Alas, the Silk Mermaid mold is now buttoned up and hoisted into the ceiling for long-term storage. At some point I’ll return to this wonderful project, but it will not be for some time.

The surprising news is, I’m also putting the concrete Troll away for an equally long time. The Digileg extensions have become enormously popular and required all my attention. There are now several hundred people who would like sets, and this requires a large production run. I will not be documenting that process, but will be posting some of the creative costumes fans will be building when the Digilegs go on sale.

Part of the life of an artist/entrepreneur is to be open to the unusual opportunities on your path. First I began on the Silk Mermaid, then the leg extensions, then the concrete Troll. Now the extensions are back on the front burner and heating up. Once the leg extensions are in production, I intend to resume blogging about my personal projects. It will be several months before I can begin anything new, but rest assured, whatever it is, it will challenging and fun!

Surviving as an artist is often the elastic ability to adapt from one project to another and to really enjoy that shifting challenge. I call it “dancing on quicksand.”

The new Tree Troll maquette - now on hold

After a great deal of thought, I have decided to put the Red Silk Mermaid sculpture on hold for the time being.

The single biggest reason is the economy. If I were to finish her now, it is unlikely she would sell for some time. Instead, for the time being, I am going to make more accessible pieces. Silk Mermaid fans, be assured I am not abandoning the Mermaid, merely delaying her for a better time. My profound thanks to all the volunteers who have helped so far on the great lady. I will contact all of you personally as soon as the work resumes.

This site has become a way to connect with artists around the world and exchange ideas and techniques. This will continue as I document and construct another project very close to my heart, and also much less demanding to build. I have begun work on a new Tree Troll — a 12-foot-tall, two-ton concrete Troll for a children’s playground.

More about the new Troll, with many photos of the foil maquette, after the jump.

Over 15 days in 2005, my team of 25 volunteers built the first version of the Troll sculpture in papier mache. I wanted to discover if you can build very large-scale sculptures with entirely nontoxic materials. We succeeded, but the first Troll suffered in that it could not be put outdoors. Large sculptures are notoriously hard to place indoors; their size really restricts available venues.

This project continues my desire to work with nontoxic materials. Concrete, the only material I am considering, lets me make a sculpture that can be played on by children and adults alike. (Okay, there is bronze, but the cost would be astronomical.)

I began by making a maquette (model) to see the general outline of the piece. A friend took a lot of pictures of me in this pose so I could translate it into a simple wire armature for the maquette.

The fastest sculpting material of the 20th Century: aluminum foil and hot glue. You can do fabulous treelike textures with this, with wonderful freedom to easily create all the necessary shapes and contours.

This foil maquette took about seven hours. From this I can design the larger armature. There are a bunch of considerations:

• Weight of the concrete: two tons.
• Weight of ten adults climbing on it for a photo shot: two more tons.
• The final sculpture must be dissassembled, transported, and reassembled at least twice, and possibly more.
• Each piece must have hidden “pick points” for hooks and cables used during construction.
• All the pieces will fit together with “gravity fit” joints, held in place by their own weight with simple pin and sockets.
• The foundation has to be moved too.

I will post my approaches to each of these considerations here as the Troll project develops.

Send suggestions to improve this feed or the SilkMermaid.com website to the web-apprentice: allenvarney (at) gmail (dot) com