Pocket sculpture update.

I thought it was about time I get an official blog post up about this project, as this piece has been out in the world for many weeks, and is one of the most popular things I have ever done.

Originally conceived of as a piece of pocket art, this little triptych was designed at the suggestion of two friends of mine. There were three versions. Two of them were solid one-piece works in bronze and stainless steel. These two were intended to serve as more traditional worry-stone type works, pieces that you could hold and contemplate, but were static. 

The third design was a kinetic piece (one of my first actually). It was made out of Stainless steel with a simple bronze insert that moved. This design was by far the more popular of the bunch, and has been so well received, that I am at quite a loss for how to properly react. 

Although I never properly named this project (there just wasn't time), it has taken on quite a few nicknames in just a few short weeks.

The "Slider" is the most common nickname, based upon its simple and intentionally trivial function. The little bronze piston literally slides in and out, creating a satisfying clicking sound created by a spring and ball bearing running in what I am now informed by the knife maker community is called a "detent"

Intended as a small edition, I had only anticipated making a dozen or so of these to begin with, but I have had to re-adjust that plan quite a number of times, as so many people are interested in this, I have had to revise the edition size again and again and again.

Under normal circumstances, I am quite satisfied with the idea that all of my works are "one of a kind". Once the design or idea is out in the world, I usually feel that is enough, and one is enough. 

But I must admit the idea for this work was, and is, a little different.

 In addition to making a small piece of art that was just a joy to hold and contemplate, my secondary intention for this work was to see if maybe I could use it to reach out to the maker community, as well as the various machinist communities I have come to know and respect, but maybe do not feel entirely a part of.

As a person who comes at machine work purely from a fine art perspective, I wanted to attempt to bridge the gap a little between the idea of making craft objects such as knives, rings, tops, tactical gear etc, and the idea of making art objects for their own sake. 

One of my goals with all of my work is to try and move the needle for a few of the makers and metal crafts people I have come to admire. People who are doing some amazing things with aesthetics in their given vocations, and maybe just raise the idea that there is fine-art in what they are doing with machine tools within their trade, and maybe encourage others to turn their talents to the arts, and to sculpture. 

Not because what they are doing is not already amazing, but just because...."art". (make sense?). I also just want to raise awareness with the general public that there is something really interesting going on in the manufacturing community as a whole.

I think in this instance, the best way to achieve that goal, may not be with one singular large work that people see or visit, but can never own because it is too expensive or someone else has already claimed it. 

I think it better in this instance to have many little works, a swarm of little ambassadors such as this....also,  I just can't bare to disappoint so many people who want one, so the pressure to make more is very real.

I am sure that all may sound a little pretentious or self serving, but I assure you I am sincere, so do with that what you must. 

So, for those of you who have not had the opportunity to secure one of these little guys, but who remain interested in doing so, I can only say that I am trying to figure out how to balance the demand for this object with my other obligations. 

I would like to see this project continue to grow, as I think it is an ideal piece to bridge the worlds of sculpture, the maker community, other machinist craft communities, and beyond. It seems to resonate across a wide range of people, so I am committed to seeing what I can do to get more of them into circulation.

 I also intend to release a new design of this nature very soon. So if you are not on my mailing list, please sign up, as more news will be coming.

 Now with that all said, preparing for upcoming exhibitions and making new work must still come first ,so I have had to suspend ordering temporarily. But know that I am working to squeeze in time to make more, they are actually quite fun to make, so I do not mind provided I have the time.

For now, I am content that there are so many of these little works circling the globe, acting as representatives for my work as well as the idea that machining as a vocation, when turned to the arts, can produce something that resonates around the world.

I will send out updates if and when ordering re-opens, so please be patient with me. Your interest has not gone un-noticed and I do not take it for granted, It is simply that I am a one man shop trying to do a lot with a little.

Again, I am humbled and surprised by how many have shown interest in this project.

As always, comments, thoughts and questions are always welcome.

Pocket sculpture update.

I thought it was about time I get an official blog post up about this project, as this piece has been out in the world for many weeks, and is one of the most popular things I have ever done.

