It isn’t exactly mud and metal but let me explain: A collaboration with ceramicist Eric Moss

Today I wanted to share something that you might not know about me. I have been a metal sculptor for over two decades, but strangely enough, a very large proportion of the artists I follow happen to be people who primarily work in ceramics and clay (one of them, is Eric Moss). I can’t say why exactly, but while I live my creative life among metal, I am disproportionately drawn to pottery and ceramic sculpture. 

Maybe it's because I found I am allergic to dusty environments that my path took me into metal instead of clay. Either way, despite my vocation of choice, I have developed a great appreciation for the muddy arts. Given that knowledge, one might assume that a mud and metal collaboration with another artist was inevitable, and you would be right...sort of 

So while I would like to announce a collaboration between myself and fellow ceramic artist Eric Moss, the funny twist is that my contribution to this project will not actually be made of metal, it will be wood? Who would have thought? 

I should really let Eric speak for himself as he is the one doing the heavy lifting for this project. Below are his thoughts on the project. 

From Eric:

“I first encountered Chris’ extraordinary art in 2018 in the Instagram posts of one of his collectors, who also happened to be following my channel. He remarked on our similarity of appreciation in forms (and even then dreamed of a collaboration). The core of my practice then was raku firing ceramics, a low-tech, fast and brutal process with the end result left very much to the whim of the kiln gods rather than the artist – in my early years much of my output was lost to thermal shock breakages in the final moments after firing. Raku, I thought, might be too far removed from Chris’ precise, controlled and tight-tolerance work to consider a combined artwork?

Early in 2020, as Chris was preparing for release of his ‘worry stone’ meld of metal and wood, and in mutual appreciation of each other’s work, we agreed an artswap. Chris sent me a prototype worry stone in exchange for one of my two-part, wheel-thrown raku-fired ‘squid’. By 2020 I had already branched out into slipcasting my ‘waveform’ sculptures in porcelain tile form, driven by the need economically to make identical pieces for tessellating wall arrays. So, when Chris posted an image of a small collection of ‘overrun’ machined exotic wood ‘jewels’ from his project, and I mused how they might look presented in a ceramic mount, Chris sent a dozen over to me in the UK to “have a play”!

The initial impression of Chris’ worry stone was chrysalis-like with the grooved wood jewel appearing like the segmented underside of a beetle. So, I decided my ceramic mount might echo a beetle’s upper side ‘elytra’ (or wing cases). But, still occupied in ‘oloid’ and ‘waveform’ production, I first tried the jewels in both modified oloids and waveforms, each given a new recess to accommodate the jewel. These Prototypes #1, #2 and #3 had the feel of seeds with the jewel forming the germ part and Instagram posts of them were sparking interest and requests to acquire. Prototype #3 ‘waveforms’ in Parian have the added appeal of translucency as well as tactility.

My early experiments prompted Chris to offer to promote a possible collaborative edition, although he was still keen to see a prototype #4 of the ‘elytra’ that I’d first suggested. I set out to try to make these and to make the means to batch produce all four prototype themes should each/any garner enough interest for production? The modified oloids (Prototypes #1 & #2), with my primitive making methods, entailed so many hours of finessing that I elected to make them only for special commission. I am still investigating the technicalities of making the elytra in ceramic (developing a ‘slip injection process’ using plaster casts and kitchenalia) but present instead a divergence into pewter casting of the carved cuttlefish variant ‘elytra’ which I think works beautifully. I rediscovered cuttlefish casting in 2019 and was keen to incorporate it into my practice both in metal and ceramic. Lead-free Pewter is a pleasantly heavy (and easily cast) metal and it well defines the expressed laminae of carved cuttlefish in a sensuous, tactile form.“

E.M.

As you can read, Eric went in quite a few directions with this project, and really used it as an opportunity to explore and grow into a range of processes. I have enjoyed exchanging messages with him over the last couple months as developments unfolded.

The more I have learned about Eric's work, the more I see myself in it. His aesthetic instincts are quite complementary to my own, so it is fascinating to see my small wooden gems serve as a powerful catalyst for his work. To have something I designed and machined juxtaposed with such a diametrically different medium is an invaluable way to reflect on my own process and contrast the two.

