The KDS1-VW

 

Hello everyone. I have been in a reflective mood lately, so today's post is about a design both old and new. 

This time, my instinct to revisit past projects has taken me to my Kinetic Detent Slider series. Like its predecessors, the mechanism for this work is intentionally trivial and features a simple piston mechanic that locks in place using a spring ball detent. 

The appeal of this project is that it is one of those elegantly simple designs that allows me to marry mechanical functionality, with something so visually unique I have been unable to replicate it since. It is a craft form with a timeless feel that is ripe for endless iteration. 

I am calling this sculpture the “KDS1-VW” 

For those of you familiar with my older works, maybe some of you are wondering why I have come back to this design after a 7 year break? The short answer is that if you give an artist the opportunity to engage in nostalgia, they will almost always take it. 

Without giving too much away, I have recently had a unique opportunity to write at length about my journey through the rewarding craft of Machining. This has helped me reflect on the many ways machine work, both digital and manual, is (finally) seeping further into the cracks of creative society.

In doing so, I just couldn't help revisiting a design that holds a very special place in my practice. When I take a look at my own journey, there are a small number of works that stand above the rest as touchstones that mark a change in my relationship to my medium. 

  

My original Slider sculpture, which at first I just called a “pocket sculpture” before taking on its official nickname, is one of them.  I'd be willing to bet there are quite a few people reading this blog today who are here primarily because of the popularity of the S1 sculpture. 

It is this work that really helped me understand that if I was going to define my work in terms of developing machining as a studio craft, I would need to create projects that bridged the world of fine art with some of the other decorative craft trends I was seeing pop up among machinists. 

So however old this original idea, I am glad came back to this work. Because aside from bringing me a lot of personal joy, there was also plenty of room for improvement in both process, engineering, and design.

 

In the video above, I do my best to detail many of the design changes that I was able to incorporate. 

Materials I have experimented with so far are as follows. Left to right above is red stabilized BoxElder, two tone Amboyna Burl with sapwood, and blue stabilized Boxelder.

 

Left to right here is Chechen, Amboyna Burl, and Ironwood. Ironwood comes in a lot of flavors, from high contrast burls in bright orange, to more uniform browns. I use it because of this variety and it machines extremely well.

So thats it, this work is special to me because it set me on a path to realizing that machining is a profession that exists simultaneously as an industry, a craft, and science with a built in means to apply it. It is a process that uniquely blurs the line between fine art, craft, and design in way that I could use to tell a story about the idea of craft itself. 

I feel lucky to be afforded the opportunity to make beautiful objects that pull influence from the many spheres of knowledge it touches. 

In resurrecting this design, I hope to create a further opportunity to talk about traditional craft forms within the field of machining. That is forms that "ALL" machinists can make to learn the fundamentals of the craft. but more on that in a later post. 

 

Notes for collectors: I think it would be a crime not offer this work up as an edition so I have already started gearing up. Development continues on a few aspects of the work; namely a display stand and fine tuning my process for safely processing the wood elements. But nothing that will substantially alter the work itself.

 
For those interested in adding this sculpture to your collections, the sign up will go live on Thursday March 16th at 11AM EST. 

As always, a link will go out via newsletter, as well appear on my Blog and Instagram profile. Pricing and other details of the sale will be available on the sign up form. 

Notes on wood selection for the inlays: I will try to have all relevant information pertaining to material selection on the sign up, but I do want to make a brief comment now on the fact that these works employ the use of exotic and stabilized hardwoods. 

These hardwoods are not always easy to source and so while I will do my very best to get my hands on everything I need to get you the work you desire, some supplies will be limited. If one particular selection proves popular, I may have difficulty sourcing enough material. So I would caution those who feel strongly about what they want, to sign up as early as possible, and everyone else to maybe think about a backup choice if that becomes necessary.

Another note is that the process I have set up for shaping these rather tricky inlays is only suitable for a certain range of materials, so while I am open to suggestions, there is a limit to what will work. Crumbly or fractious woods simply won't survive the process, and exotic metals and other materials are unsuitable for the work-holding and turning process I have built. Above is a sampling of some of the woods I am going to offer. These are the materials that I feel work best with this process. I hope that is useful information. 