Originally conceived of as a piece of pocket art, this little triptych was designed at the suggestion of two friends of mine. There were three versions. Two of them were solid one-piece works in bronze and stainless steel. These two were intended to serve as more traditional worry-stone type works, pieces that you could hold and contemplate, but were static. 

The third design was a kinetic piece (one of my first actually). It was made out of Stainless steel with a simple bronze insert that moved. This design was by far the more popular of the bunch, and has been so well received, that I am at quite a loss for how to properly react. 

Although I never properly named this project (there just wasn't time), it has taken on quite a few nicknames in just a few short weeks.

The "Slider" is the most common nickname, based upon its simple and intentionally trivial function. The little bronze piston literally slides in and out, creating a satisfying clicking sound created by a spring and ball bearing running in what I am now informed by the knife maker community is called a "detent"

Intended as a small edition, I had only anticipated making a dozen or so of these to begin with, but I have had to re-adjust that plan quite a number of times, as so many people are interested in this, I have had to revise the edition size again and again and again.

Under normal circumstances, I am quite satisfied with the idea that all of my works are "one of a kind". Once the design or idea is out in the world, I usually feel that is enough, and one is enough. 

But I must admit the idea for this work was, and is, a little different.

 In addition to making a small piece of art that was just a joy to hold and contemplate, my secondary intention for this work was to see if maybe I could use it to reach out to the maker community, as well as the various machinist communities I have come to know and respect, but maybe do not feel entirely a part of.

As a person who comes at machine work purely from a fine art perspective, I wanted to attempt to bridge the gap a little between the idea of making craft objects such as knives, rings, tops, tactical gear etc, and the idea of making art objects for their own sake. 

One of my goals with all of my work is to try and move the needle for a few of the makers and metal crafts people I have come to admire. People who are doing some amazing things with aesthetics in their given vocations, and maybe just raise the idea that there is fine-art in what they are doing with machine tools within their trade, and maybe encourage others to turn their talents to the arts, and to sculpture. 

Not because what they are doing is not already amazing, but just because...."art". (make sense?)

I think in this instance, the best way to achieve that goal, may not be with one singular large work that people see or visit, but can never own because it is too expensive or someone else has already claimed it. 

I think it better in this instance to have many little works, a swarm of little ambassadors such as this....also,  I just can't bare to disappoint so many people who want one, so the pressure to make more is very real.

I am sure that all may sound a little pretentious or self serving, but I assure you I am sincere, so do with that what you must. 

So, for those of you who have not had the opportunity to secure one of these little guys, but who remain interested in doing so, I can only say that I am trying to figure out how to balance the demand for this object with my other obligations. 

I would like to see this project continue to grow, as I think it is an ideal piece to bridge the worlds of sculpture, the maker community, other machinist craft communities, and beyond. It seems to resonate across a wide range of people, so I am committed to seeing what I can do to get more of them into circulation.

 I also intend to release a new design of this nature very soon. So if you are not on my mailing list, please sign up, as more news will be coming.

 Now with that all said, preparing for upcoming exhibitions and making new work must still come first ,so I have had to suspend ordering temporarily. But know that I am working to squeeze in time to make more, they are actually quite fun to make, so I do not mind provided I have the time.

For now, I am content that there are so many of these little works circling the globe, acting as representatives for my work as well as the idea that machining as a vocation, when turned to the arts, can produce something that resonates around the world.

I will send out updates if and when ordering re-opens, so please be patient with me. Your interest has not gone un-noticed and I do not take it for granted, It is simply that I am a one man shop trying to do a lot with a little.

Again, I am humbled and surprised by how many have shown interest in this project.

As always, comments, thoughts and questions are always welcome.

BB TG QR Triptych

 Hello again everyone. Today I have three colorful additions to my portfolio I'd like to share with all of you.

A bit of a long write up this time, I am allowing myself the luxury of a ramble as this is my space, but feel free to just look at the pictures if that is what you came for. 

 

This tryptic has its origins in two distinct interests of mine.

