Pass the Torch?

Metal Work during the Middle Ages used to be a Secret Society and you could be put to death for teaching the wrong person the trade.  Keep it mysterious and secret and you can get more money for it!  It was a Guild Trade with long apprentices and high expectations.  I have been searching for an appropriate student to take over what I have started for at least the past five years.  You would think this would be simple, yet there is so much more to it than "just welding".
I can teach anyone to  weld in about five minutes.  It is mostly about losing fear and not being afraid to get dirty.  Like any trade, practice makes perfect.  When I started welding about 26 years ago I brought to this trade 20 years experience in the Construction Industry and a lifetime "eye for art".
My competition were, perhaps, better welders, but they were trailer builders and had, maybe 2 or 3 set designs for fencing and gates.  Frankly none of them very good.  I brought my designs and creations to the local Home and Garden Show for 25 years without missing one and could get $50,000 worth of work from a single Show and I did this twice a year.   You would think I would have people standing in line to take over what I started!
I never wanted to Sell this business.  In reality, without me, it is just a welder in a shop.  I wanted to give it away, but give it away to someone who would take it.  That takes someone willing to put up with the "wax on, wax off" kind of experience!  It is not just welding and fabrication I have to teach but art appreciation and the satisfaction of a "job well done".  Passion, and the constant desire to do the next job better!  This should be true with every job, with Life, and whatever we do.  It should be incorporated into who we are.  Yet, it is almost impossible to find!   I have taught over a dozen people to weld.  I can't teach Passion!   You want to be a good welder?  Study Art!  Spend hours pouring over abstract paintings.  Reconnect synopses.   Dream.
    My latest and maybe last apprentice I found on Craigslist about a year and a half ago.  I had some cleanup and construction around my house and needed help and he offered to work for $10 per hour.
I told him I couldn't pay anyone less than $12 so we got off to a good start.  Most workers, even good ones do what they are told and minimize the task, doing nothing more, reaching no hire than expected.  Carlos always does much more.  When confronted with an unexpected situation he will research the issue and tell me what he discovered on YouTube the next morning.  To improve a job he will put in his own time.  I know lots of people who won't do this and Carlos does it every evening!
As the construction progressed and came to a close I offered to teach him to weld.  Without pay.
Carlos is a fast learner and that lasted less than a week.  He would weld on scraps, learn a bit on fabrication and study on the Internet in  the evenings. Always better the next day.
A year and  half later he can make $2,000 in a week!!!  I think I have found some one.

 Nice measurements, great fabrication, perfect fit and strong enough to tie a horse to!

A Forest Fence

I just finished another job!  about 165 feet of fence, enclosing a clearing in a woodsy setting for the protection of the owner's dogs, or at least so they won't run off and chase the cougars!  So the trick was, how to create a fence that

 won't shield the beautiful view and maybe look as if it belonged there?

Steel Jungle

My backyard, the area surrounding my shop and near my garden is a menagerie of steel, an obstacle course of completed works waiting to be picked up and installed at their forever home.  My pieces are available for adoption but they are forever mine.  I prefer a quick goodby, like giving away a loved puppy with no sadness or hesitation.  The more they linger here the more attached I become.
Today's tour of My Backyard!

 Borage to attract Honeybees! 

 Notice the Borage and Watermelon 10' in the air!

 Next week these projects will disappear and I will create new ones!

There is only ONE

 It is ART, right? You gotta have places to mix paint and put the yogurt cups!

The old wood decking has five coats of urethane sealer on it.

Three in a row!  Pedestals designed for flower pots.

 2 x 6 cedar from an old deck, no rot just weathered and old.
Make a great garden table, a place to put the bounty picked from the garden. 

 Steel covered in slate flower pot. I like these and wouldn't mind keeping this one.

 I have these all over my garden, slate on steel, a place
to put my coffee, the clippers, or something just picked.
The cucumbers use them for a trellis. I admit I make a
lot of these and sell them from $15 to $45, depending on size.

Almost everything I do, there is only one of.  I find bits and pieces, interesting steel or a piece of wood and set them aside until they call me.  Most of my art is useful, decorative, unusual, but you can sit on it, use it for a table or allow the plants to grow around it.  Here are some recent pieces:

An Oak plank about 3 feet long with 100 year old iron castings.

More of This or That?

One problem with doing an Art Show is that you never know what will sell.  What sold last year is pretty meaningless, it is just a guessing game.  Day Nine and I had a pretty good day, made a lot of stuff without buying a lot of stuff.  This is an opportunity to clear out sections of my shop, not the whole damned thing though!  Yet, still, I have to make things I like because I might end up taking them home.
I try to make a variety of items and a variety of pricing.  My "Big Ticket Item" will be a Stone Post, a concrete post covered in slate and used as a light post, sometimes free standing and sometimes connected to fencing or a gate.  That will have a price of $400.  My slate raised planter is next at $225.

Two reclaimed wooden top tables, large round table (not finished) and a garden chair with a 10' trellis back topped with a sprinkler!

 Ceramic on steel stake

The tables are all the same $135. The slate or ceramic on a steel stake, at 12" x 12" is $35 and 6" x 6" for $25.  I end up with a lot of items in the 25-35 price range.  That way people can "support the artist" AND Maude Kerns Gallery without breaking the bank.  I do not raise my prices for an art exhibit. They take a 30% commission and I figure that is my contribution to the arts.  I normally get follow up work.

 Copper bird bath and feeding station

They like what I do but the size is wrong or they need something else entirely.  In this sense, this gallery garden art show is advertizing for my business.  So we all come out winners.