My craft is inherently precise, and Erics is much more squishy, but they have more in common than one might think. Ceramic work actually fits perfectly into one of the themes I talk about quite often here on this blog.

Ceramics is one of the oldest industrial processes, And while it has taken many forms throughout history in many cultures, its transition to a distinct contemporary fine art studio medium exhibits similarities with others crafts that share a utilitarian and decorative tradition.

Like wood turning, glass making, and various kinds of metal work, it is a process whose primary function has (very slowly in this case) shifted from the utilitarian to artistic as technology has changed. While I am wholly unclear on the timeline, one might point to the transition away from manual ceramics production to industrial slip casting as the point where the modern studio ceramics movement was really able to take shape. 

Again and again, when we see industry turn away from skilled labor and toward technology, those cast off skills often find a new niche within the fine arts. As a sculptor working with technology, that story has always captivated me and it is a great point of intersection between what I do, and what Eric does. 

I think this project embodies all of that perfectly. 

So the next question might be "Can I own one?"

Of course. As you might have guessed, we are going to offer up this project as an edition. I will be making a range of hardwood inserts for Eric, and he will be lovingly crafting a home for each of them.

If you are a collector of my work, or Erics, and are interested in adding one of these wonderful artifacts to your collection, simply click the link below and everything you need to know should be there.  

Sign up form Link

Thank you.

I hope you enjoy this project as much as I do, and as always, comments and questions are always welcome. 

The SPG

 

Today I have another entry in my kinetic-art sculpture genre. This one combines the work I have been doing highlighting some of the traditional hardwoods that knife-makers use, with a decidedly more interactive object of my own.

There is a bit of a convergence going on in my work, with various threads beginning to overlap. And while my process has always been an incremental evolution, for a time I felt like I was pursuing different ends with my small kinetic works verses my larger stand alone sculpture. Elements from these small projects have begun creeping into everything I design, so there seems less and less point in differentiating between the various projects.

I am pretty sure this is a good thing, as the purpose for these small projects was always to widen the dialogue in my work and generate new ideas for sculpture. As long as I am moving forward and finding new creative ideas that fascinate me, life is good.

So with that said, let me introduce the “SPG”

Above we have works (going counter clockwise) with Amboyna Burl on Teal, Black Ash on Black, and Snakewood on Red. 

This work is an obvious next step from my Woody Worry-Stone project as it incorporates similar jewel like wooden inserts, but moves it firmly into the realm of kinetic art. There are more than a few knife making influences in this work, but the main inspiration comes from both my work on the MG series, and what are known as haptic coins. 

Both the MG series and haptic coins rely entirely on magnetic forces within the mechanism to hold the works together. This piece requires a much more robust construction and that technical requirement constrained the design in some interesting ways. I talk about this and a good bit more in the above video. 

This work has helped me think a bit more on this divide between my interactive and non interactive sculpture work. 

There is an interesting analogy that can be drawn between classical sculpture, which is traditionally to be viewed passively, and the contemporary art world which is often an interactive and participatory scene. 

That I have been bouncing between work that could be placed in each camp, passive and interactive, speaks to my desire to explore modern machine work in a holistic way. To frame machining as a fine art medium means doing so within a range of contexts. 

What started as an earnest traditional approach to fine art sculpture has branched out into an exploration of how we define craft, design, and even commercial manufacturing. I don’t know if that makes sense to anyone but me, but it is a theme that is leading me down some fascinating roads and I am doing my very best to describe my humble journey.

So as always, thoughts and comments welcome. 

Note for collectors: 

I’d love the chance to make a variety of combinations of this thing, so it goes without saying that an edition will be in the offering. Let's set a date for a sign up sale. Say Tuesday September 15th at 11AM.

I will be offering a wide range of color choices for the aluminum anodizing, as well as a selection of hardwoods. The hardwoods will be limited by what I can source. Some woods are hard to get reliably and so supplies will be first come first serve. Signing up early is your best bet to get the pick you want. 

That said, the signup itself will be open for 3 days or so to give plenty of time to be thoughtful with your sign up and selection of colors and woods. 

