New Work, New Show..
Introducing my newest sculptural experiment. This piece, along with a number of my other more recent works, will be on display at the Ranter Museum this December in the D.C. Area. Details below.
The Dennis and Phillip Ratner Museum
Show Dates: November 29th-December 30
Reception is Sunday December 2nd from 1:30- 3:30
Gallery Location: 10001 Old Georgetown Road
Bethesda, MD 20814
301 897-1518
This work sort of follows what I learned from my last black and orange experiment. I had been thinking of using a number of different color combinations before starting work, but felt like none of them would be as effective as what I ended up with here.
This composition has sort of been floating around in my head for quite some time, but it was always a bit of a ghost in that I could never really see it well enough in my mind to put it down on paper. Then one evening when I was just doodling in bed (possibly with a glass of bourbon) half awake and not thinking quite so hard, it kind of finally just fell out onto the page. Only one drawing was made by hand and I pretty much nailed the whole thing down in one shot looking back on the sketch. Funny how that works some times.
This is what a bedtime doodle looks like, Its not much, but its enough to work with in the morning. (see the final CAD drawing below)
The geometry for this work was very challenging however. All of the elements are comprised of offset cylindrical shapes with multiple center axis's as well as lots of unusual angles and details. So the machine work and work holding in general, were exceptionally complicated and required some on the fly innovation. I learned a lot from constructing this piece for sure.
I think I counted two dozen operations to machine the larger leg elements alone. One of them involved fabricating this custom arbor to hold the blank at the proper center distance so I could turn the profile along its entire length. There is a video on my FaceBook Page Here
The other thing that made producing this particular work so time consuming was how elaborate the anodizing details have become. Nearly every part has been anodized and re-machined to create the two tone details in the work, which was also challenging and quite labor intensive.
The completed drawing. I am hoping to finish one more small work before the year is out in addition to starting a new commission that I am very excited about. I will keep the details to myself until I have something to show for it. But it is a an interesting tangent for my work, so stay tuned.