The Biscuit Factory - Someday I'll have this

Last Sunday I stopped in The Biscuit Factory in New Castle. Didn't know it at the time, but it is the largest commercial art gallery in all of Europe. This place is great. Two stories of art for sale. Each floor had to be 6000 sq feet. Also had a fine dining restaurant and bar on the first floor and a cafe on the second. There were work spaces for resident artists and even a frame shop. Every corner of this place down to the faucets in the bathrooms was designed with style. The best part of the place was that it wasn't snobby or elitist. Everyone seemed welcome there, and they had art ranging from $20 - $20,000.

In our third year, we have to write a business plan. I think I'll start by adding a blacksmith shop to this.

The Biscuit Factory

Tools Never Die. Waddaya Mean, Never? : Krulwich Wonders… : NPR

Tools Never Die. Waddaya Mean, Never? : Krulwich Wonders… : NPR

There are no tools that have been invented that are now rendered totally obsolete. None. Someone, somewhere is still making them.

Japanese wood joint complete

I am very excited that this one turned out exactly how I planned it. It looks much better now that it has the paint over the particle board. All three main components have their own individual finish, and are easily distinguishable.

The wood filler left some residue around the screw holes that looks a little off. Not too happy about that.

Walrus tusks! Yeah!



Sick of that wooden block hanging at the wrong height?

Tired of wondering whether you picked the right level to hang that block of wood? Are you tossing and turning all night worrying about wooden block height?

Well, now you don't have to!

Hi! I'm Bob Thomas, inventor of the adjustable height wooden block connection system or AHWBCS for short. I used to be crippled by fear wondering what height was best to hang my brown wooden block. That fear coupled with a requirement to explore connections as part of my brief for exploration of materials inspired me to create the AHWBCS you see before you.

Features:

-Two movable hinge connections
-One static collar connection
-One movable collar connection
-One balance-based connection
-One wedge-based connection
-Two connections featuring different materials
-The inevitable connection that someone feels with the piece as they try to figure out its purpose.

I came up with the initial idea of this connection out of a desire to create a connection that was adjustable. It grew from there and became some what of a monster as I added to it more and more, thus making it a "thing" I suppose. 

I actually hated this thing until I decided to add the hanging block part earlier today in a last minute effort to make it look "complete" enough for my taste. I thought it looked like a bear trap without anything hanging off it. 

Adding the hanging block turned this piece around more me. It is balanced now; both aesthetically, and in that it actually hangs straight! 

The block also gave me an opportunity to incorporate three more connections. The first one is a balance connection that requires gravity to hold it in place. A fullered spike balances on hook at the end of a lever. 

The second connection involves two wedges. One is meant to look like a key that holds the block in place. These wedges were a little tricky to forge because they have to remain half round the whole way down to a taper because the hole in the wood is round. 

The third connection is that of the metal connecting to the wood itself. I was very excited about this connection and went through a few different ideas before settling on two opposing wedges. My excitement lied in the temperature variable. I knew I could get the connection to look several different ways just by inserting the metal hot or cold. I put the wedges in hot and then quenched the whole thing after they had burned out a goof bit of wood. This of course shrunk the metal, so I then pushed them in a little further cold to get them snug. I am happy with the result. 

Yes , I could have broken this down into a bunch of different connection samples that were in no way related and it would have been exactly what the brief called for. However, I doubt that I would have thought of half of them without the element of necessity to drive my creativity. They all work together and they all rely on each other. It's all one connection. 

To destroy something beautiful

I wanted to destroy something beautiful. I'd never have before. Burn the Amazon rain forest. Pump chlorofluorocarbons straight up to gobble the ozone. Ahh yes, Tyler Durden always has a way of saying it best.

And why not? This bowl was a thing of beauty. I thought so, and so did a lot of my peers. Unless they were just placating me with compliments...liars.

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!

George Nakashima Woodworker

Thanks to Josh for introducing me to the work of George Nakashima. Since I have been looking at a lot of Japanese woodwork for inspiration, it is great to be able to look at some work of a true master.

I love his style just as much as I appreciate his craftsmanship, maybe more. I actually envy this man's whole lifestyle. He has his studio situated in a complex of sixteen immaculately designed buildings all of which seem to serve his artistic process in some way. I notice that his little world has been deemed cool enough to justify guided tours. I know where I'll be stopping next time I am in Bucks County!

On collections and fascinations.

“Collections and Fascinations” was the description of our brief for next semester that Ambrose gave to us yesterday in our studio.  This is just the type of vague, arty bullshit that makes me think I don’t belong in art school. I hope we can narrow it down a bit at some point.

Collections? I don’t collect anything. Isn’t it just a waste of money to accumulate objects that depreciate in value just for the sake of “having” them? I’ll collect stamps in my passport, thank you very much.  And to do that, it is very counterproductive to weigh myself down with all sorts of useless goods that do nothing but serve my ego.

Fascinations? Wow, that’s a broad one.  How does this tie into the course again? A whole lot of things fascinate me right now with varying levels of interest.  

Oh, fuck it, I’ll try.

I have been really interested in circles and spheres lately; especially their interaction with hard edged shapes like squares and rectangles. Hmmm, what objects feature those characteristics?

(By the way, I know this isn’t how I am supposed to pick what fascinates me, but I have a sneaking feeling that I know the direction the brief is going, so let’s just cut to the chase)

Vintage Cameras!  That works just fine. I like those. Very few cameras are free of circular and square forms, not matter what their age. But vintage ones are cooler because they’re….well…vintage. Anything vintage is cooler, right? Just ask any Brooklyn hipster with a PBR in their hands.

The more I look at these things, I am actually getting fascinated with them. They are not just diverse geometrically, but texturally.  Most of them have leather, aluminium, glass, and plastic pieces in varying configurations. Levers, ratchets, buttons, straps; all sorts of cool shit in the same little package.  If I were the type of person that collected things, maybe I would start with a couple of these babies.