The price for the work will be posted on the sign up as well. I know this bugs people but I try to keep commerce off publicly facing media.

The BWD edition complete

For something that started out as a cathartic and fun exercise, this project turned out to be surprisingly formative for me. While the finished works look fantastic, these wood-based sculptures continue to expanded the range of materials I employ while fundamentally reshaping the way I approach process and the idea of "fine-art".

Don't take this the wrong way, but sometimes after the completion of a sculpture, there is a brief moment that feels almost anticlimactic. It can take weeks and months of effort just to tease an idea out of my mind and put it to paper. once I have a workable idea, there are hundreds of additional hours of physical work to fabricate and bring it to fruition. While it is a largely enjoyable journey, it can be jarring once all that work is over and I am faced with a final result. I am often left with a vague uneasy feeling because realistically, how could any object, no matter how accomplished, ever live up to that level of effort? 

This phenomenon usually subsides quickly and I can see my work (more or less) for what it really is, but strangely (refreshingly) I did not experience any apprehension about what I had achieved at the end of this project. I think there are a number of reasons for this.

One reason was simply not knowing what the result would be. Completing each of these bread-loaf sized gems was a small revelation even for me.

Due in large part to the unknowns of wood grain and color interactions, I just could not accurately predict the final outcome of each work. I found myself constantly making last minute changes, swapping in different woods, and disposing of ones that did not make the cut. I changed my mind so often that each sculpture's final appearance was a pleasant and welcome surprise.

Working with wood has also been an exercise in embracing randomness. The uncertainty inherent to woodworking; not knowing if a given piece of material will crack, have a flaw, or behave in other strange ways has made the success of any given part feel less consequential, which in turns makes the work as a whole feel more fluid.

This change in process has taught me to better temper my expectations and give myself the time to reconcile the ideal I have in my mind, with the reality of what I've actually done. This, combined with decades of experience in my craft, has given me the discipline, patience, and the emotional tools to navigate projects with minimal trauma and maximum joy.

That is just one small (if emotional) facet of how this work unfolded, if you want more context on some of the conceptual underpinnings of this piece, My last post fleshed out more of this project, so please revisit that one if you need further context.

A Brief Process Note: As I continued to post videos of my modified offset turning processes for fabricating these larger works, I was amused to see comments that alternately accused me of being brilliant, brave, or "mentally deficient". 

I suppose if my approach elicits such a wide range of opinions, I must be pushing a boundary of some form or another. 

While a little unconventional, my processes choices did prove successful in the end. Perhaps that is all that really matters. 

Thanks for reading.

As always, comments and questions are welcome. 

Meteorite and special Woody Sculptures

I have never been very good at saving the best for last, so it is fortuitous that these special Worry-Stones were an unplanned extension of my project, as they are indeed “the best” and also, the very last of them. 

I have two different variations on my Woody project to share today (not to be confused with the larger works I am currently producing). Also, for those of you interested, there is also a chance here to maybe add one of these to your collection.

So let's start things off with the work that is by far the most unique of the bunch, the Meteorite Worry-Stone. The insert for this work is made out of a real piece of the Aletai-Armanty meteorite, which is an iron-nickel meteorite that, when etched, exhibits a fascinating crystalline structure that can be found nowhere else on earth.  

The original edition of Woody Worry-Stones were initially meant as a nod to some of the natural material combinations that knife makers most commonly utilize in their craft. I wanted to utilize those material trends for the purpose of sculpture. It was a fun concept that led to a very interesting edition of works and I learned a lot about a range of different hardwoods. But as it turns out, knife makers use such a wide spectrum of materials that by concentrating only on wood elements, I am barely even scratching the surface. 

So to round out the project and further emphasize my thesis, I decided a non-wood material that represents a more extreme example of the materials knife makers utilize was in order.

One of the requirements I set out at the beginning of this project was that the inserts be made of only natural materials, among the more exotic examples that fit that requirement were fossilized mammoth tusk and saber tooth, also slightly more common is Ancient Bog Oak (which is semi petrified wood). But the material that really stuck out was meteorites, and for more than just the sheer novelty of it.

