Sculpture 101, MV 714425525321621

Most of the smaller works I have been making lately have come in the form of small editions, or at the very least pairs, but this newest small work is a bonafide one of a kind.

 Before I began my next big project, I felt like I needed to indulge in something more modest in size. And because I think it is important to invite a little serendipity into your work every once in a while, (even for a process as highly regulated as mine) I thought maybe it was time to make something relatively more spontaneous than usual.

 For some time now, I have been staring at this pile of 3/8"x 1" brass bars I got from my metal supplier. Apparently, whoever cut these decided that it would be perfectly acceptable to cut them using a metal sheer instead of a saw. The result was that the ends of each bar were deformed (or rather mangled) by the sheering process. 

Needless to say, my supplier could not sell them this way, so I got them for a bargain. Not wanting to let them go to waste, I decided now was as good a time as any to figure out what to make with them, so with that in mind, I set about some quick sketching with the rule that these bars should be the centerpiece of my design.

As you can see, the results worked out pretty well. there are a few things I might do differently if I had to make it again (mostly technical, not visual) So it was a good experiment.

A rear shot. The whole thing fits more or less into a 3" Diameter sphere. 

100 Sculptures and counting (DQ 325..)

Todays blog post is a very special one for me, (and not because I am 25 years late in learning how to create gif animations) It is special because after 12 years toiling away in the shop, I get to show off my 100th machined metal sculpture. Everyone likes big round numbers, so today I am inclined to celebrate (if only a little)

I have made other types of sculptures before this 100th piece of course (see the secret archive here), but this body of work has become much more than I had anticipated, fueling over a decades worth of ideas and leading to things I could not have conceived of when I began. Along the way, it has also managed to tap into many contemporary trends in the arts and maker culture alike.

Had I known what I was getting into back in 2003 when I sold my motorcycle to raise the funds to buy my first milling machine, I might not have been so hesitant to trade in my wheels for my art, it was one of the best decisions I have ever made (right next to dropping out of art school and marrying my wife).

With that first piece of machinery, I started drilling and cutting metal for what would be my very first machined sculpture. I fell in love with the process shortly there after and have been building on those early experiments ever since. So todays new work is a bit of a mile stone for me, one that represents the culmination of over 16,000 hours* of shop, time turning metal into equal parts art and swarf.
(I keep pretty detailed records it seems).

*16000 hour estimate is shop time only, it excludes; sketching and rendering, research, machine building projects, maintenance, going to the hardware store, thinking while staring into space, tea drinking, pretending to listen to what your friends are saying at a bar or party while turning geometry over in your head attempting to figure out how on earth you are going to build the thing you just came up with on the ride to said bar or party, and finally... sleep sculpting.

Anyhow, here it is, number 100, and I couldn't have hoped for a better piece to mark the occasion. This design is a direct descendant of a piece I made last year, sculpture DK 522. That earlier work contained within it a disk shaped component that I was rather taken with as a stand alone object. A few other people commented on it as well, expressing that it would have made a nice sculpture all by itself. I took that to mean there was still more there to be explored and set about rethinking that particular component of the piece. 

Naturally that idea has evolved rather dramatically since that time. The first thing I did was to take the original disk shape and bend it inward into more of a cupped form, I kept the original spines that stuck out of it, but most everything else changed from there. As with all of my works, it took on a life of its own once lateral thinking kicked in.

Some shop footage of the disk shape being turned. I wanted this piece to be absolutely perfect, so I actually ended up making these disks twice. The first set came out technically ok, but I had accidentally cut them using an older version of the profile drawing I had created( a clerical error it seems), a problem created by working from multiple drafts. The result was that they were a bit thinner than I wanted the final shape to be, so I decided to remake them using the proper drawing. I am not yet sure what, if anything, I will do with the spare set.

Final Dimensions on this work are 17"x8"x7"

The blue prints for this one turned out wonderful as well, the web really does not do it much justice. Printed to scale, it will be 48" wide by 24" tall so much of the detail is lost. I am really looking forward to getting a full size version of this thing on the wall sometime very soon. 

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In between the Holidays, I managed to find a little time to do some extra tinkering in the shop, Since I was between works, I decided to see if I could whip up something small in the short amount of time that I had available to me. Fresh off of my last piece, I decided to play around with some of the visual concepts from that particular sculpture.

So going for extra credit ( I had not planned on finishing anything else this year), I came up with this design, which for all intents and purposes is the little brother of EP631. A number of people had commented on the high polish detail from that previous piece and so I thought it might be a good exercise to single out that particular element for a small work like this. 

