pundits? Where do they think people come from? The birds and the bees? I don't think I came out of an egg (where would that egg have come from?) and the thought of having been a maggot-like creature out of an insect egg, fed by bees, before turning into a human baby is repulsive. PC facebook?

Anyway, with or without FB the exhibition is going ahead, and as I envisage it, with a few more artists besides me. As soon as that is definite too, and with their permission,  I will introduce them to you. Should be exciting!

Still raining, all the brazing flux residues will have washed away, so tomorrow Abbie can get galvanised!

This morning I painted our kitchen floor. We thought we had organised everything: food out of the fridge and into a chilly bin, electric coffee jug ready in the bathroom (the easiest powerpoint), plates, forks, knives, bread, butter, stuff for on bread, fruit, everything to cook dinner (although we cheated, got out of the paint smell to the nearby noodle canteen after all,) and whatever else we could think of. All EXCEPT teacups. ^_^

PREGNATISM, Abbie

Abbie, almost finished. Once she has been galvanised she will look silvery. The base will be covered with a greenish polyester bog, so it will be a distinct contrast to the lady. Abbie's skirt is of a different mesh, again contrasting with the see-through body. Her left arm protects the baby, with the other arm Abbie reaches right inside, caressing her baby.

Pregnatism

Life has been rather irregular the last year, too up-and-down to look at my own blog. Sorry. But here I am again.
If you want to contact me, email me at leo.cappel@xtra.co.nz
Now to business. I intensely dislike the new "timeline" Big Brother Facebook wants us al to be keen on. So I won't use timeline at all. I may look at the homepage if I'm not too busy with our new project.

Every person started life inside the body of a pregnant woman.
Isn't it time we celebrated it?

So I am doing a series of sculptures, big and small, of pregnant mothers. And that will culminate in a travelling exhibition, not only of my own work, but of other artists as well. We are still in the early planning stage, but I'll use this blog to keep you posted. And if you want that,  I'll post your emailed comments here as well.

The first sculpture, Abbie, is almost finished, and she will go to the galvanizers on Tuesday.