Cow Pasture Pool

Gallery Article by Charlie Crawford on Jan 10 2010

Silly Week 2010

 

This Silly Week entry will explain the rest of my entries. I live in the same town, and count as a good friend, Alvis 3.1, or whatever he calls himself these days…This is a story he told me, which of course he will deny. But that’s why we tell these things, isn’t it?

    Alvis started his model building career as a rivet-counter wannabe. But he felt that he lacked the talent/ability to accomplish this goal on a par with the work of other modellers whose work he had seen. (A curious observation on his part, given his current high level of talent/ability, but we’re all our own worst critics).

    While suffering under this self-delusion, he attended a model contest in a major city, and saw a model that changed his mind. It was a small simple decorated base, depicting a golf green, with the cup and flag. Surrounding it were the golf bag and several golf clubs broken and twisted into unreconizable shapes. The ball lay right on the lip of the cup. The title of the piece was “Cow Pasture Pool”. From this model, Alvis learned that it was okay to have fun with modelbuilding, because not only did it allow for a freedom of expression, it irritated rivet counters.

    Fast forward some 20 years, and Alvis and I wound up living in the same town. We met through the local model club and at one point he came to my house to see my collection. He looked in one of my showcases, and exclaimed, “You’re the guy!”. Yes, I’m the guy, and lo these many years later, I still have the little joke that I was able to enter in “Scratch-built Miscellaneous” and even win a ribbon! Here it is. Seeing as how I’m older that Alvis, perhaps I’ll will it to him…

The second picture is the one I entered the year before, entitled “Jaws”. It also won a ribbon, to the chargrin of rivet-counters, who never thought to enter anything in “Scratchbuilt Miscellaneous”. It is to laugh and say ha-ha.

...There are those that would accuse me of unleashing the madness that is Alvis 3.1. I disagree. The madness was already there, full-blown. All I did was let him know he's not the only one...

Charlie Crawford

Photos and text © by Charlie Crawford