Salton Sea 2014

 My homage to Meret Oppenheim

Michael Rea came to visit

The esteemed Michael Rea came to S.D.S.U.'s wood program to demonstrate how common construction materials can be used to work more intuitively. I responded to the assignment by replicating my own Nikon camera. (without flash)

I'm over reading

Seriously cool altercation of books...

http://design-milk.com/altered-books-by-brian-dettmer/

"Gable"

 
Apparently, the wood that I selected for this piece came from a water tower in Del Mar that existed in 1930. Appropriately the wood came my way through a Craigslist ad in which the seller referred to the material as reclaimed rafters, so I had the painstaking task of removing any old nails and buried steal from the material before I could even begin the milling process.

From this point I milled the material and glued it up in the same manner I would if I was making a table top. This was incredibly important to have two square sides in which to progress further.

 
The next step was to develop a profile from which to work with, the form was something that I poached from an already turned baluster and decided to work with based on its historical reference to California Craftsman homes. I was fortunate enough to have Erin Behling a digi fab master take me under her wings and show me the ropes of how to transfer this form into Rhino and get it cut out on the C.N.C. machine. This was a great way to remove copious amounts of material without the use of the hand while keeping the forms exact and true to their design.

 
Just off the C.N.C. machine...

From this point I glued the two halves together with a piece of paper in between so that I could split them back apart after I refined them on the lathe. This created some great dust and an interesting boogers.

 
After I split the turned forms in half I glued them back together in another orientation, this time creating a more planer form that exposed the profiles positive/ negative interest.

Cutting angles.

Fine tuning.

Final product. More better pics to come...

Semesters end

"Descending"

I like thinking of this work as something that happened to a handrail by his own accord. He seems to have given up on his surroundings, the lack of his own stability has given him freedom to take over a different space.