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work with, the form was something that I poached from an already turned baluster and decided to work with based on its historical reference to California Craftsman homes.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.

Semesters end

After another long haul of a semester the dust has finally settled and I am ready to reflect a bit on the outcome. I set out early in the month of September on a piece that took pretty much the duration of the semester. I was interested in creating a work that defied the idea of the ascending/ descending nature of a stairwell based on changing the ordinary formal language of a banister handrail. 

Some crude cauls I used for a series of glue ups.

This particular technique for joinery gave me the freedom for error in glue up as well as a room for grain movement. 

A zillion passes later the form began to take shape.

FYI

http://www.vincenterobles.com/

With the help of Hurricane Irene and my good friend Travis Melvin my website is now finally operational. whoo hoo and all that jazz. More to come as things get oiled and polished.

http://www.guildgreyshkul.com/artist.php?id=116

When I first came across this I thought to myself, "wow, it's like a fucked up Rothko painting..."

http://www.jennifermaestre.com/index.php

I thought this work was beautiful, an amazing use of colored pencils that have been connected through traditional weaving methods. Blew my mind.

Tidbits

So here we are deep into fall once again, the trees are still the same and there is a slight chill in the morning that can only be the remains of some coastal fog. My sunflowers are way past their prime and the lawn is starting to look like an old shag carpet that has seen better days. I traded a chicken for a pumpkin today, halloween is near. With the semester in full swing I thought it would be appropriate to show some work I have been doing recently. These one week assignments have been valuable to my current thoughts about my advancement in spring, I think of these as formal investigations.

 Deepo Vortex

 Untitled

 Sweeper

Untitled

Scabbing on

Thought this was a great concept, blending the two forms of chair and bed frame together. I want one.

http://www.kharismafurniture.com/beds/the-bed-blend-by-roy-letterle-lero/

Cassiopeia Dreams of Better Days

I thought I would post this quote by Mimi Frank who just recently had a show at the San Diego Art Department;  "The chair represents so many things to us.  We see it as a connection between people and the positions they occupy.  Chairs are place holders. Chairs are settings where we expect to see someone relaxing, resting, thinking, and working.  They imply humanity. We anthropomorphize them.  We make them.  We break them.  We use them in weddings.  They are symbols of authority.  Coronations occur in them and the powerful rule from them.  We can chair an event, or we can “lose our seat”.  We populate chairs with our own meaning and fill them with our own human activity.  When we see several chairs together, we see them in conversation.   Chairs are laden with our own symbolic language.  These chairs tell us a little about Cassiopeia and her regrets, but they are really about our relationships with each other."

The show depicted the chair form reinterpreted in many different gestures using small bronze maquettes. I was especially intrigued by this show for its use of the chair and how playful Mimi could get such a strong material to look.

Pico de Gallo

After much to do about the "lack of windows" in my most recent chicken Favela I have completed a new bordello completo con ventanas. It didn't take long for the hens to figure out how to enter their new space. They seem to be pretty satisfied with the addition of new east facing windows and perching post, I promised them a deck at some point... They promised me hard boiled eggs, if I'm lucky.

wooden boards

Very cool yet laborious process of making a surfboard out of reclaimed organic material. Beautiful variations in color. 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T00e3mv1WEc

The Firefly

So recently I have taken up a new hobby, or should I say I have extended a prior hobby a few rungs up. A few months back I had received a couple of foam blanks from a friend as a gift. These "blanks" are what is generally referred to as the foundation to making a surfboard. They typically are made with a mold injection process that takes shape as a crude block resembling a surfboard, if you blur your eyes hard enough. Most of these blanks have a wooden stringer running the length of itself which gives it tensile strength. 

It has been a dream of mine for years to whittle down my own piece of foam with the intention of riding it someday. Although intimidation to the material and shear fear of fucking up a piece of innocent foam remained a hurdle to conquering my dream. Then it dawned on my one day while sitting in the ocean waiting for a set to approach, I thought back to a video I had seen where some ace surfer caught a wave on a traditional house door and rode it for a bit. This door had no fins, no rocker and was void of any shape that would lend itself workable. Yet this surfer got to his feet and rode it a few yards until the board lost control and dude bra went down. I thought about my own craft as a woodworker/sculptor and about some of the other things I had sculpted out of wood. Surfboard shaping seemed to be just subtractive symmetry, and even if it wasn't symmetrical, the thing, like the door was bound to float. So I decided to give it a shot, I started working the blank about a week ago. 

I had decided to take one of my favorite boards and duplicate it's form with a slight variation in the width and thickness. First, I made what is called a template out of  3/16" masonite. This is an outline of the older board measuring from the center point of the deck to the outer curvature of the form. I simply traced the outline of the old board onto the masonite, cut it out with a jig saw and sanded the edges down. