At work again.

Finally I got the rest of the installations complete and can start back on developing the piece that I have been working on. I ground the inner surface of the circles and added some weight to the base to stabilize the piece. When I felt that it was done, I signed it. I began laying out on the floor some ideas for my next piece. I have a concept of flowers on stems. The flowers will have to be very three dimensional and bold. I will need some heavier rod to use as a stem, I think rebar will give the necessary texture to that.

New Toys.

I spent Wednesday afternoon picking-up my new air compressor from the freight company. U-haul to the rescue. Got it in the garage, ready to be installed. It should take a while to get it operating since it needs to be bolted to the floor and a new electrical service run to it.

Surface Treatment.

Went back to work on my newest piece. My choices were painted all black and ground finish. I needed to prepare the surface for painting anyway, so I ground the faces first. I tried to add paint on the inside of the holes. That was not good. I reground the surface with a finer grit of sandpaper after the initial rough wheel. That will work well. I need to grind the inner faces of the holes.

Back to work.

I went into the shop to start work on a new piece. The first thing I did was sweep the floor. That made it feel cleaner and got rid of the wood chips that I made when I installed the fan. On Sunday, Lexi took some photos of the shop and me working. I continued with the pieces that I was trying to place when I was being photographed. After a few 'spot weld and then evaluate' tries. I welded the two pieces together. I ground the weld smooth and began to clean-up the ragged edges. I had to order some rougher grinder pads to remove the rust from the face. I will decide on the surface finish after I clean the face of the plate, maybe high sheen and maybe black.

Getting ready.

On Saturday, I put all the equipment back into the shop, after taking advantage of the great weather in October to weld and finish outside. I also installed an exhaust fan in the shop. It will take the place of the fan that I was using to circulate the air in the shop. With the fan, I had to keep the door open and that let lots of cold air in. I still have not decided on what to do about the heating problem. I do have a large electric heater, that works well when the temp. is not too low; but, the electric cost is high. I did augment that with a kerosene bullet heater, that died after all these years. I have a smaller propane heater; but that is a lot smaller than the kerosene one. I am waiting till I really need more before I buy anything. Maybe another propane one will do.

The JCC was a successful event.

I sold three of my pieces at the Art Festival. One was the piece that I had designed and built specifically for the Festival. I was really excited at all the positive response and comments that the piece got as people walked by my booth. It was an exciting day. Now I will start some new pieces.

Finishing the work

Yesterday, I heated the shop and began the finishing touches to my sculptures. I had in mind to submit a few with just the oxidized (rusty) surface untouched. I really like the look of that red/brown surface. I think that they go the best outdoors, as they blend into and mimic the colors of nature. Two of the rusted ones I have reworked slightly. They incorporate diamond plate surfaces. I will grind the tops of the diamonds to give a sparkle to the pattern and leave the rest of the plate natural. I have , at times, painted the plate and then grind the diamond tops. This time I am going to leave the rusty background and just clear coat the whole piece after the grinding. The piece that I call 'one', I am going to take to its original image. The 'one' is painted black and the 'halo' is ground and left with the 'rough ground' finish, then clear coated. The same idea for 'pegasus' , ground area and the rest left rusty. No coating on that one. This gives the ground area a 'matte' sheen instaed of a shiny one. The 'menorah', the 'trunk and branches' are being clear coated only and the base is painted royal blue. I put the same textural elements running from the trunk, around the base and then down the base in the front. The paint will cover these, with the idea of making it look like the textural element is running under the coating and then up the trunk and branches. I am going to put the final touches on them right now.

Art festival work

I have been working on the sculptures to enter into the Jewish Art Festival to be held at the J.C.C. here in SLC.
Seven of them are works that I will only have to do clean up and refurbish.
The new piece is a Menorah that I am creating specifically for this show. When I got the original show notice, I had just retired from my 'day job' and was not sure if I was ready to taking on some much creativity after such a hiatus. The big enticement was that I wanted to create a new piece specifically with a Jewish theme. Hence the Menorah. I relied on the experiences that I had creating 'trees', many years ago. A few examples are here at the house. The biggest one is the 'christmas tree' that I made for my parents home. It has been decorated in many way during the years. Its initial design was for inside, 'with just tinsel' draped over the branches and changing color spot lights to illuminate it. Next, it was place outside here in S.L.C., Christmas lights were stung on it. It now has a new place on a permanent base in my yard.
Well, back to the new Menorah. I knew what the necessary elements were for the design, nine arms that hold candles, the center one, called a 'Shamus', is taller and is lit every night, while the others are lit one more each night until they are all lit on the eighth days of Hannukah.
The initial idea was to make something that would appear to have been created naturally. A 'tree' was the start, I sketched many ideas and came up with a general layout. I had some pipe that would make a good trunk and I bought two lengths of black pipe, one 3/4" and the other 1/2". Cut them into varying lengths and began to weld them together to match the sketch, as a start point. From there I allowed my creativity to take over, as I arranged and place the many pieces. Some were bent and others were cut, placed and rewelded. It took a few days to get them to begin to fill out my conception. The heights of the arms were then trimmed and the candle holders were then welded on. I left it that way for a few days as I evaluated the overall feel and visual complexities of the piece. To me, it was really too stark and lifeless. It needed more of an organic appearance. I had experimented with making the top of the trunk lead more fluidly into the branches. The open area of the reshaped pipe needed to be concealed more. I used the welder to add an organic feeling texture to that area. It had fulfilled my needs and also was the inspiration to adding the same types of organic 'veins' to the rest of the piece. It took a few days of adding this detail, evaluating the look and adding more, to get it done. I used a grinder and a rotary wire brush to complete the surface prep and remove all the weld remnants. Now to decide the finish.