Quoth the Raven

Once upon a midnight dreary,

 while I pondered, weak and weary,

 Over many a quaint and curious volume of forgotten lore— 

While I nodded, nearly napping, suddenly there came a tapping, As of some one gently rapping, rapping at my chamber door— "'Tis some visitor," I muttered, "tapping at my chamber door— Only this and nothing more." 

excerpt from "The Raven" by Edgar Allen Poe

- See more at: http://www.poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/15638#sthash.9nCFzZ2f.dpuf

I have had a request for a Raven update, so here it is!!  

I am POSITIVE I have more pix of this raven, like during the building stages, but seriously I am too lazy to hunt through my pix to find them.  I until recently was allowing my photos to  be in untitled folders, and that makes things difficult to say the least..... so I have mended my ways and now do a date and at least a hint of what is contained in the folder.  So once in a while I get a wild hair and do some sorting and labeling, but that is not my favorite way to spend my time.  So someday, I may do an update of this when I find the rest of the raven pix, and until that time, this will have to do.  Face it, no one really cares how I got there, the finished project is probably enough!

I wish that these pictures could do justice to this sculpture, but something about the way the camera catches it does not begin to show the really awesome form and feather like shapes of the glass.  I managed to make this a dangerous bird, with glass that sticks out like feathers do at the neck of the raven, which is an interesting dichotomy when you think of the softness and lack of menace in a real birds feathers.  However, the black raven, ever since the days of Edgar Allen Poe, has had the aura of mystery and vague disturbance, so this altered feather state is apropo.

Whew, now wasn't that  a nice bit of abstractness and analysis??  Let it roll around for a while, it is fun to think about.

Black opalescent glass of gorgeousness

I have a few pix that show the progress of the bird from concrete to grouted- including a shot of some of the beautiful opalescent black glass that I found in Minneapolis at JRing Glass.  THAT was a shop full of awesomeness

Concreted form

Needs legs and feet!  Oh GREGORY!!

Tentative beginning

My "Helper"

Beginning the head

All done with attaching the glass- onto the grout

mostly finished

There it's done!

Here are some detail views of the guy!  I may name him "Lenore"

And I learned so much making this little thing!  I will be absolutely making another one or two of them.  The glass is so beautiful it makes me swoon!!  sigh.

Open here I flung the shutter, when, with many a flirt and flutter, 
In there stepped a stately Raven of the saintly days of yore; 
Not the least obeisance made he; 
not a minute stopped or stayed he;
 But, with mien of lord or lady, perched above my chamber door— Perched upon a bust of Pallas just above my chamber door— Perched, and sat, and nothing more. 

Then this ebony bird beguiling my sad fancy into smiling,
By the grave and stern decorum of the countenance it wore, "Though thy crest be shorn and shaven, thou,"
 I said, "art sure no craven,
 Ghastly grim and ancient Raven wandering from the Nightly shore— Tell me what thy lordly name is on the Night's Plutonian shore!" Quoth the Raven "Nevermore." 

Find your joy!