“A Bear for All Time” is a stone sculpture expression of my reflections on geologic and immediate time.  As a former character animator, I am time-challenged, my perception of time is distorted.  I know the duration of a frame of film (1/24th of a second), but not that of an hour.  When sculpting, an hour flies by in a frame, in the wink of an eye. 

Time is precious.  Do we have time?  The past is composed of eons of time.  What is the future composed of?

Inspiration

I have an inexplicable love for the Arctic.  It may come from my fondness for winter and for skiing–the Arctic is imbued with magic.  I am also concerned for our future as a planet, and I continue to believe humans ultimately wish to be helpful and positive.  We are creative problem-solvers and this is our time, our era, to prove ourselves.

Polar Bears

I never thought I would create a polar bear sculpture, let alone make a second one.  I seem to have the need.  Polar Bears represent, for me, all we stand to lose in a melting world.  They also represent hope, because when we help them, we help ourselves.

We are taking steps to meet climate goals and slow the melting process.  2023 was, globally, our hottest year yet in recorded history.  We members of the worldwide community are in a climate crisis in which we need to act, and we are acting.  We have a beginning and we will do more.

Some Good News

–The ozone layer is recovering.  This layer is high up in earth’s atmosphere and shields us from a lot of the sun’s ultraviolet radiation.  (At ground level ozone is air pollution, aka smog.)  The United Nations backed Scientific Assessment Panel to the Montreal Protocol on Ozone Depleting Substances confirms the phase out of banned ozone-depleting substances.  The ban is working.

–The Environmental Protection Agency demanded the risk evaluation of 5 toxic chemicals used in plastics. This is an important step in regulating these chemicals under the Toxic Substances Control Act.

–Scientists at the University of Sydney found two common molds that efficiently break down plastics in about 140 days.  This is terrific because a 2022 report from Greenpeace found that most recycled plastics in the US end up in landfills or oceans.  Only 5% of plastics are recycled into new items.  Plastic recycling is a major challenge, the field is wide open with opportunities, and the molds work.

–Youth activists in Montana won their lawsuit against the state’s support of fossil fuels.  In August 2023, District Court judge Kathy Seeley found that a Montana state policy barring consideration of the impacts of greenhouse gas emissions in fossil fuel permitting violated these young people’s constitutional right to a clean and healthy environment. This ruling creates a potential foundation for future lawsuits against fossil fuels polluting our world.

–New York’s Attorney General, Letitia James, filed a lawsuit against Pepsi Cola for plastic litter polluting the drinking water in the city of Buffalo.  This lawsuit draws attention to our rights to clean water and holds major corporations accountable for environmental impacts.

–26 Australian species recovered significantly and are no longer on the list for threat of extinction.  Australia is the world-leader in animal extinction, so this is great, though guarded, progress.  These species need continuing human intervention to protect recovering populations. 

–In 2023 there were more investments in solar power than in oil.

This information comes from Earthday.org.  We are taking steps forward to recover our world.  It is a challenge, but it is possible.

The Stone

Sivec (sa-VETCH) Marble comes from a quarry in Macedonia that has been in continual operation for 2,500 years.  It is the stone from which the Ancient Greeks built their civilization.  It is pure white with no vein and has gorgeous crystal that sparkles like new-fallen snow.  My favorite stone on the planet.  This marble is as trust-worthy as it is beautiful, a most enjoyable carving experience, and finishes to perfection.

My Formal Goal

My goal in making “A Bear for All Time” was to define the bear through forms and with a minimum of line.  I want vast expanses of sparkle for the eye to glide across.  That means carving curves only, undifferentiated from other curves except through changing thicknesses and the bending of light in the form of shadows.  Edges (lines) break light into highlight and shadow.  Lines act as punctuation to define the front legs and face.  Curves bend light into gradations of shadow.  Lines are distinct, curves are subtle.  It turns out that lines are easy and curves are a huge challenge.  It took me far longer to create this piece than I anticipated.

Time

Time is also a huge challenge.  I worked as an Animator at Disney for 20 years.  For 15 of my years I created traditional hand-drawn classic Disney Animation.  I loved it!  Bringing fantasy characters to life through drawing and acting was one of the most fun things I have done in my life–it is also one of the most time-intensive things I have ever done.  Stone sculpting is the other most time-consuming thing I have ever done, and I also love this.  (Perhaps one might be tempted to draw conclusions one way or another.)

Film, or virtual film, runs at 24 frames per second.  A lot of traditional hand-drawn Disney Animation happens on 2’s, or one drawing for every 2 frames of film–so a second would be 12 drawings.  However, because Disney Animation is so full of nuance, entertainment, and fast action much of the animation is drawn on 1’s, or 24 drawings per second.  On either 1’s or 2’s, the creation of animation distorts an animator’s perception of time.  I always underestimate how long something will take me to accomplish by hours, days, weeks, or months depending on the unit of time I am estimating.

I have a 1-minute reel of my animation on the Animation Theater page of my website.  There are 4 scenes of animation on this “reel”.  If I can guess, it represents maybe 3 to 4 months of work.  For 60 seconds of animation.  One steps into a time-warp when one creates animation, or sculpture in stone.  It is difficult to step back out again.

Other Kinds of Time

We stone sculptors are aware of geologic time–the hundreds of millions of years of heat and pressure required to create stone.  Then there are eons, epochs and eras of time.  These are divisions and sub-divisions of time marked by major events.  There is the era of dinosaurs, the era of humans, the era of polar bears, and so on.

Polar Bear Era

Polar bear biologists estimate that polar bears evolved from brown bears sometime between 150,000 and 600,000 years ago.  The species survived at least one major warming cycle in the history of the earth, and possibly several more depending on how old the species really is.  The discrepancy in the age of the species is due to what sort of DNA scientists study.  There is little fossil record for polar bears because they live mostly on ice, and there are few fossils in the ice.

Their past is difficult to determine, but their future is unhappily predictable.  Long-lived animals like polar bears require populations of animals, not individual animals, and multiple decades and centuries of time to adapt to a changing climate.

I am not preaching doom and gloom, but awareness and positive action.  We are creative problem-solvers and we care about our world.  Knowledge is power.  This is a bear for all time.  The time is now.