OK, with all the tricky details out of the way, I just want to say that these new pieces are absolutely stunning and I can't wait to make some more of them. More soon, and as always, comments and questions are welcome.

Sculpture BY222422

Hello Everyone. New work time. And since this is a proper one of a kind sculpture, it adheres to the naming routine I developed ages ago for this kind of work. So this sculpture's proper title is BY222422 Maybe one day I will tell everyone what that means.

I have been continuing to explore the ways that I can bring (my home brewed) stabilized hard woods into my practice, both practically and aesthetically. I am finding that while stabilization does create a substrate that is much more amenable to the kinds of machining process I use in metal, there are plenty of limitations and extra considerations one needs to take into account.

Managing tear-out when milling and drilling intersecting geometry is a big one. Working around knots and other inclusions in the wood is its own unique departure from my usual work as well.  Also simple things that have an as yet known answer like can you simply drill hole and run a standard tap into stabilized wood to create threads? In this case, yes if you are careful! but plan B was to mill the threads. Unraveling all of that has just been so informative and a lot of fun.

One of the ways I thought to really compare and contrast the differences between machining wood and metal was, although simple enough, pretty revealing to me. That was to make identical complex parts in the different materials. Originally I thought I might make two identical works, one in wood (Boxelder in this case) and one in aluminum. Then I saw the benefits in making a single hybrid piece, both aesthetic, practical, and conceptual.

First, a work that embodies both materials is more illustrative of the ideas I explained above, rather than having to explain the concept, it is plain to see in a single work. But there were engineering considerations as well. The final geometry of the form leaves some pretty thin cross sections in the form, and I honestly didn’t know how the Boxelder material would perform given the large number of threaded elements piercing it. Threads can put internal stress on an object, so would the cumulative forces eventually cause the piece to break or crack? Would it warp? I knew the aluminum would be perfectly strong and stable in this situation, but I had no idea how the wood might perform; so sandwiching them together was a way of supporting this element for which there was lots of uncertainty. It also is aesthetically more interesting to me as well.

Now whether or not this heavily processed piece of boxelder will eventually shrink or warp over a longer time frame remains very much to be seen. Stabilization does seem to do a good job plasticizing the wood and I dried the wood thoroughly before processing it, but in talking to different woodworkers, I have been assured that nothing is ever a sure thing. That is in itself sort of a fascinating way to look at a craft.

I have a fair amount of confidence that things will hold, but if they don’t, I am most curious to learn what effect being bolted to a metal support will have. Will it help keep it in place, or cause the wood to crack or fracture along its connecting points? There are a lot of machined fits in this piece that I just do not often see in wooden objects so there are plenty of opportunities for things to happen, and if they do, will they add to the piece? Will they be interesting in their own way? 

My attitude is, let's find out.

The size of this work is 8.4"Diameter, by 2.5" thick.

Note for collectors: As of this initial writing, this piece is currently available for collection.

And as always, comments and questions are always welcome.

Also, thanks for following along, and since this is the last work I am likely to finish this year, I hope everyone has a good end of year holiday, and a happy new year. 

S3C

Hello everyone. I am back from the shop with new work to share. This time it is a trio of little wonders simply titled the "S3C". This work is the third and final design in my "bead-like" series that I've been intermittently working on this year.

 For

For those just joining this project, or those in need of refreshing, above is a family photo of the full series. I have taken as my starting point for this series the simple idea of the inherent difficulty in creating interesting interior space using the reductive processes inherent to machine work. In iterating around this simple challenge, I hope to build to something a little more complex in the near future.

For now these little works are excelling in more ways than one.

One of the other concepts I have tackled in this series is the use of exotic materials in various metal working circles. I have been incorporating a single different exotic materials into each new design rather than using all of them at once (as is more common). So far, I have used Superconductor for the SB312, Mokume-gane for the S2B, and now with this work, I have brought Titanium Damascus into the conversation.

