How the west was 1.

I feel like I should probably make this a two part post, but if I don't than consider the title (simply) a lame homage to John Wayne and Jim Stewart (and whoever else was in that movie).

To start off our three month journey, my father and I loaded up the truck with sculpture and headed out west. We bounded out, not wasting much time, until we hit LA. There we stayed for a few days, but the incredible vastness of the place was too much to handle and we left for northern California with a sour taste in our mouths. So, off we went, to San Fran to stay with my sister and, on the way there, we stopped to check out a metal shop in random little town called Watsonville (a major agriculture and industry town, replete with metal sculptors and strawberry farmers)....

At this point one may be wondering why we would set out on a journey like this in the first place. My reasons were simple: I wanted to escape the cold harsh winter of NY, I wanted to make as much sculpture as possible, I wanted to play soccer and I wanted to improve my spanish. Simple as that!

... Anyway we stop in Watsonville, check out a few metal shops and decide to stay the night. We spend the next couple days checking out the place, seeing what it has to offer... eventually we move on and make it up to Berkeley to spend some time with my sister. We spend a week or so in Berkeley until it dawns on us that Berkeley is simply a repository for brainy college kids and the relatively insane (an odd combo) and we needed to, pardon my french, get the fuck outta there.

So out we went, and here I mus note that things were getting hectic, tempers were flaring; I was torn in one direction and my father another and this joint trip to California seemed fruitless (come on a 22 year old and his 57 year old father, loosed on California, stuck in a city that is primarily college kids who are perceptibly mad: it's not hard to see this as a recipe for disaster). But we gathered our wits and saw that the answer was probably that mostly mexican farming town two hours south where we checked out a couple metal shops: Watsonville.

this concludes part 1.

Stay tuned for the second edition:

And maybe some photos.

Also my website has been super duper revamped and updated so go check it out!

www.zacmax.com !

(it's still undergoing a few tweaks, but you'll get the idea)