Never Wish for a Forest Fire
Nobody but a fool would wish for a forest fire if he lived in a forest of fuel. There was a wildfire near here yesterday. Because of the fire, I got to do somethi...
Reflections of The Granite Madonna
A composite of three frames of a video of The Granite Madonna by Mark Wunsch. When Mark Wunsch showed me his video of my Granite Madonna, I was ecstatic to see ...
The meanest, nastiest territorial squabblers of them all
This 3-minute clip is from a Knowledge Network "Leading Edge" program on hummingbirds, broadcast in 2006. It features an interview about hummingbirds and shows me ca...
The birth of a sculptor
The image shows Lee Gass at two stages in his sculpting career; when he was learning to carve Ivory soap and sanding Red Recursion. Photos by David Shackleton and a...
The Granite Madonna
One frame of a video of The Granite Madonna by Mark Wunsch. Explorations of the form of a stone. In 2011, Quadra Island videographer Mark Wunsch and I began ...
Made to be touched
An Experiment in Social Engineering In May and June 2009, painter Matt Petley-Jones and I held a joint exhibition in his gallery in Vancouver. Since my work occupi...
Eternal Flame
Eternal Flame. This is one of a series of stories in the Vancouver Observer, each about or inspired by Experiments, an evening-length dance production expressing the ...
Arabesque
Arabesque. Sculpture and photos by Lee Gass. This story is expanded from one I published in the Vancouver Observer, inspired by Experiments, a dance production expressin...
Work on the ugliest part!
Lee Gass doing what he has done for three-quarters of a century: telling a story to a friend, fellow behavioural ecologist and photographer David Shackleton, who too...
The Notion of Creativity
In my work as a university professor, questions about where ideas come from were central to everything I did in research and teaching, and now, as a full-time...
Nature’s Little Squeegees
If you’ve spent hours sanding rocks or furniture without gloves, you may have noticed something that fascinates me every time it happens. I knew as a chil...
The Last of the Caran d’Ache
At risk of telling you more about sculpting than you ever wanted to know or giving you too much information about my personal life, I’ll tell you a story. It’s...
What is Creativity?
Detail of Eternal Flame bronze with colour scheme inverted. What makes the difference between creative people and the rest of us? People have been aski...
What a waste!
Red travewrtine waste from Red Recursion paving a trail through the woods. It is buried now by several layers of several kinds of stone. Waste and photo by Lee Gas...
To Visualize a Stone
The Granite Madonna, in progress. Photo by Lee Gass. Various aids to visualization help me 'see' forms as they develop, see what I’ve already done and se...
Help!
The Granite Madonna in progress. I hope you won’t think I’m cheating to ask for help in a story about creativity, but I do need help with something. I need an ...
Methods of Creation
In Love and Soaring lighted by laser. Photo by Lee Gass. In responding to my story about making sculpture, Thoughts on the Creative Process, Renee pointed to...
Heavy Rocks
Heavy Rocks Everyone knows rocks are heavy, dense, and hard and the bigger the rock the heavier it is. Stone sculptors change their shapes and make them smaller. ...
The Case of Michael Ondaatje
Where ideas come from is a fascinating question I’ve wondered about all my life, especially in relation to creativity. In the rich literature on creativit...
Looking Up
Looking Up Photos by Lee Gass This piece of granite leaned against my studio wall for a couple of years, up high where I could see it in all weather and al...
What is it going to be?
Vinay watched me work for a while the other day in my studio. I knew he was coming, but didn’t notice him come in. I didn’t notice anything but carving a granite ...
Some of What I Love about Sculpting
Ode to Joy in progress. Midday, December 5, 2009. Some of What I Love about Sculpting The sun told me to stop grinding and take the first shot, and as soon as I co...
Brief Reflections on Experiments
To a scientist like me, Experiments, a dance production that premiered at the Scotiabank Dance Centre at the end of November, was special. It is rare for a work of ...
Something I Admire About Surgeons
Sanding a ribbon of granite on The Granite Madonna. Photo by Lucretia Schanfarber. Something I admire about surgeons, dentists, deep sea divers and astronau...
Graphing in Science and Sculpting
Computer model of Heart of Anima. This is a a 3D graph with its front faces removed to reveal internal structure. Model and sculpture by Lee Gass. Gail Loten...
Repetition, precision and chaos
Sometime in the late '70s, MSc student Dave Marmorek, now retired president of ESSA Technologies Ltd, an ecological and social systems consulting company in Vancouve...
The Quality of the Light was Incredible
Ode to Joy in progress, illuminated by winter sunlight. The Quality of the Light was Incredible In the deep dank dark of a winter in the woods on an islan...
Lactate Burn
Forearm muscles feel lactate burn sanding Red Recursion. Photo by David Shackleton. We got our TV at Christmas when I was almost 10 years old, there just one channe...
More Thoughts on Creativity
Wild huckleberries on a bush outside my studio. In a story about a nest of robins in my outdoor sculpting studio, The Deep Meaning of Creativity, I sugges...
On Moving Forms Into Being
The Granite Madonna. Sculpture and photos by Lee Gass. This was the first of a series of stories about Experiments, brainchild of chore- ographer and dancer Gail Lo...