I had hoped to incorporate each new material in a restrained and considered way, adapting each design to the particular challenges of its particular material. I am not sure how successful I have been in that regard, but I have enjoyed taking my time to get to know the quirks of these exotic alloys, and their limitations.

Like the name implies, Titanium Damascus is a composite material that is forged much like Mokume-gane or other Damascus steels, only it uses two different grades of titanium alloy. This composite, when subject to heat bluing, exhibits a coloration that is quite striking and unique.

Here is a link that gives a little more detail on the origin of Titanium Damascus, but mostly if you try and search it, what you will find is a slew of products and decorative pieces for sale that are made with the material. To call it trendy is a bit of an understatement, and its commercial potential is spreading much faster than useful information about it. But there is no arguing that it is a beautiful material

In terms of machining, it is a pretty difficult material to work with. Titanium is generally challenging, but add to that a composite material with varying hardness and things only become even more so. Additionally there is a bit more danger in that if a cutter becomes dull or breaks, things can get too hot quickly and titanium can actually catch fire (and metal fires are no joke). So you can see why this is a material to be taken seriously. 

I don't love the idea of using large quantities of this material in my home shop on a regular basis because familiarity breed mistakes, but at this point in my career, the exceptions are what I live for and I know how to be careful.

But, with a little extra care, patience and more than a few added precautions, I am confident I can handle this project without burning my house down in the name of my art. But it never hurts to say these things out loud to make sure that they sound like they are true. Anyway, I digress. 

I don't want to ramble on too long with my keyboard, so I decided to switch on a camera and ramble a bit there instead. I hope it serves the same purpose. See the demonstration video above to learn more about how the work is assembled and some other little process tidbits.

As ever, I appreciate all of you who continue to take an interest in my work. Your comments and questions are always welcome. For those who collect, there are notes at the bottom of the post.

Dimensions of the piece are approximately 3" Diameter by 2" deep.

 

Notes for collectors: As with the other two works in the series, I will be offering this design up as a one time limited edition. The sale of these works will be a pre-order with work to begin a few weeks after the sign up closes.

Pricing is going to be a little bit tricky for this work because it is both a larger work, and one with a few variables in terms of material selection.

The body of this work is machined in 6061 Aluminum and then anodized, you will have a wide choice of colors for the body of the work.

The screw details on the work will only be available in stainless steel (this is my artistic decision)

The inner rods will be available in either stainless steel, or brass (this is my artistic decision)

The outer (I am calling them "fingers" ) will be available in either Stainless steel, Brass, or Titanium Damascus. This selection will effect the price of the work as Titanium Damascus is a considerably more expensive and time consuming material to work.

I do not post pricing on publicly facing media, but I will have all relevant details and pricing sorted out by the time the sign up begins and it will be listed at the sign up link.

The sign up will go live on Monday November 7th at 11 AM EST. I will post the sign up link to my email newsletter, here on the blog, as well as on my instagram page.

Thank you and appreciate your support for my work.

The Sculptural Knife Urn or SKU

Hello everyone

Today I have a piece to share that is four years in the making. I call it "The Sculptural Knife Urn" and it is the third work in my Sharps series of knife-centric craft forms. This is the last piece in this incredibly fruitful triptych of works. I dare say it has completely changed the path of my sculpture practice.

I can't talk about this project without partially re-stating the impetus for embarking on this project. It has been helpful revisiting my thesis with each installment, as it has allowed me to chew on my original assumptions and reframe them in light of new developments. So for those who like my longer posts, this is one of them.

The industrial Arts as Muse: 

I'd hoped this fascinating tangent into knives and craft forms would help me tease out the interconnected nature of various industrial crafts. As I have tried to understand my relationship with my process, I have often turned my attention to other craft traditions such as ceramics, glass, and wood-turning. I've looked for parallels to how each of those practices transitioned from the factory floor to the artists studio–so that I can better do the same with the medium of machine work. 

In each of these crafts, I found a remarkably similar story and I was moved to try and combine influences from all of them into a single series of works.