 Slate on steel stakes, looks like its floating,huh?

Garden Gates

 There is something special about a Garden Gate

I like building and designing Garden Entries.  I built
this arbor a couple of years ago and now it has a beautiful clematis growing over the top structure.
I suggested at the time to add the gate but the client didn't believe me!  Two years later she did!  She has two very small dogs and the gate is to keep them in; however, I think the gate adds a nice element and helps define the garden space.

Locked In!

It is a four foot wide entry, big enough for any wheel barrel and could have been a single gate but I like the drama of a double entry gate.

Clash of Retirement

I think that there are a lot of books published about retirement and some I should have read 20 years before I retired.  I get the emails about what to do with a $500,000 dollar portfolio so at least I get to laugh.  I think financial security is important, who knows what is going to happen?  There is a lot to worry about with the weakening of Medicare and increasing cost of private health insurance.  A trip to the grocery store is like buying gold and everything is priced accordingly.  You develop a travel budget
based on gasoline costing $3 dollars per gallon and it goes to $4.50!  Every time you turn around some Government agency wants more in taxes.  I suspect there are lots of financial advice books out there but for me that is only one aspect of retirement.
   There is an art to doing nothing and I am still learning it.  Being retired gives one a totally different view of time, a 24 hour clock with no work hours in it.  That is quite an adjustment.  There is the money aspect to this, if you are not working you are not making money, but there is also a loss of a sense of accomplishment.  Thirty-five years in the construction industry and at the end of every day I could stand back and say "I did that!"  A foundation or laid a floor, built some cabinets or hung some doors.  Something and mostly a lot of things.
   I still make lists of things I want to do, a left over of old habits, but looking backwards, sometimes nothing gets scratched off the lists.  I can see too many yesterdays where I accomplished nothing at all.  It takes some adjustment in retirement to realize that this is OK.  Puttering about becomes a legitimate thing to do for retired people, but it is not as easy as it seems.  We still like to be useful and have not lost our desire to be needed.

50 Roses and 100 leaves in 24 feet

   I have developed over the years the hobby of gardening.  It is fairly inexpensive and produces abundance with a little sustained effort.  I can radically alter this little third acre starting from little seeds in my greenhouse, nurtured, transplanted and growing to seven feet tall in a single season or huge masses of flowers in my various pots.  In retirement I appreciate my home more than ever and recently replaced the roof, now a no worry for the next thirty years!  This summer I will paint the house. Another worry scratched off my list.

 24' of rose railings completed yesterday!

   From time to time I do get a "job", a client wanting something from me.  It is a thrill for me to still be able to do this.  I "have work to do," a temporary change back to the old clock, the one with working hours in it.  It is a human condition I think.  We like to work.  

Steel and Stone

 Stone Post, bridge, my house

 Gate to compost area

 Mixed Lettuce in Slate Planter

 My Back Yard Shop

 Fence in back yard

 Railing from the back stairs

 Not rectangular gate to firewood area

 The Bridge to my shop

 Another gate to ditch

 Gate to back yard, circles

 Curved gate beside my shop

 Another garden entry, copper and marble

Gate to ditch near studio

 Little curved gate protecting the blueberry patch.

This is my Main Garden Gate with a Trumpet vine over it. I originally made this for the Opera "Tosca" 

 A Gate with Slate in a display area
There is really a lot more to see.  I haven't even showed you the garden or greenhouse, inside my shop or my studio but this gives you some idea.  It is not a flat green back yard.  Come visit me sometime!  and here is the LINK to other jobs I have done,

I went around my little third acre yesterday taking pictures of metal work and thought I would share them with you. When I finish the projects that I am working on I will continue with my Spring clean up.  It is a process of dump runs, power washing, getting the pots planted and a major clean up.  It is beautiful all summer long well into the Fall.  The white, red and blue pots you see were once light fixtures that I re purposed from the dump.  I have about 22 of these and they make great flower pots!

Garden Gates

I wonder if "The Secret Garden" had a door?  I have three garden gates entering my garden area.  One has an arch over it with a Trumpet Vine creating the main entry.  The other is near my compost pile and the third is beside my shop next to the garden and leads to a walkway beside the garden and behind my shop.  My garden needs to be "Dog Proof" because I have a 128 pound doggy who loves to dig!
I counted the gates on my property yesterday as a client was coming by to look at them for ideas for his own gate.  I have a total of 14 and that surprised me.  There are no two the same and although they all lead somewhere their main function being to limit my dog's freedom and as samples for potential customers.  I have three dimensional gates, gate with stone incorporated into them, classical gates, modern art gates and gates made from just plain junk.  Custom garden gates can range from $200 to $800 to create and I suppose even more if I were to add some gold.

A fun gate with a lady picking roses!

   Gates could be less expensive if I could make them in advance and keep them available for purchase but it doesn't work that way.  Most people set the posts first and then go shopping for a gate.  They never fit requiring custom work.  If they were to buy a gate first and then set the posts to match the gate it would be a lot easier!
     Maybe tomorrow I will post photos of all my gates?
Here is a link to my WebSite for more gates and garden ideas

I am Ready!

I am ready for the outdoor art show.  I have 47 pieces made, ranging from $15. to $325, mostly things people have never seen before.  It will be interesting to see what happens.
These photos are of a painter's table/palette that I just completed.  I splashed some paint on it so that people can get the idea that this is to be used.  It is a tool.
I have two truck loads and a friend to help me move.  that is a good thing, I am tired!  couple days of rest and then the show begins!