I think Adrian comes from the same school of thought as Tyler (on some subjects at least). Since he insisted that making my stainless sheet into a bowl made it a "thing" and thus nullified any possibility for serendipity, I decided it was best to destroy it and see if more beauty was yet to be discovered.
Since it was already bowl-shaped by the time of my Adrian-influenced revelation, it was pretty much destined to retain some bowl-like characteristics. I think this works very well for the piece because it saves the stainless bit from being too 2D. I guess I could have made it into an acanthus leaf, but i don't have time for that shit. So, a circular dishing pattern (call it a bowl if you wish) is a good way to turn a sheet 3D in my opinion.
Oh yeah, the brief is called "connections". I guess I'll have to connect something to this sheet. No problem, I think I'll wind some mild bar through it and back around and through it again.
A change we can believe in!
The day before I made this thing, we worked on some sectional changes for a joinery piece on our technical day. We started with square bar, then went octagon gradually, followed by a sharp change to round bar. So with that exercise fresh in my brain, I decided to incorporate some sectional changes in my windy-bar. This is something Al Paley seems to do a lot, so maybe that was in my subconscious as well. I'm sure I stole the idea from somewhere, who knows.
Square, octagon, round is a bit boring for this piece. I like the octagon and round parts, but I think I can do a bit better than square for the rest. Being that my favorite part of the stainless bowl was the texture around the edge, I chose to make my first section of the bar compliment that in some way. I didn't think the hammer peen texture would come out as nice on the mild stock, so I decided to fuller it instead. Maybe I should have kept the randomness of the peen texture, I have yet to decide. At any rate, I think the two textured parts create their own connection, separate from the physical one.
So, how do I get this bar through three holes cold without fucking up my nice polished finish on the stainless by using the torch?
My thought (confirmed by Derrick) was that all three holes should be exactly 100 mm apart so the cold bar could be wound through if it was also curved into a circle with a diameter of 100 mm on two axis'. Simples...
So, I marked off my holed and cut them with the plasma. All good so far. Upon Derrick's suggestion, I drifted the holes slightly in the direction the bar would wind through to make it look like the bar was growing through the piece. A subtle detain, but I like the way it looks. This also opened the holes up a little to leave some room for error on the arc of the bar; not that I would need any of course.
Using a rawhide mallet, I took great care to not mark the material when I bent it into two circles exactly 100 mm in diameter. Then I opened them up so that they were exactly 100 mm apart. The bowl should just wind right around, I thought confidently as I brushed my flawless octagon section. Ha...
Getting that stupid bar to wind through all three holes at the same time felt like trying to solve a Rubik's cube drunk. Several bending forks later, she sits as you see her here. I lost my beautiful lines by wrenching away at it with the forks, but it still looks good. Good thing I normalized the bar first!
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