On reflection, I've come to realize this project isn’t really about knife making–it isn’t about vases, bowls, or urns either–it is about the state of craft as we find it. It is an appreciation of the idea that craft isn’t a rest-home for idiosyncratic or cast off processes, or where practitioners of defunct trades go to retire–it is a natural step in the material progress of our species. 

Craft, whether part of the fine art landscape or somewhere else along the spectrum of utility and decor, is an important part of how we innovate to solve tangible needs. When material processes are brought into being, usually through the sciences or engineering, their uses are narrow and specific. But when the technology around that process is sufficiently advanced (or even obsolete for industrial use), it is artists and craftspeople who help flesh out the myriad alternative ways in which that process can be applied. 

Artists are the ones responsible for transforming material innovations into cultural innovations that more broadly influence a society.

I talk a lot on this blog about how using modern machine tools to make art is a relatively new phenomenon, but I don’t think I have accurately portrayed what I mean by that. Indeed artists have been employing machine tools to produce various kinds of artwork for decades–a century or more even–so I should clarify what I mean when I say that machining–as a vocation–is becoming a new art form.

While the tools I use have been employed in the production of fine art – through various fabrication shops, organizational structures, and outsourced expertise–it is only just now beginning to exist as a studio craft movement in the same vein as other more established craft traditions–one who's practice is directly engaged with the medium rather than just being a means to an end.

What do I mean by that? I mean that the prerequisite for exploring a medium as a studio craft–by my estimation– is that an artist must be able to bring the entire enterprise under their control (one artist, one studio). In the most decadent way, every aspect of a practice must become available for creative appropriation, deconstruction, and exploration. I say this more as an aspiration than a hard rule, but a solo artist practice is one of the few settings that provides the freedom necessary for the uninhibited level of investigation it takes to create artifacts that both influence, and distinctly represent, a medium. 

Personal access to modern forms of metalworking equipment–the kind that makes the most rigorous artistic exploration possible–has been largely out of reach for most practicing artists until very recently. History has plenty of examples to demonstrate how a process blooms once conditions change, allowing artists to truly own the means of production, so let's use fine art glass as an example.

 

Glass work: A very brief and incomplete history.

Decorative glasswork has been around for centuries, but for brevity I am skipping over the Egyptians, and Romans to create a slightly more contemporary example. 

I think one of the better known glass makers from the turn of the 20th century is Tiffany glass. Louis Comfort Tiffany set up the Tiffany Studio in New York and produced a wide array of stained glass and other decorative glass designs. He developed a number of innovations in the science of creating glass and greatly expanded how it might be used for artistic purposes.

However, the structure of this outfit was as a design house and factory. It was run by teams of artisans and designers working to produce decorative and utilitarian pieces. There were plenty of successful attempts at art, but by and large it was a commercial affair that catered to a decorative class of collectors. The work was constrained by the socio economic guardrails of what a “collectable” glass object could be. In order to sustain the factory, the vast majority of its output was stained glass, lighting, vases, and the like.

Contrast this with the birth of the studio glass movement.

In 1962, on the heels of a boom in interest in the studio ceramics movement, Artist Harvey Littleton and research scientist Dominick Labine developed a design for a small and affordable furnace that could melt glass. This small advent removed the need for teams of operators as well as greatly reduced financial and physical infrastructure needs. It singlehandedly created the conditions for solo artists to bring the production of glass art directly into their studios. In the same manner as a painter might paint, artist were able to work freely with glass, away from outside eyes and commercial influence. This meant glass art could be practiced by one artist in one studio.

Glass art's popularity began to grow and this era saw an explosion in the creative output of artists using glass. The guard rails were suddenly gone and a piece of glass art could be literally anything (or nothing at all). Experimentation was rampant and this gave rise to the fine art landscape we see in glass today. Many of the examples of glass sculpture we see in museums were born out of this era.

The story of glass art resonates with me because very similarly, and until very recently, artists looking to leverage machine tools and modern digital fabrication technology for the creation of art would likely have needed to rely on design firms, tech schools, and fabrication studios with teams of specialists who could assist in programing, running, and maintaining the machines that were beyond their experience and financial reach.