On the technical side, I had been working for a while to design geometric elements that work in a modular way to create multiple compositions. After many attempts, I hit on something that seemed to have promise.

Aesthetically, I have been looking for influences from various machinist craft traditions. I have been researching an array of online groups and forums to see how others approach my medium to see if I could build on some of the common visual languages present in our shared work.

 Engineering a single element that could be assembled in multiple ways has been something I have been chasing for several years. Although these compositions seem relatively straight forward, finding a geometric form that worked structurally without out negatively impacting the visual composition took a lot of careful planning. 

Coming up with a clamping system that would translate across the three works as well was also a challenge.

As I said, the main compositional element for this work is geometrically the same in all three works with the exception of the applied color pallet and the angle of the T slot that is cut through each of them. This slot is shifted for each work to accommodate the varying angles of intersection for the elements from sculpture to sculpture.

Aesthetically, I decided to try something just a little different.

I have been thinking a lot lately about how various vocations and craft traditions find their way into the arts. Being self-trained as a machinist, I have often looked for other sculptors who work like I do. Admittedly I have not found very many contemporaries.

From an arts perspective, machining has been a bit of a holdout in terms of sculptors and artist putting machine tools to use in formalistic explorations like happened with the advent of other historical technologies such as ceramics, photography, glasswork and so forth. Some of this is likely due to equipment cost and the skills gap in getting started, but this probably is not the whole story.

It is evident that it is not very economical to put together a machine shop full of production equipment simply to make “one of a kind” pieces of experimental art, but making work that may not be commercially viable has not stopped artist before. Machine work is over 100 years old, so then where are the other machinist sculptors? Where are the David Smith's of machine work?

I have found a few examples here and there, but In my quest for sculptural peers, I have mostly stumbled upon a multitude of machinist communities that each occupy their own little niche outside of the arts. They are groups who share my appreciation for the beauty in engineering and machining objects, but don’t necessarily express it in terms of the pursuit of sculpture.

I have found groups of artisan knife makers (see here), non precious metal ring makers (here), gun modification enthusiasts, Spinning top enthusiasts (see here), makers of tactical gear, key chains, bottle openers, and too many others to list. They each work on an array of utilitarian objects that function as their canvas and they diligently mix machine craft with aesthetics in a very considered way. These makers occupy a space between industrial commodities and what resembles more traditional fine art crafts.

It is far more nuanced than I can do it justice, and the origins of many of the craftsmen I have found may be far more interesting than my own story, but it has been my observation that those who practice creative machine work themselves, tend to gravitate toward objects with known and viable markets or represent an augmentation of other long running traditions such as blade making.

I could go on about any one of them all day, but the important part is that they are inspiring to me as an artist, and I wonder what, if anything is stopping some of them from pursuing sculpture as I have come to know it. Am I missing something fundamental about my relationship with my craft? Is utility inextricably tied up into doing this kind of work? I must admit I am not sure, but these are some of the themes I visit as I continue to dig into the aesthetics of what it means to be a machinist.

So while I am not particularly interested in joining or becoming a practitioner in any one of these wonderful communities, that does not mean there is not room for dialogue. I have a great appreciation for the work they do, and as a whole they represent a creative community with a visual language that I share. In some ways, it is the closest thing to a peer group that I have found, because while I still have much in common with more traditional sculptors, it can be difficult to talk nuts and bolts when what you do is so technically daunting to those who are unfamiliar.

I also think that machining as a more recognizable fine art form is on the horizon. The Maker Movement has increased the visibility of digital fabrication technologies, and to me, these machinist groups look a lot like fine wood turning communities or ceramics communities. It is my hope that more of these machinists will turn toward making purely aesthetic sculptures and machined works in metal.

Since I personally don't draw much of a distinction between what is craft and what is art to begin with, I thought it interesting to try and start a visual dialogue with some of these other makers. I want to see if I can synthesize visual elements from other machinist who have turned there talents to making stylized, if not expressly artistic, objects of their own. 