Metal Meteorite is very distinct because it has what is called Widmanstatten pattern . For those unfamiliar, it is a pattern that is formed when alloys within the meteorite cool very slowly over millions of years. This incredibly slow cooling allows crystals of various elements within the meteorite to form over an extended period of time and grow very (very) large. Only rocks of extraterrestrial origin have this pattern and it is not possible to create them artificially. These crystal patterns can be revealed using an etching process, and are quite striking. While this pattern's existence has only been known for two centuries, there are other reasons that meteorites have been a prized material (among knife makers especially) for millennia.

Before humans had the technology to smelt iron ore into usable alloys, they were already making steel objects by finding the stuff lying around on the surface of the earth as rocks. Those rocks were almost certainly meteorites, as it was the only source of refined iron on the planet. Skilled bronze age artisans were some of the first to find ways to craft knives and many other objects with this strange and very strong material. Iron meteorite artifacts can be found as far back as the 14th century BC, most famously, a dagger found in the tomb of King Tutankhamun.

So yes, as a sculptural experiment that pivots around traditional knife making materials, this work certainly fits the bill. But step back a little further, and I think this work also embodies the bigger story I have been trying to tell about material progress and the ways that technologies always seem to trickle down into the arts. 

I have spent my entire career making art that demonstrates how industrial processes (ones that are not traditionally thought of as art mediums) can be a primary source of inspiration for the making of fine sculpture. How if we look back far enough, many of the tools and technologies we readily accept as artistic mediums actually got their start on the factory floor rather than in the art studio. And that it is only when we are able to scale these technologies for individual use that they become more accessible to artist.

That smelting iron is such a large and unwieldy process, it would almost guarantee that it's early use would not be put to artistic ends. That skilled craftsmen were finding the stuff lying around as meteorites and shaping it into ceremonial art objects long before they could even produce the material themselves is a fascinating chapter in the history of mans material progress. Finding a way to bring that story into my own work was a welcome adventure. 

Ok, with the meteorite out of the way, I also wanted to show off these very special Woody Worry-stones, which incorporate the use of a lot of different hardwoods not offered in the initial run.

The list of used materials includes Bacote, Box Elder Burl (dyed purple), Bubinga, Red Malle, Bloodwood, Rosewood, and of course, a couple of very choice pieces of Desert Iron Wood.

These were made in response to the wonderful outpouring of support I received following the release of the original Woody edition. There was an unprecedented gifting of exotic hardwoods that I just had not expected. It was exciting to get random, unsolicited packages containing blocks of material in the mail. Some came from complete strangers who just wanted to share their enthusiasm (and wood) for the project. Because of this, I just had to make a few extra pieces to show off some of my favorite hand picked pieces from my experiments with those special pieces of gifted wood.

Thank you all again for following along, and the many kind and constructive conversations along the way. 

As always, comments and questions are welcome.

The "BWD" machined metal and wood sculpture

Hello Everyone. Last time I communicated, the world was full of worry and strife. So much so that while I generally try to keep the swirl of headline news out of my feed and practice, the gravity and sheer weirdness of the situation found its way in. The Woody Worry-Stone edition was born as a positive and cathartic response to that weirdness.

Not surprisingly this trend of unsettling news has continued or even accelerated. And while it is tempting (or quite justified) to be distracted, deterred, or demoralized by current events, I am committed to making my art, sharing what I find fascinating and beautiful about my craft, and keeping this a positive and focused place to inspire others. I hope most can appreciate and respect that division of creative head-space, as it is the only way I know of to find peace and joy through my art, while also engaging in the emotional hard work that must be done in other facets of my life. 

To that end, I bring something interesting from the studio.

I am still very much in the middle of this project, but I am so happy with how it is going that I thought I would throw up a quick blog post to share my progress. This is the next chapter in the Worry-stone project. It is, well, a bit larger and colorful and I couldn’t help but share. 

The current plan is to make eight or nine of these larger format sculptures. Each one will be unique with a carefully chosen color pallet and species of wood. 

The wood chosen for this initial prototype is currently my favorite in terms of workability and range of color and figure. It is a piece of Desert Ironwood set in a blue shell with deep copper orange detail. 