The design was tricky going at first, the sculpture consists of only three individual parts, all quite small, so it took about eight iterations to get it sketched out in way that I could reasonably expect to be able to build it. Looking back on it now it seems fairly simple, but I guess that is the hallmark of good design.

I did not bother with an elaborate blue print this time, just quick sketches (for me anyway) .  So here is the drawing I ended up with before beginning work. 

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Happy Holidays everyone. I am wrapping up the year by sharing this Charismatic pair of works. I wanted to get the images out so I will be brief this time around with the post.

Material wise, the one on the left has a stainless Steal Body and Base, while the one on the Right is in Bronze. 

They each stand a little under 6 inches tall, owing to the Bronze and Stainless used in this piece, they are quite heavy for their size as well. 

Some topside details.

As I often do, these works are designed with removable bases. 

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I have a couple of gems to show off this month everybody. 

It took me a little longer than I had anticipated to finish these because of reasons I will explain further down. But here they are, all shiny and new. 

Dimensions on these are 5.5" long and approximately 2.5" wide/deep.

Materials are a mixture of aluminum, stainless steel, bronze and copper. 

TB611523322235

This new piece is a bit of a departure from some of my more recent works. Standing 12" tall and an 8" diameter at the base, it is my first Rectangular format piece in quite some time, but it also has some other elements that are harder to explain that make it unique.

The foundation for this work grew out of a Tessellated style drill pattern I had worked up for a cube shaped piece. But not wanting to be completely "boxed-in" to a rigid formulaic design, I used it only as a starting point so that things could evolve considerably from there.

As things developed, I started working with the pin system that you see connecting the top and bottom half in the finished work. If interlocking pins were going to be a dominant visual characteristic in the work, I wanted them to also supply some sort of functionality as well. As ever, I was trying to work the form and function thing from both ends and it played out well this time.

Made entirely of aluminum and brass, I opted not to clear coat the brass, I was dealing with a lot of tight sliding fits, and some of the pins would be under load as they would be holding the top half to the base. Both of those situations could lead to scratching and cracking to any finish, so I decided it was better to let the brass age naturally. I would rather embrace that fact than risk any cracked clear coating ruining the work.

some close up details

The recess detail in the top of the work.

Ja 552354454

Its been two months and I am finally back from the shop with a new creation to share.

My second largish piece of the year, it measures 15.5"x 30" x 11" and weighs roughly 65 pounds.

As I often mention in my posts, I try to incorporate both engineering and creative concepts into each of my designs. It is really important to me that my works are in some small way grounded in something more concrete like an engineering challenge. I enjoy the constraints it imparts and it also gives me something tangible to talk about with the work. I find the aesthetic decisions I make for any given work are nearly impossible to articulate in a way that makes sense to other people, so its nice to have a side to the work that is less tricky to share.

 The catalyst for this piece came from the interlocking spoke assemblage you see below.

This assembly was conceived of while working on another project. At the time it did not fit with what I was doing, so I saved that idea, and used it as the technical foundation for designing this work. It took many tries to get this arrangement to both function properly and look interesting to me. But once I had resolved this element, the rest of the piece slowly took shape around it. 

Material wise, I've been really into using bronze lately, it machines well and is somewhat scratch resistant. I love its color and how it eventually turns a nice warm brown with a little age. It also goes really well with the aluminum and so the bulk of this sculpture is constructed out of either aluminum or bronze, with just a few small details made out of Stainless steel. The orange details in this work are anodized aluminum as well. 

Unable to find bronze tubing in the proper size, I was forced to make the large pieces in the legs out of solid bar stock, which contributes a great deal to the weight of this piece. 

The drawing this time around is a bit of an evolution over previous ones, as I have started to abandon the contained rectangular format. when laying this one out, I realized how unnecessary a rigid border was when trying to create something visually interesting, and so I intentionally broke through it in a few places with unexpectedly positive results. 

Now that this drawing has set a precedent, I have a lot of new ideas on where future drawings may be able to take this farther.

There are a lot more angles and images below, as well as process shots. So please enjoy. 

The actual finished blue line print.

DK 522244322

It has been a little while since my last post, spring brought with it a few home projects, trips, and art obligations that all conspired to slow things down in the shop for a little while. But with the distractions now out of the way and production getting back to normal, I am happy to post pictures of my newest work.

Dimensions on this piece are approximately 6.5"x6.5"x6.5"