Like early glass factories– this limited access to tools has a way of constraining the way digital fabrication technology is used. Limited access can have the effect of relegating the artist to being primarily a designer, which places them in a more perfunctory role in the production of their own work. 

Now don't get me wrong, institutional settings are perfectly appropriate for early education. Maker spaces, apprenticeships, and schools are important resources for developing a practice. Likewise, there will always be legitimate reasons for artists to share resources and hire outside experience for the production of work, be it for conceptual reasons, or practical constraints. But that is no reason not advocate for an ideal. 

Every artist who is invested in directly exploring their craft, should strive for creative independence and plan their exit from institutional reliance as soon as it is appropriate. There is no substitute for owning and running your practice in its entirety. Anything that limits when, where, or how you can pursue an idea can be detrimental to your ability to create. 

History backs me up on this. So seize the means of production and make it a conceptual part of your art. 

 

Machine tool technology over the last two decades has become quite scalable (small). Financial accessibility is still up for some debate on what is achievable for an artist looking to pursue ideas over profit. However difficult, it is currently possible to bring these tools under an artist's roof, and it has been my intention for the last twenty years to do just that. 

I started out exploring modern machine work with an eye toward fine art sculpture, but over the years, pursuing work in the spirit of many of the studio crafts that have come before has also become an important part of how I define my work. So long story short, here I am with a razor sharp decorative urn made of machined knives and decorative hardwoods. A piece that is (somehow) supposed to embody all that I have said. Sheeesh!

I hope some of you will appreciate the nuance I have poured into a project like this, it is certainly what keeps me digging ever deeper into the possibilities of my craft.

Some additional thoughts: I want to close this out by saying that I try to be careful about subscribing to various dogmas. I have enumerated a very particular way of thinking about the evolution of craft. One that simplifies and ignores differences in geography and time (that is, people used tools and materials differently, in different places, at different times throughout history). In doing so I have no doubt implied that there is some greater value or purpose in creating “fine art” as it is understood in western culture. But this is not quite right.

I want to be clear that life is not as neat and tidy as the above summary–or art canon–depicts. Artists, designers and craftsmen will always fall along a spectrum in how they utilize tools, materials, and concepts; no doubt overlapping many different worlds during their lifetime of creating.

However, I feel it is instructive to think about the various stages that material technologies undertake as they move through a particular culture. Creating fine art is just one of a number of equally noble ends (like science) that help us to appreciate the means by which we express ourselves. How processes make their way from discovery, to utility application, to culture producer, to conceptual symbol for a unique moment in time, is a useful framework that can help us all make better work–whatever that work may be.

Technical Notes: In building this piece, I. was able to incorporate many of the techniques and processes I have been honing over the years. Most recent of those being the dyeing and stabilization of hardwoods. 

After my experiment making several turned wooden bowls, where the incorporated woods were structural elements of the piece, I wanted to turn to a much more decorative approach. The green maple burl pieces in this design are not structural, but instead serve only as inlays and bosses. They function as allusions to other decorative elements I have admired in my research.

I am calling this third work an “Urn” but like most of my works, strict classification is neither easy, nor necessary. above is the earliest concept sketch for the whole series. 

As you can see, as the project slowly progressed (less than one work a year) the deviation from my original plan became more and more severe. My original urn design (on the right) is completely unrecognizable from what I ended up creating. This is exactly as one should expect, as each work in the series added new information and challenges that needed to be incorporated.

My original urn design did have an interesting assembly mechanic, but perhaps I will use that somewhere else in the future.

As an urn, this piece is incredibly over engineered. Rather than being machined from one piece, the inner vessel has half a dozen interlocking and threaded segments that stack to create the volume of the piece. This allowed me to add some wonderful details and color to the interior space of the urn, as well as create a support structure that would hold the wooden elements without relying on them for structural support.

This complex arrangement also gave me a small amount of adjustability to ensure the blades could be properly installed.

