Factory Film Sculpture Prototype

  While taking the Certificate for Photography Program at the University of Washington this term, I was in the darkroom as much as possible.  I would do my own film developing at home for my 4x5 negatives then take them to the Art Building darkroom to do contact prints and enlarging on photographic paper.

I decided for the last critique of the class I would do some architectural /art drawings based on the factory paintings and sculptures I did earlier this year. I scanned the Sumi/watercolor/ink drawings and inverted them in Photoshop then inkjet printed them.  Lights and camera were set up and the inkjets were pinned to a wall, the negatives were developed and dried then cutout with a sharp hobby knife.  This prototype was taped together with a couple of different Scotch tapes.  Not sure what the next batch is going to be, but I think I will shoot the next negatives in a n 8x10 format. Fun!

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Sculpture becomes Spacecraft

  I have given myself a goal of making 12 new sculptures by the end of the year.  Most are less than 100 square inches varying in height from a couple of inches to around ten inches.  Most are made of steel plate, used steel tools and formed pieces like angles and channels that are joined by MIG welding.  Added to some sculptures will be wood or pieces of acrylic.  The wood and acrylic may be adhered to the steel with screws or rivets or epoxy. A couple like the one below as no steel, just wood and acrylic resin.

This piece is a composite of 2 x 4 scraps - one kept silver from weathering - with added scraps of poured acrylic resin, dowels, and bamboo.  I really didn't have an idea of what it was going to be, I was just creating from scrap and constantly testing component forming on a band saw and disc sander and drilling dowels for the legs then checking composition of elements on top and adding bamboo antennae or feelers.

A friend of mine, Kim Krech had seen some of these at a party and was curious about them.  I told her I had made up a story about one of them, the piece pictured below.   She asked if I could come by Bellevue Community College and talk about this and other sculptures and architectural models in the context of concepts to her design students who are trying their hand at early idea models. I agreed I would.  More posts on the progress of the dozen sculptures will come in the following months.  Double click on the image below for a larger view.

Welding Comes to Taylor Art House

I mentioned to a neighbor that I wanted to buy a welder.  He said that he was very busy at work and would let me use his MIG suitcase welder to see how I liked it.  He gave me several examples of how the welder worked and let me at it.  One of my first projects was to make this group of steel "mechanical fingers" out of scrap to help hold pieces together with concentrated weight where clamps are not practical.  

Shots show experiments with spot welding, welding lines and multiple weld passes. Some of the welds have been ground recently.

New steel works will be in the 5 x7 and 9 x12 sizes similar to the ceramic works and mixed media of those scales.

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