While I already have some history of turning my smaller editions into larger stand-alone sculpture pieces, the decision to scale this one in particular was driven more by the circumstances of building the edition rather than tradition or habit.

For starters, when I began posting about my experiments with various types of wood, the response was so supportive and encouraging that people began spontaneously mailing and donating random pieces of exotic hardwood to my work. Completely unsolicited, the wood just started to pile up!

When it was all said and done, I ended up with a diverse selection of knife block sized pieces of various exotic hardwoods, all of it begging to become art. 

During the build itself, one of the steps to making each worry-stone, was to take theses beautiful blocks of various exotic hardwoods, and cut them down into smaller pieces so that I could make the inserts that would be the gem of each sculpture. 

To be honest, it always felt a shame to be cutting these large beautiful blocks down into smaller pieces; their figure and details were just so much more complex and striking in a larger format that I felt I wasn't doing some fo them justice to cut them up. I just had to make a bigger one to use more of each block. 

So, with a collection of exotic knife blocks in hand and a desire to preserve their texture and figure, I resolved to make a larger more sculptural work that better showcased the wood and opened the door to some incredibly fascinating engineering challenges. So I scaled my design to comfortably use a standard knife block, and then reworked it until it until I was sure that it became something truly unique.

I feel that enlarging an existing work is sometimes viewed purely as a novelty, as a way to make something new without adding any new ideas to it. I was hoping to avoid this pitfall of mindless scaling, and once I got started redrawing my original design, I quickly realized that as far as my process was going to be concerned, I was definitely in uncharted territory. 

Enlarging this particular sculpture was not going to be an exercise in making the same shapes the same way, only bigger. The geometry of this larger piece presented challenges that dramatically changed the approach and processes I would need to use to fabricate it. 

I had to re-engineer nearly every element of the build, so while the shape is quite similar, the road to that shape is very different indeed. 

Process notes: 

"Balance" became the theme for this entire project. Both physically, textural, and color wise, this is a piece that required care to balance elements in ways not present with the original Woody.

Because of the larger size of this work, the sheer weight of the material I used became much more of a constraint. What were originally pretty straight forward offset turning operations for the Woody (ones where the mass of the machine was more than sufficient to dampen any vibration caused by the imbalance of the part) ballooned into complex setups where weights and counterbalance were crucial to successfully turn the work at speed and achieve a good surface finish. 

Simply boring the saddle shape where the wood inserts seat was a vast departure from the Woody. Creating a precise and accurate semi circular profile on such a large and long piece of stock required a rather unique set up. 

My milling machine does not have the clearance to make such a deep hole in such a long piece of stock, So what might have been a simple drilling and boring operation on a mill, turned into a complex adventure of positioning the work piece on my lathe for a series of turning operations.

 Balancing the whole thing using a counterweight system became my best strategy for putting an accurate profile exactly where I wanted it on the work piece. 

The bronze colored pieces in the photo above are weights added to the assembly so the machine would not shake (or fall over!) while I bored the hole at the appropriate offset. The balance of the setup needed to remain within a narrow margin during the entire process, so I had to calculate their mass to split the difference between the starting weight and finish weight of the material I intended to machine. 

Because weight was such a critical consideration, I selected aluminum, which is much lighter than steel, as my material. This material selection also opened the door to using anodizing and color in a way that most other metals do not. 

I ran with the idea, how the high saturation color anodized aluminum might play off natural materials. Whereas the original Woody project was about highlighting the natural beauty of various hardwoods by setting it against a neutral stainless form, this larger version would be a more nuanced exercise in color theory. 

Selecting the pallet for each of the works, and matching them against a properly selected piece of wood is going to be devilishly challenging. I am looking forward to it.

So the stage is set, lets see what happens. 

Please keep following along if you use Instagram, it is going to be a fun and colorful ride. If not, I will check back in via newsletter when the works are all done. 

As always, thoughts and comments are welcome.

Making the "Woody"

Just thought I would add this Process video to the blog. 

I share process images and snips of video regularly, but I rarely get to string the whole sequence together in such a complete way. Time to do so is always at a premium. On occasion, people have said I shouldn't share such things as it ruins the "magic" of the art.

