Fossil Meets Fossil

We're Going To Change Historia

We’re Going to Change ‘Historia’  (or We’ll Vote to Change ‘Historia’) a reconstructed song intending to deconstruct, then reconstruct history, based on the song, “We are marching to Pretoria”, key of C or D works well. This song was made popular by Josef Marais  in the ‘50s; problem is that it was not all that politically correct from a progressive point of view, even though The Weavers and Smothers Brothers did it  and my version is the result of me remembering how much I loved to sing it as a child and then the call for a ‘rescue’ song from my dad*, because he is watching some dangerous trends in our country right now! I do not want to lose the song and best thing here is ‘to cook new soup with stale words and fresh meanings, it tastes so good”.          -Thor Sigstedt Oct, 2018)

"I'm with you and you're with me and we are all together, we are all together, we are all together, I’m with you and you’re with me and we are all together, as we walk along. 

    Original lyrics: I'm with you and you're with me, and so we row together, so we row together, so we row together. Sing with me, I'll sing with you, and so we will sing together, as we march (or walk) along.

     Chorus between verses:  We’re going to change historia, historia, historia

We’re going to change historia, historia hoorah!)

      Original lyrics: “We have food and food is good and so we will eat together, so we will eat together, so we will eat together

When we eat will be a treat and so let us sing together, as we march along”

       My other new  verses (and you can make up your own): 

“We’re black and white and red and brown

And we are all together, we are all together, we are altogether,

We’re gay and straight, we’re bi and trans

And we are all together, as we walk along.

     Chorus: We’re going to change historia, historia, historia, we’ll vote to change historia, historia, historia hoorah!

We’re boy and girl and man and woman, we are all together, we are al ltogether,we are all together

We’re young and old, sick and well, we are all together, as we walk along.

    Chorus: We’re going to change historia, historia, historia, we’ll vote to change historia, historia, hoorah!

Some pray and kneel, some think and feel, and we are all together

Some believe in god and others don’t, and we are all together, as we walk along”

    Chorus: We’re going to change historia, historia, historia, we’ll vote to change historia, historia, hoorah!

When we all do well, we all do well, then we are all together, we are all together, we are all together.

We’re rich and poor, we’re blue and white and we are all together, as we walk along.

      Chorus : We’re going to change historia, historia, historia, we’ll vote to change historia, historia, hoorah!

We’ll vote to change historia, historia, historia, we’ll vote to change historia, historia hoorah!

Mormor

When I stood at the door of the storage unit, there was a moment pregnant with possibility, the time known as fate was hovering in the balance; was my father prepared to pass on some things that defied normal heirlooms?  He asked me to look inside two black plastic bags, which I could see, contained a lot of rotten wood and some sort of edifice that was carved, perhaps, centuries ago and had undergone the ravages of time.  "This is what we called "Mormor", which is what we called 'Grandmother' in our family".  I brought Mormor home to Spirit Valley, New Mexico, along with a small white cardboard box that was marked "Mor Mor face pieces".  You see, this was, it turned out, a figurehead that was given to my grandfather by a friend before Thorsten moved to America.  She was, it seems, recovered from a sunken ship in the Baltic Sea; a figurehead from a Swedish ship.  My dad said the Swedes might be upset that an antiquity was removed from the 'Motherland'  (or 'Fatherland').  Thorsten treasured this piece enough to have it affixed on his newly built home studio in Bryn Athyn, a part of Philadelphia.  The home was what was called a small home back then, Architected by a famous architect and actually got into a book entitled 1936  Book of Small Houses, which I amazingly discovered as I researched the architect and suddenly came across this  book ( https://archive.org/stream/ArchitecturalForum0001/1936BookOfSmallHomes.#page/n133  )  that featured his work and then, to my amazement, there was, on house #55, page 133, the Thorsten and Cyriel Sigstedt house with pictures of Mormor on it as an architectural ornament! I then found a copy that was in the UK, of all places, and bought it for $15 and it arrived a few weeks later.  This adventure was taking on multi-dimensions.  I pulled out the little box with the face parts and there was a beautiful nose and part of an upper lip, half an eye and, separately,  part of a lower lip and chin!  When I placed the lips together, an electric jolt grabbed me and I began to begin to cry; not sure if it was my mother's lips (she was also 1/2 Swedish) or, at least, reminded me of them or something primal in me!  I decided to attempt the restoration and began the process quickly and decided on using a disc brake for a base and began welding rusty rebar units that made a sort of open ended ovals, with overlapping end pieces and a space between the ends, like large chain link repair units.  I carefully marked them and drilled or plasma blasted holes for long black square drive screws, which I used to attach the various pieces (probably 20 altogether, more or less) in their basic positions on the sculpture.  I also welded these steel units together where I got them to kiss each other inside Mormor's body cavity, so that they grew inside her belly and chest into their own sculptural reality ( had actually begun welding some of them together some years ago in a sort of free-form abstract sculpture, so I had the inclination to see their possibilities as form).  This process took some time and careful riddle and puzzle solving in order to position these critical parts.  I decided to let the rebar stick up a little past the shoulders as a sort of post-modern, personal statement of what was happening and they, interestingly, sort of worked with this beautiful time ravaged woman and her already amazing braids and other whorls carved as ornament common, I think, to this style of figurehead.  The view into and through her interior added mystery and intrigue and the method to restore was now transparent.  I also added a wonderfully textured piece of driftwood from a recent flood, the wood being, probably, box elder; a sort of maple.  The curve was clearly reminiscent of her neck, back and spine and went into the back of her head as a support for the head, which was held up by minimal wood that survived the rot.  I affixed the face parts at some point and they fit wonderfully and there was a huge cavern left on the right side of her head that went from hairline to her neck, which I decided to leave as it added great drama, negative space and space to allow the eye to transfix on both the healthy and the missing parts of her face.  I think she is actually, perhaps, more beautiful in some odd way-this way.  I did nothing to the paint or any other details other than apply Clapham's beeswax.  The effect is authentic, unique, personal to this artist and a presentation of what Mormor really is at this point in time.  I believe some attempts were made to try to market her to the Swedish museums system and other US museums and even Ebay and, it turns out that I was the most interested 'customer' in this saga.  I still am.  Another fascinating detail is that I wrote a piece about my open heart surgery exactly one year ago.  The piece morphed into a pirate fantasy based upon a Winslow Homer painting of a fisherman in a boat and some mixed weather, high choppy sea and a distant ship.  The painting is pregnant with the unknown and the obvious strengths of all of the components.  I had picked up a copy of this work of art at a thrift store a short time before I found out about my heart, then realized that this situation was mine and then I realized the distant ship was a pirate ship, in my imagination, and I proceeded from there (  High Desert Swashbuckling  on http://thor-sigstedt.blogspot.com   ).  The amazing part is that I converted actors in my real life drama into pirates and other maritime features and when it came to my wife, Belle, I decided to feature her as the model for the beautiful figurehead for the good pirates, because of how I feel about her and how wonderfully chiseled her features are; perfect for a lovely, timeless figurehead.  These are the only two times that I have ever thought much about figureheads and so now I happily swim in that ancient and lovely world.  Oh yeah, if you look carefully at Mormor Belle, she kind of looks like she is with child, which makes her all the more alive and powerful as we go along our 'troubled voyages in calm, calm waters'.  Happy Sailing!