So, to say it in a short way, I have been captivated by some of these makers and have struck up correspondence with many of them to trade stories and talk shop. I have found that they are expressing a similar instinct to employ machine tools for an aesthetic purpose with sensitivity to what the tools do best, and are working to create a visual language around that within their area of expertise.

From those conversations and just looking at a range of work, I have attempted to design something that spoke to some of the line work, color and design queues I have been picking up from some of my fellow Makers. This triptych is the first installment in that visual conversation.

Build Notes: The green anodizing is a new addition to my shop, I found some of my fellow craftsmen go to much greater lengths than I do to apply patinas and other colorings to there work. Color seems to be an end in itself with some of them.

Each of the three work is just about 12 inches tall with a little variability between them. the base is 5" Diameter with varying widths from work to work. 

At first glance some might think this is black and red, but it is actually a deep, nearly black blue. 

Thought I would include this image to illustrate the tedious iterative process that lead me to my final design. I counted and I have at least 35 different drawings of various versions of this work. This is a collection of some of them. 

Lastly, some postcards from the build. I scrapped 3 parts along the way as well as made one extra as a spare to ensure I could successfully put together all three pieces with flawless parts. Anyway, it was quite a journey. 

As always, questions and comments are welcome.

Upcoming exhibition at National Academy of Sciences

Exhibition Announcement

Aesthetic Automation

The Hand behind the Machine

Curator’s Statement

Baltimore-based artist Chris Bathgate is a self-trained machinist. He utilizes handmade tools and automated CNC (computer numerical control) milling and drilling machines to create precisely-crafted elements that assemble into complex sculptures.

Machining is his method of artistic expression. He has spent more than fifteen years adapting metalworking machinery from salvaged and repurposed equipment. Bathgate’s aesthetic considerations stem from the very machines that he uses to create his sculptures. Each piece that he makes is informed by the one it is preceded by, and he modifies his machinery accordingly—not for improved practical function but for the aesthetic developments that can be produced.

Bathgate is unique in his formalist approach to precision machining as an art form. His entire body of work is an ongoing investigation into this concept. Process lies at the heart of his practice and it serves as the primary catalyst for his ideas. He evaluates his sculptures for form and visual composition in a continuous cycle of ideation, problem solving, fabrication, analysis, and revision, similar to systems engineering. Bathgate’s carefully composed technical diagrams are evidence of his gestaltist outlook in which the whole may be deconstructed into its elements.

Playing with the tension between aesthetic vs. utility, form vs. function, and industrial vs. handmade, Bathgate’s interdisciplinary work lies at the intersection of art, craft, and design. It serves as an example of how computer-mediated fabrication may bridge the divide between art, craft, and industrial production in the Digital Age.

This exhibition is curated by Ron Labaco and organized by Cultural Programs of the National Academy of Sciences.

SK 433322231

It has only been a few short weeks since my last blog post, but things have been clicking rather well lately, so here I am once again with sculpture SK433322231

This work is my 115th piece since I began making these machined metal sculptures thirteen or so years ago.

This design was a bit of an outlier in my sketchbook, one I have been pecking at off and on for several months.

I have been juggling a number of long term design projects and this one was sitting on a back page as sort of a pallet cleanser I would go to when I did not want to think about my more problematic designs, perhaps thats why it feels like such a departure from my more recent work.

I am happy I found the time to bring this one off the page though, as it was unexpectedly, a complete joy to make. 

Working with the progression of stacked disks provided some instant gratification each day as the individual components were completely different from day to day, but could be programed and cut within a reasonably short length of time. I felt like I was always accomplishing something while machining this sculpture.  

 It was also nice to go back to a more subdued color palette, one where I could let the aluminum and brass shine a bit more. 

 Things have been pretty colorful lately and sometimes I prefer to work from the palette that the metals themselves provide. I did embellish with the anodized rings and tail, as well as the matte black powder on the ridges of the disks, but all and all pretty restrained. 

Dimensions are 5.5" from nose to tail and 7.5" across from the largest points on the disks.

Blueprint Drawing dimensions are 26"x22"

Exploded Diagram is 13"x17"

Lots of fascinating process stuff here as well.

As always, thoughts and comments are welcome.