Luckily, I don't believe in magic (as it is popularly conceived anyway) and feel that we do a disservice when we attribute human achievement to mysticism or mythical genius. The real beauty in everyday objects (as well as art) is the confluence of ingenuity and technology (be it high or low tech) that made them possible. 

As a person who has spent their life immersed in the arts as well as the technical fields, I can say that building a process that consistently yields an interesting, finely crafted object is an achievement on par with any inspired piece of art. It can be deceptively difficult, but if done it correctly, will look easy in the end. Please enjoy.  

The "Woody" Worry-Stone

Introducing my "Woody" Worry-Stones.

As work on The DoT edition winds down, I had been gearing up to start some larger projects. But a lot has changed in the world over the last few weeks (an understatement for sure) and all of a sudden, long term plans seem fraught, so instead I have changed gears and decided to tackle something much simpler and fun.

With all the worry going around, I felt a new pocket art (worry-stone) project would have a more immediate, positive, and diverting (for me anyway) effect. So I whipped up something with a twist that connects it to the current arc in my work by incorporating natural materials.

I really feel there is just something iconic about the way knife makers blend the use of metal and wood. There is a visual balance to their work that really speaks to the language that all tools seem to possess. I wanted to embody that in my own way, through the use of natural materials, composition, and proportion, if not necessarily through pointy-ness or function. 

The aesthetics of this piece will likely feel familiar to those who have been following along for the last few years, and while this work looks nothing at all like a knife, it is in fact, another small tribute to the craft of knife making.

These worry-stones look and feel great in the hand and the nature of wood means that each one will truly be a one of a kind piece. 

The materials for these early prototypes are as follows. The first four (bottom row) are all ironwood and really shows off the variety of grain and colors one can get with such a material. I especially like the two-tone one on the far right with a bit of sapwood showing. The remaining three (top row from left to right) are Redwood Burl, a striking piece of Boxelder (green dyed), and finally Black Palm.

Much like various metal alloys, each of these different materials has its own properties and challenges. I am very much enjoying the opportunity to experiment and learn more about each of these exotic hardwoods as I go.

A few people have also offered to mail me different species to further expand this experiment.

Of the different varieties, ironwood is the most fun to turn on my machines hands down, it is very hard (for wood) and it has a dense grain that does not easily tear-out when performing an offset turning operation.

The Black Palm on the other hand is very fibrous and splintery, it is much more prone to tear-out and even splitting. It took me a few tries to get that one right.

Likewise, the redwood Burl is almost chalky or powder like. It behaves more like a mineral in turning and is prone to chipping rather than tear-out. I have had poor luck mitigating this so far, but have some other things I’d like to try.

Regardless, the redwood and Black palm inserts have needed considerably more handwork to clean them up, but there is no denying how great they look. 

While the news everywhere is currently full of troubling stories and predictions of doom, the early response to this work has been extremely positive.

So in my own small way, I am thrilled to be able to put forward a project that is resonating with so many of you. There is just no better time to be making art. If anything, just to create a sense of normalcy and put something positive out into the world.

However I would be lying if I said I didn’t feel a little uncomfortable trying to overtly sell art in this moment of global crisis. 

Because of this, I have been dithering on how to proceed with this work, I almost didn't post it at all.

 There are people out there doing incredible things to help each other and I must admit to moments where my work feels a little trivial in comparison. Also, blatant commerce in the face of human suffering just feels discordant. I know everyone has to make a living, but I am also human, so if I am being honest, I was hesitant about whether to put up a pre-order for this new experiment.

But after giving it a lot of thought, I realize opportunities to do good are everywhere and this work is no exception. Everyone must use the tools available to them to make a difference, these are mine.

With dire predictions about the impending economic fallout from this pandemic, I want to do my part to help support the arts here in Baltimore. I know there will be quite a lot of need very soon, and I want to ensure that the artists of my place and time can weather the storm that is coming. 

So, I will be posting a pre-order for this work later this week. And with this release, I will be setting aside a portion of each sale and donating it to help the arts here in Baltimore. What shape that support takes has yet to be determined, I think the landscape is still shifting as galleries, museums, and non profits cancel events for the foreseeable future. There will likely be a number of nonprofits who will have urgent need very shortly, and there will likely also be more direct ways I can lend assistance as well.

