Musings | Page 5 | John Norwood, Artist

From 1 to 100 in One Weekend

May 4, 2011 by John Norwood Leave a Comment

Happy Birthday Cake I’m still working on several thousand Marlboro cigarette packs that I’ve saved through the years and making pyramids out of them. 20 years ago I made constructions out of empty boxes and painted them red, yellow black and white. They were one meter squared. I have a cold and feel crappy. Saturday we went to a little girl’s first birthday party and Sunday we went to a friends birthday party who turned 100.

I don’t know whether to paint the cigarette sculptures or leave them alone?

The weather has been very nice for the past 5 days after the lousy whether. Right now I’m listening to Smetena Moldau which is very beautiful! All my life I’ve listened to classical music while working, trying to improve my crappy mind.

Happiness is a Dry Martini

April 10, 2011 by John Norwood Leave a Comment

Picture of a Dry Martini I had a fantastic week. I was saving parts and pieces from the fire that struck our home and my marina studio over 2 years ago. I am also working on more Marlboro pyramids. I put together one which is exactly 1 meter and 4 mm by 60 cm. These are the dimensions if you glue 12 boxes vertical by 12 horizontal.

I started again on the photos of our travels. I am sorting them and then gluing them into boxes. I had a few Bloody Mary’s with my Sunday brunch and am feeling good. I had martinis the last three nights because I was trying to finish a bottle of Beefeaters gin. Happiness is a dry martini.

I started painting more cardboard pieces. I am using the IKEA cardboard boxes that our wardrobes came in.

Good luck, good health and happiness if possible.

East Wing of the National Gallery of Art

April 4, 2011 by John Norwood 2 Comments

Dwell magazine, March 2011 issue has a piece on Ada Louise Huxtable – the famous architecture critic – in honor of her 90th birthday. The piece mentions Huxtable’s review of the East Wing of the National Gallery of Art, “a great building for all time.” This building was done by I.M. Pei, and I was assigned to work on this commission.

The East Wing of the National Gallery was one of my first major jobs at I.M. Pei. I was responsible for making the drawings for the carpenter of the structure of the model. The carpenter was a very good Italian craftsman named Frank Ardito. This was a three-eighth scale model. When it was finished it was in a special room, the model was 20 feet long and 16 feet wide. The last I heard of the model it was in the National Gallery and was being used to plan exhibits to see the placement of art.

The building has a very acute 19 degree angle. This was a good job for a woodworker because the angle is so acute you have to cut very involved miters. The nodes for the skylight were very involved and we had to cast these for the model out of acrylic. We had to make special furniture and figures for the model.

It was a very involved project. They spent about $200,000 in the making of the model. Alexander Calder, the famous sculptor, came to our shop to hang his a model of his mobile in the building model to see what it would look like in the final building. He was a very nice man and shook everyones hand. The President of France at the time, Francois Miterand, saw the finished building and was so impressed he decided that Pei should re-design parts of the Louvre.

I’ve used some leftover parts of the model in some of my own acrylic boxes.

Ada, you look great at 90 years young!

Elizabeth Taylor RIP, Parsis and Art

March 27, 2011 by John Norwood Leave a Comment

“I’m very upset that my girlfriend Elizabeth Taylor died. I remember being very upset when she married Nicky Hilton. I thought why didn’t she wait for me? I was raised as a Christian Scientist and so was she. She converted to Judaism when she married Mike Todd. He died in a plane crash and I really think he was the lover of her life. Later on she stole Eddie Fisher away from Debbie Reynolds and he was a real turkey. I don’t know what she saw in him. Anyway I’m sorry she is dead. She had a certain flair that very few people have. Other than that, the news is very depressing as usual. It is such a beautiful world but so screwed up.

My wife and I went to a celebration for the Parsi New Year last night. My wife is a Parsi which is a very old religion. The place was jammed with people. More people I’ve seen at one of these things in many years. The food was Indian and spicy but pretty good.

I’ve been putting together the remnants from the fire still. The white plastic models that survived the fire and that I swept off the floor afterwards. I’m putting it together like a big jigsaw puzzle. I had 600 columns that I’m am trying to piece back together. I have completed 300 of them already.

I’ve just had a big breakfast with two bloody mary’s and I can’t think anymore. See you next week…”

Egypt and Petra

February 7, 2011 by John Norwood Leave a Comment

I have been to Egypt twice. The first visit was in 1962 and my most recent trip was this year, January 2011, a week before the protests in Cairo and Alexandria escalated. While Ruby and I were there this January, the streets in Cairo were calm and peaceful. Egypt is such and interesting place and should be at the top of everyone’s “places to visit” list. My hope is that the current situation is resolved quickly and that the Egyptian people realize the political freedom they’re demanding; and then their political movement spreads throughout the Middle East bringing, peace, stability and freedom to that entire region. I find the Arab people wonderful and on both visits to the region, the people I encountered treated me like one of their own.

Like my 1962 trip, my journey to Egypt this year also included an excursion to Petra, in Jordan.

It was described as “a rose-red city half as old as time” in a Newdigate Prize-winning sonnet by John William Burgon. – Wikipedia

Petra Monestary Creative Commons — Petra Monestary from Creative Commons

In 1962 I was able to travel in Egypt for a month on a total of 80 US dollars and during that trip, I decided to hitchhike to Jordan. I was picked up by Iraqi drivers taking a Mercedes truck to Amman, Jordan and met Eila, a New Zealand girl who was also hitching a ride. During the trip, the driver started feeling her leg, which obviously made her uncomfortable. So when we stopped for a break, I changed places with her. The driver then started feeling my leg!

Back then, I spent 3 months traveling Egypt, Syria, Iraq, and Jordan. I was within within 7 kilometers of Petra when a snow storm blanketed the area, closing access to Petra so that I could not see it. After 50 years, I was finally able to visit this January. It was worth the wait. Petra is one of my top highlights from a lifetime of traveling.

Artist, Sculptor, Model Maker