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OK Last work of the year. I always try to make at least 10 works a year and I barely made it this year. I made some fairly ambitious pieces that required I put in a lot of extra time so here we are just in time.

SL324454291

This is my second crack at doing a small edition of works. The response to the first one was overwhelming so I guess my experiment was a success. I designed this one at the same time as the last one and had initially planned to make them both simultaneously. But logistics got in the way, so  instead, they have arrived one after the other. I am setting my sites on some larger projects for now, so this is the last of the quickies for a while. Perhaps early next year I will explore a couple more small format ideas I have.

New Project in Process

Still working on my new project so I thought I would post some images of my progress.

This piece consist of 8 spheres joined by 8 disk shaped turnbuckle style bolts to make a cube. I know that is not the best description, but I will try and take better documentation when I am a little further along.  Above are two images one is a shot of one of the spheres being fly cut to create a face for what will be the mating face of the bolts. The rotary table is tilted to just the perfect angle that I can actually cut 3 faces at perfect right angles to each other simply by rotating the sphere 120 degrees rather than squaring each face to the table and measuring them out. Took a little trig to get it set right, but it was a hug time saver. The second image is the parts pile at this time. More to come.

Sr622224431773524

This is a bit of a new one for me. This is my first small edition of works. I decided to apply my ability to do batches of parts on the CNC machines to one of my smaller scale concepts. The result is that rather than one of these, I made five. originally it was an opportunity for me to make an idea I like, and at the same time, produce some lower cost work for people who want to collect, but may find some of my "one of a kinds" a bit out of reach by spreading the cost of production across five objects (yes artist have to be practical sometimes as well). But after seeing the effect of having a small army of these little guys lined up on my desk, It is giving me something else to think about as far as visual effect. Anyway, they stand just under 4" tall on the stand, But as with a lot of my small work, I want people to hold them and handle them so it comes right off as you can see in the pictures. Look for a second small edition in a week or so as I decided to make two different ideas before I went on to some larger projects.

LT732262633332524

The title of this new work is LT732262633332524, It is based off of a design I had sketched out for a commission that never panned out a long time ago. Regardless, I kept the kernel of that idea and let it incubate for a bit until it finally emerged a few years later as a mature concept. It is my largest  (52" tall) and most likely heaviest work to date. I designed it to remove from the base post relatively easily so I could still move it about in two pieces.

Sketch for current project underway

Greetings, this blog will be a space for me to post all sorts of news relating to my work. I will include interesting process images, finished work write ups and information about upcoming shows where you can find my work on display.

Now I must admit, I am probably not the most articulate and polished writer you will ever meet. So excuse my poor grammar and general lack of spelling and polish.  I do hope to make up for it in interesting content and I promise to improve over time. Above is a sketch for my current project. I am six weeks into this one and expect to have it completed the first part of October so check back in a few weeks. Enjoy!

Energy Fields Exhibition

Since I am just starting this Blog I thought I should include the exhibition brochure for this show. It has been up for a few months but it does not end until November 4th. Do stop by if you are in the area as it is not only a good show, but a neat building in the middle of College Park, MD Just outside of DC. The Brochure.

RN753

This one was based on an earlier study I did (NG623) where I was machining away the outside circumference of a circular hole pattern to create an interesting detail. In this case it is a internal and external hole pattern.  And the two halves that sandwich the orange center ring use a large diameter but very fine threaded flange to thread into the ring. It was a first for me to use that kind arrangement but It was a problematic shape to assemble and was a great problem to have to solve.

Pa682

I borrowed an element from my last completed piece (Am522) and reworked it into this design. When I fabricated the end parts for my last sculpture, I made an extra to experiment with later. Partly because I thought there were more ways to accentuate that shape and partly because I wanted to challenge myself to work around an existing part. Well It’s a little more complicated than that, but that is the short version.

Am522

This piece is another in what is quickly becoming a green category of works. I am still playing with the technique of anodizing multifaceted shapes and then machining off sections of the anodizing to reveal fresh aluminum to accentuate the geometry.  It has far fewer individual parts than some of my other works, but each part required many more operations to cut and are a good deal more complex than some of my other works.

NG623

This work is a small study I made in advance of another idea I am working on. I rarely do studies but once in a while I like to test a visual element.  I did make sure to try my best to make its own complete thought all by itself rather than just a smaller version of what I intended to make out of it so it still stands quite comfortably on its own.

NT793

This piece is an extension of the idea I started with Gl723. But rather than manipulating the values within a program I simply wrote a fixed program and then altered the mounting and rotational axis of the part itself to achieve different cut geometry using the same machine motion. It was a clever trick to get an elegant shape using only one program.

Gl 723

This piece represents a new way of thinking about shapes through the use of anodizing. I have started playing with forms that allow me to anodize and dye the metal a particular color, then cut the anodizing away to reveal bare aluminum and accentuate different parts of the geometry. This piece shares some of the programming frame work from the sculpture that came before it. Essentially I borrowed the program code from the copper parts on DN881. Then I manipulated some of the values within the frame work to achieve a different form without altering the framework of the program. This concept is an idea I have been playing with for a while that has yielded some great ideas for future works.

DN881...

This piece was a major undertaking. It Stands just a bit less than four feet tall and took a well over 200 hours of work to complete. It was designed to mark the end of the 10th year I have been working as a professional sculptor. It has over 360 individual parts and involved some of the most complicated hand programming and circular geometry I have done to date. It was an exhaustive effort to complete and I photo documented the whole process which can be viewed elsewhere on my web page under the process tab.