Strategically it makes sense to wait to see where these dollars can be most effectively applied. But I am committed to do my bit. A full accounting of all my donations will be released once I get that part sorted out. 

For now, lets get a date on the calendar for the pre-order sign up, say
April 2nd at 12:30 PM EST.

The sign up period will be an entire week, as this is intended to help raise charity funds. I will post the link to the sign up form here on this blog, on my Instagram account, and in a newsletter that will go out when the sign up period begins.

Material choices will be laid out broadly as each work will be unique due to the character and availability of the wood itself. I want to give you all some personal choice between a narrow range of works, so when you sign up, you will be able to specify your preferences, and then I will contact you individually as work progresses to allow you a final say in what specific work you claim as your own. 

I hope this all makes sense, and of course, pricing and more details will be available on the sign up form when it posts.
(I do not post pricing on publicly facing media)

This is going to be an enjoyable project, and I am glad I can bend it to do something publicly beneficial as well.

As always, thoughts and comments are welcome.

Sharps #2

Welcome to the second installment in what I am calling the “Sharps” series. Like the name implies, this work (titled Sharps #2) has seven razor sharp sculptural blade forms around its circumference. It also incorporates a number of elements directly inspired by the knife making community. 

In an earlier post, I detailed the origins of my exploration into the fringes of knife making, how I am curious what might be learned from a craft with a rich history of blending old and new technology, so I will refer there for more background. 

( Link here)

On the left is Sharps #2, On the right is the Sculptural Knife Vase (now called Sharps #1)

It is hard to talk about this piece apart from the Sculptural Knife Vase that came before it. This sculpture is intended as a sort of contrast to the vase as it shares many of the same elements, yet eschews it's utility in favor of being an object free of context clues or function. 

The thesis for the vase piece was as a conceptual bridge between my vocation as a machinist and some of the other industrial craft traditions I look to for inspiration. This second, more sculptural piece, represents one potential destination that metaphorical bridge was meant to reach.

Aesthetically, “Sharps #2” departs from the Vase in a number of significant ways. For starters, rather than being free standing, this work was intended to hang vertically from either a ceiling or some other surface above the viewer. This gives it a very different feel and helps distinguish it from the compact nature of a vessel or some other utilitarian object. That it hangs from above also helps to pull it back, if only a little, from being immediately interpreted as a weapon or some other kind of striking object. While I don’t mind the comparison (as it is apt) I wanted to present this work as a traditional art object in a way that one might recognize. I try to avoid using the “art on a stick” motif as much as I can, but I recognize that it is a sculptural format that people will unknowingly accept, so it has been strategically employed here. 

Another point of difference is the wood elements that are the jewels of this sculpture. The wooden forms, intermittently placed between the cold sharp steel blades, are soft and warm and contrast beautifully. They really make this piece a step forward rather than just an iteration on its predecessor.

 Using natural materials has always hung in the back of my mind, and in the context of knife making, it is a very logical step to take. It is something which I feel I can easily carry forward and find new creative ground.

Even with all of the differences I pointed out above, I think it is clear that the two works (the vase and this sculpture) are reasonably similar objects overall. That they share the exact same blade design and arrangement should make it clear that they came from the same drafting table. So then one may ask, why make one a functional object that may be taken for an instance of craft, and the other a non-functional piece that may be taken for an instance of fine art. And why wrap the whole thing in an experiment on knife making?

For starters, why not? 

But also, because while I am generally accepting of varying interpretations of the things that I make, the question of “is my work fine art or craft?” is one that arises with a fair amount of regularity. And while I try to remain as open minded as possible, I feel that this distinction between craft and art keeps many makers on the fence when it comes to experimenting with more freeform types of creating.

Most conversations I have had about “what is art” tend to center on artistic intent and the context in which the work is placed. These are things that can be very difficult to know and are often outside of an artist’s control anyway. You don't always get to choose your audience (or where the work is seen) and can hardly control what the viewer knows about you or your intent. So that these are some of the main criteria for “what is art” is highly problematic, and it makes the whole “craft versus fine art” conversation a strangely stubborn one to put to rest. 

