Visit The KMJ
Fine Art Contemporary Sculpture Gallery
KMJ COONEY GALLERY
111 AABC Suite D, Aspen CO 81611
Summer Hours: 10:30 to 1, 3 to 6, Monday to Friday.
Private viewings welcome. email martincooneysculptor@gmail.com, or call 970 319 1070 for details.
Now that the KMJ is up and running, the dust is settled and the hard work complete, I can safely say that had I fully understood at the outset the sheer scale and scope of the task at hand, I would perhaps have had just cause to revise down our somewhat ambitious plans.
At the outset, waay back on May Day, Kris and I held little in the way of design concept for our long-awaited studio gallery. All we wanted was to present our sculpture in its best possible light. Never-the-less, we both knew that once we got going, and we began to get to know the place, a plan of some sort would summarily unfold. Solutions would present themselves as and when needed. And in fact many of the KMJ’s signature features – masonry plinths, pillars and walls, were dictated by conditions on the ground, as the massive remodeling project was to unfold.
Even I am prone to forget just what a task faced us when the time came for us to roll up our sleeves and turn this former plumbing shop into a platform on which to showcase our fine art contemporary sculpture.
So easy it is now to forget the almighty mess that was Day 1, May 1st, May Day, 2017, a date that will forever evoke images such as those presented in these pictures. Should I now be tasked with doing this all over again, in all honesty, I doubt that I could summon the strength. Thankfully however from the outset, I (we, Kris and I both) never allowed ourselves to be overwhelmed by the situation, even when the situation at times appeared ever so slightly overwhelming.
Nope! We just got stuck in, and turned our attentions to the task at hand, whatever that may be.
First of all there was the little matter of painting the ceiling and walls.
Many were the hours spent literally watching paint dry, as I dutifully made my systematic tours of the room.
Eventually however, with every inch of wall and ceiling sufficiently coated, attention turned downward, and on to the solid concrete floor.
“Solid concrete floor” it was alright, but who knows how many year’s worth of grime lay smeared, glued and stuck across practically its entire surface.
Believe it or not – these photos were actually taken on Mother’s Day. What can I say? Such devotion to the cause; but that’s how it was at this point, “Backs to the grindstone, all hands to the pump”.
martincooney.com presents: ‘The Floor of a Thousand Holes’.
Undaunted by the magnitude of the task – Kris and I really wanted that beautiful 40 year-old concrete floor restored no matter what. And so, in spite of so very many tiny little holes, one-by-one, I set about patching them. But first, in order to secure a clean surface for which the filler to bond, I duly scrambled around the room in pure crablike fashion drilling out each and every blemish I could find. And as you can see, I found a great, great many opportunities to drive my drill into the wound and commence the healing process (the poor, poor floor).
It was at this point that we had the bright idea of adding paint pigment to the Rockrete.
‘Every drill hole tells a story’. So many were they that they serve to ghost out the traces of the shops, offices and various business that have, in years past, utilized 111 Suite D, current host to
The KMJ COONEY GALLERY.
Perhaps a central reason why it has stood the test of time so very well – 40 plus years – is the fact that instead of ‘one big pour’ the floor is comprised of identical ten by ten feet squares, each draining inward to the center point. The edges however had, down through the years, degraded to such a point that necessitated a wholesale re-grout.
So very gratifying it was to pull up those tapes, I can tell you.
For the final clean up we once again found ourselves hurled back into the painstaking drudgery of scraping up grime.
Once the grime was lifted, the floor washed, scoured and cleaned, I immediately commensed construction on the banker, and duly muddied the whole thing up. But at least, this time around, the contaminant: cement, sand and lime, was what my grandfather John Templeman would have logically considered to be “clean dirt”, not the filthy slime that Kris and I had painstakingly removed.
In order to preserve the actual banker on which I had carved the entire body of work that I was about to exhibit, I carefully took the Woody Creek banker apart, and re-positioned it in the studio – the new home of Curvilinear Marble Sculpture.
Who knows of the sculpture destined to be carved upon this very spot.
And so no, on reflection, I do not regret a single thing. Sore as my back was, achy as my knees, it seemed so plainly obvious to both of us that THIS was our one chance to build the gallery of our dreams… and damn the concept of self imposed deadlines.
Once I realized that, in order to facilitate the demands of the studio, a solid masonry wall was required, then a solid masonry wall was built.
And now for the slideshow
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Stay tuned as various updates and announcements track the fate of our new revolutionary fine art contemporary sculpture gallery.
Initial indications however would point to a quite satisfactory remodel. Now comes the all important launch.
Interesting times, indeed.
thanks for visiting martincooney.com
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