Lemonade: Day 4 - A Visit with David Allen, "Chowder's David"

We're making Community Lemonade in Long Beach, CA.  Come and make lemonade with us!

!  I'm on a 100 day odyssey for community and creativity in Long Beach, CA.  We've got such an amazing city, and I'm a huge fan!  I want to share it with you!  I'm seeking out the creatives and the facilitators of creativity.  The art and the locations that inspire art.  Bringing them to you, here in this blog, and to others, on the streets of Long Beach.

I call it .

Today was Day 4 of Making Lemonade.  I visited with David Allen, the owner/operator of Uberdog.  Chowder's David.

We, my family and I, feel very lucky to have known David.  Here in Long Beach we have many dog lovers.  Some of our neighbors and friends love dogs so much that they spend their work lives around dogs.  Such is "Chowder's David".  You may remember Chowder from his

Nowadays, I am the dog walker.  Today, as I walked Chowder, I thought about my visit with David earlier in the afternoon.

I LOVE THIS PROJECT!  .

It shows me a side of people that I would never see!  Who knew that David, in his spare time, does a very specific type of found object art?  He also helps to clean the city streets of fallen palm branches after a windy night!  This is the beauty of creating with found objects.  Something unused, unwanted, repurposed to a new, better beginning. 

Making something out of nothing.

David makes masks out of these branches.  Each one provides a different canvas of shape and size.  After a particularly windy night, you might see him gathering pieces for the bin of prospects that he keeps in his garage.

For a bit every week, David will work in his garage, sketching, cleaning, carving, shaping the discarded palm branches.  Sometimes he knows what he is going to do, sometimes it just happens as he progresses.

As with many who create in their spare time David's work usually hangs in his home gallery, donated to local charity sales events and gifted to friends.  He's sold a few pieces, you may see them hanging somewhere.

David was kind enough to show me a tiny bit of his process, and to let me work with some of his tools.  His primary tools?  A coping saw, a dremmel, a hand held saw, a belt sander, files of various sizes.  He also showed me his collection of gunsmithing hand tools, inherited from his father, which can be used for carving intricate patterns into wood.

Doing any craft is soothing. The smoothing of fabric, the feel of clay, the sanding of bark.

And then there's the puzzle.  When you make a little groove in one place, you look to see where it makes sense to place the next groove.  When my hand slipped and skimmed the top of the branch, well, it was another opportunity to redefine what it would look like.

I knew that I wouldn't complete an entire mask.  It takes a fair amount of time, to do so.  So, I brought my piece with me, so that I can work on it later as I have time.  If it seems that I'm lining up a fair number of unfinished projects behind me... that would be true.  I know, however, that the short introduction I have had will enable me to continue later on my own.

Thanks to David Allen of Uberdog for sharing his art with me today!

Want more lemonade? 

NEXT

A visit with Quilts of Valor at Sew Vac.

And TOMORROW!!!!

Day 5: Mystery Project!

Tomorrow I will be at an as yet undecided location doing an as yet undecided project.  That's the way works.  Some days we have planned out, some days we don't.  Rest assured, there will be something.

Items Needed

Nothing!

Need to contact me?  info@handmadepenguin.com

Trish Tsoiasue writes as herself about creative and maker topics for the Belmont Shore Patch and as Handmade Penguin for the Handmade Penguin Blog.