This is a simplification of course, but as a theme, I think there is room to be intellectually playful with the idea that there should be any distinction at all between craft, fine art, and other types of design. To put it another way, these distinctions may be useful to collectors, curators, and art lovers (the audience), but they just aren't that useful to people who actually make stuff.

Strangely this dynamic also plays out in the world of knife making, where utilitarian knife design (think useful knives) stand alongside what are called “fantasy” or “art” knives (think less useful knives). From what I understand, there is lively discussion about the merits and value of each of these as well. 

Trying to place various types of art, craft, and design in neat little boxes is a phenomenon that I see in many disciplines as people seek to distinguish their work or collections from one another. As an artist, it can be both a fascinating and harmful lens with which to view one's own work. Addressing it directly through this project is a way to understand, and maybe push back a little, on a quirk of the creative arts. 

Calling out some of the art worlds academic biases and demystifying the process of making sculpture is the best way I see to encourage craftspeople and makers of all stripes to jump in and try and make weird and beautiful sculptures of their own. 

But that is just one layer in this project, and I can't wait to dig deeper. So stay tuned. 

Process notes:

The blades for this piece were made at the same time as the blades for the Sculptural Knife Vase. The tip profile is slightly different, but there is not a whole lot new to report process wise. If you read the post about the Sculptural Knife Vase, you know the trials and tribulations I faced. If you didn't, here is that link again (seriously its a good read I promise) 

That said, there was some grumbling after I posted the vase piece that I did not include the obligatory proof that the knives were indeed sharp, so please see the video above. The edges on both the vase and this sculpture are plenty sharp, enough to shave with. I shot a video of me doing so (shaving some arm hair!!!), but it is just not a pleasant thing to see, so I went with a paper slicing demo instead.

The blades are a bit thick compared to standard knife blades, so they don't quite sail straight through the paper. This is simply because the paper needs to bend to get around the 3/16” thickness of the cheek on each blade. The T slot at the Spine is a full ¼” so the cut curves to the side, toward the path of less resistance purely because the back end of the knife is so wedge shaped. That is neat physics in itself, but this should give an idea of how absolutely sharp this sculpture really is.

The wood elements: knife making has a long tradition of incorporating natural materials of all kinds, bone, horns, and wood to name just a few. I had always avoided bringing wood into my work (for too many reasons to list), however this was the next logical element to bring into an exploration of knife making. Now that I have, I find myself wondering why I waited so long. 

While these may first seem like they are inlays, the wood forms actually stand proud of the body of the sculpture. This is a small distinction I know, but I wanted them to have mass and presence like any other element in my work, and the wood grain makes each one unique in a way that metal parts never could 

(I know, Damascus! I am being dramatic).

For the wood itself, I selected Amboyna burl, it is a wonderfully figured wood and it is quite hard. Amboyna has excellent dimensional stability, which is important to a machinist who is accustomed to keeping tolerances. Most woods have a tendency to change size (and shape) depending on the temperature and humidity, something that would drive a person like me crazy, but I actually found it rather pleasing to work with and cut. 

Like most burl wood (or wood in general), Amboyna burls can contain small voids or gaps in the grain that can interrupt an otherwise smooth surface. I suspect a younger me would have hated this, but embracing natural materials also means inviting the wabi-sabi they embody into your work. Some knife makers will go to great pains to repair or fill small voids in the wood they choose for knife handles, I felt no need to do so, and have quite intentionally decided to leave them for this piece.

 

Turning wood instead of metal was something I hadn't researched very well, and that had its own special considerations. For starters, I had no clue what an appropriate feed rate and spindle speed for turning hardwood might be, especially from a cnc machining stand point. 

I reasoned that wood turners generally do their work by hand and just feel their way through it, so I presumed it would be much more forgiving than metal. So I guessed at a faster than usual spindle speed, and went with a slower than usual feed rate, and it all worked just fine. This time anyway. 

I still have quite a lot to learn about working with natural materials, but learning by doing is where all of my best ideas come from. It is anyones guess where this will take me next, but I am glad I get the chance to share this work and the rest of my journey with all of you.

As always, comments and questions are welcome.