 

Which brings me to the blades themselves. I have tried to rationalize my use of razor sharp blades in various ways. Now that I am at the end of my journey, I think they need little justification. Their aesthetic contribution to the work is very evident in this piece. That they add a conceptual layer to the work is only a further bonus.

 

Turned knife blades? 

Sometimes you just have to try something because you can. In all my research into knife making, it always seemed like the smooth curved bevels on some blades might be achieved using a facing operation on a lathe. There is no reason to do it this way of course, and I have never seen it done this way. All the more reason to try it. So I designed the blade forms intending to try and turn the bevels on a lathe, which is a very unusual set up for a knife maker. 

This process was pretty rough on the cutting tool inserts and many were chipped long before they should have. 440C stainless is a hard material, which does not lend itself to this kind of cut. But it actually worked! and the finish was pretty good. Who knows, maybe there are other ways to make knives on lathes.

Above is a process video that illustrates this turning operation for the blades (approximately the 13:25 mark). I tried to capture the bulk of the steps that brought this piece of art into being, but life in the shop gets hectic and I did miss a few steps. Some other video clips were lost due to technical issues. But all in all, it is still a great ride.

 

One last thing that I have wrestled with over these three knife projects was the level of finish to apply to the blade forms. I have tried to approach their creation as a machinist would–as opposed to a blacksmith or knife grinder. To that end, I have eschewed the common practice of bringing the final knife forms to a very high mirror polish. There is some economy in doing this, but my primary reason for not doing so is because, over the course of my entire practice, I have found mirror finishes to greatly distract from seeing the form of an object as a whole (I have always preferred satin finishes or finishes with grain).

With a mirror finish one does not see the object, only the reflections around it (photography is also a nightmare). Likewise, even though I am a machinist that uses numerous automated processes, I have come to appreciate small bits of evidence as to how a part was crafted, such as fine turning marks you can only see under close inspection. Even with computerized tooling, each process has its own signature look if you know what you are seeing.

I think to most eyes, the difference will be small, but to me it is important that I can tell how each part is made, not by remembering, but by looking at it.

Anyway, I am glad to bring this tryptic to a close and apply what I have learned to new sculptural adventures going forward. Thanks for sticking with me for the long read. As always, comments and questions are welcome.

 

The S2B

Introducing the "S2B" or Sculptural-SliderBead.

This piece builds on the SB 312 sculpture I released earlier this year. Whereas that work was a static sculpture with purely aesthetic aspirations, this next entry has kinetic elements that drastically change the way the work is experienced.

When handling the original SB-312 sculpture, there was something I just couldn’t shake about the geometry. I kept feeling that I wanted the three legs of the piece to slide up and down so I could reposition them.

It was a case where the implied functionality of the piece was both obvious and powerful, so I resolved that this was the direction for this next work in the series. 

But with functionality comes a different set of challenges which can influence the visual elements of the piece.

In order to achieve a moving mechanic, the composition needed to be elongated and enlarged, Mostly to accommodate the magnetic arrangement that achieved the motion I wanted, but also to improve the grip on the piece.

The magnets create an interesting haptic feel as the individual sliders jump from position to position. Anyone who remembers the MG series can probably see this is a similar functionality, albeit a little inverted with much less reliance on magnetic force to hold the work together.

The S2B has a custom shoulder bolt that retains and constrains the motion of each sliding element.

Mechanics were not the only thing influencing the look of this sculpture. If you remember from my post on SB-312 One thing I hoped to achieve in this series was to explore some popular exotic metals—in a careful and thoughtful manner that played directly to a single chosen material. 

For this series I have introduced a material known as Mokume-gane which is a unique metal laminate intended to mimic wood grain. This material has its origins in 17th century Japan with the making of ornamental samurai swords. 

The process for making Mokume-gane eventually found its way west, into jewelry making and other decorative traditions, and most recently into a much more industrialized (if still decorative) form of machined art.

  

In researching this material, I was reminded of why I am so careful about bringing exotic materials into my practice. While it is easy to just buy a novel material and start cutting to meet a decorative end, I think a lot is missed that way.

