As I have noted in the excerpt, this sculpted eye is in here because it serves as a reminder, to me anyway. It may also serve as a lesson to others about careful material selection.
In the case of this small test sculpted eye the wood is Red Cedar. It has a tight grain, finishes well, but is soft enough to be easily worked with hand tools. It is also coloured light enough that the shadow relief isn’t lost, unlike much darker timbers.
And the reason that this all came about is because of the lessons learnt in another recent sculpture of mine. That particular sculpture is Sin Cerebro and I sculpted that piece from pine. At that time I only had access to limited timbers, so I had little choice.
For the most part everything went well in the making of Sin Cerebro, but then I got to the eyes. It was at that point things started to fall apart, literally. The grain with that particular timber is extremely brittle. It is so brittle in fact, as I was shaping the detail in and around the eyes the wood was just falling away. And that was the end of that.
I suppose, if I were to use that type of pine again, I would try and soak the wood with some kind of stabilising agent before scraping off anything never mind having a crack at a sculpted eye.
You may also like;
Sin Cerebro (Without a Brain), The Gate Post v2.0, You Me Us (Outdoor), If They Could Speak, The Listening Post, Sufferance, You Me, Us, Secondly, Trinity, Who Dares.
This next part has nothing to do with sculpted eyes so you can skip if you like. It is a warning about who’s got an eye on you though. It’s about the increasing levels of surveillance that are being setup to turn your world into one gigantic panopticon.
Firstly, I’d like to start with a quote;
“Law-abiding people” must fear state surveillance because it makes it more likely that they’ll become non-law-abiding without any change in their behavior.
Let that sink in for a little minute before you click on.
The surveillance state is considered dangerous and harmful for several reasons. Firstly, it can lead to a loss of intellectual privacy, which is crucial for the development of individual beliefs and the freedom to think without state oversight or interference. Secondly, surveillance can distort the power dynamic between the watcher and the watched, leading to potential harms such as discrimination, coercion, and selective enforcement. Additionally, the Surveillance State is dangerous not because it violates privacy standards, but because it fuels control. Once surveillance is in place, the cost of gathering more information decreases, making it more tempting for the state to enforce more controls.
Moreover, the Surveillance State can lead to the enactment of new laws that target the “law-abiding” population, as the state can enforce these laws more easily due to the low marginal cost of information gathering.34 This can result in a significant expansion of state powers and a reduction in civil liberties.
Mass surveillance has been criticized for violating privacy rights, limiting civil and political rights and freedoms, and being illegal under some legal or constitutional systems. It is often associated with totalitarian regimes and can potentially lead to the development of a surveillance state, an electronic police state, or a totalitarian state where civil liberties are infringed or political dissent is undermined.
In summary, the surveillance state poses significant risks to personal freedoms and civil liberties, making it a concerning development in many societies.
Links:
https://fee.org/articles/why-the-surveillance-state-is-dangerous