Mokume-gane is a complex and varied material with a fascinating history, it feels weird to just pick it up and use it without some kind of formal introduction. For instance, there are a few ways to make the material, something I would like to learn more about.

Jewelers often incorporate a variety of noble and base metals into various formulations as well. Some use more precious metals like gold and silver in their home brewed versions of Mokume-gane, while other versions are more economical, containing mostly copper alloys and nickel silver.

The material I used, which is more suitably sized for machine work, is composed of layers of brass, copper, and nickel silver. Each variation of Mokume-gane behaves differently and can be finished and patinated in a variety of ways. Which again, I still have much to learn.

Admittedly, my use of Mokume-gane here is pretty straight forward and consistent with other machined art that I have seen (we all learn from doing though). The finish on this prototype is a simple etch with ferric chloride to bring out contrast in the metals and matte the finish. 

The sculpture measures 2" long and 1.5" Diameter

I look forward to incorporating this unique material in a more comprehensive way in the future, but for now, this is the first step in my education. 

Above are some of the concerns and considerations of this material. 

 

Some closing thoughts.

As I continue to pursue these small sculptures, it has emerged that my two different modes of working, kinetic and more traditional sculpture, might be slowly converging.

I am less wedded to the idea of incorporating a mechanic for my small work, and more open to the idea in larger one-of-a-kind pieces. Sometimes I begin a design with a mechanic in mind, but it becomes unworkable and I abandon it in favor of a more accomplished static sculpture. The inverse is also becoming true and I have found myself designing larger works with no intention of adding kinetic elements, only to be tempted by opportunities to do just that.

Perhaps, just maybe, I am become less rigid in what I hope to achieve with any given design, favoring a more fluid process. I think one might describe that, as personal growth.

Anyway, hope you enjoy the piece.

Notes for collectors: As has become customary, I will be offering these works up as a one time limited edition.

You will be able to acquire them individually, or as a set. Pricing and all relevant details of the sale will be posted at the time of sign up.  (please note that Mokume-gane is a considerably more expensive material and this will reflect in pricing) 

The sign up will go live on Thursday July 7th at 11 AM EST. I will leave the sign up open for a little longer than usual because I know a lot of you are traveling this time of year. Probably a week to ten days, and then the books will close forever.  

I will post the sign up link to my email newsletter, here on the blog, as well as on my instagram page.

Notes on Mokume-gane: For those thinking of collecting the Mokume-gane version of this work—this metal is used often in jewelry making, but it does not mean that it is an inert material.  Like Brass or copper, Mokume-gane requires care to maintain. It will tarnish of not regularly waxed after handling. Some people enjoy the look of this, others do not.  

Additionally, Any time you mix metals in an environment where they will be in contact with an acid (you, your body) it invites something called galvanic corrosion. Handling this material will change it over time, in ways that are hard to predict. It may be the case that the material will simply change color or the etch may deepen in a way that is pleasing, but I want to be clear that this is experimental art, engaged in with open eyes and realistic expectations. Here is a link to an extreme example of what can happen to a similar material under what I consider to be extreme conditions. 

I cannot speak to the exact material or method used. Obviously you won’t be wearing this piece of art day and night, let alone subjecting it to a total submersion in an acidic medium. The experiment in the article is interesting and educational, but not reflective of any real world scenario that would unfold with this sculpture. Unlike a ring, you won't be washing your hands with it, handling acidic foods (yes also urine is a problem with jewelry), or bathing with it. I would not expect anything of this magnitude to occur with the work under normal use. But I think it is important to inform collectors so we are all on the same page. 

If you intend to lightly use the work, and display it, I expect it will perform perfectly well. There are examples of Mokume-gane craftwork that are hundreds of years old.

So with that said, if any of that sounds scary to you, if any patina or change in the material is unacceptable to you, or you are a serious fidgeter who wants the most durable object you can get, I would simply steer you to the stainless steel version of the work. Stainless steel, without a doubt, will outlast us all.

Thanks again, and as always, comments and questions are welcome.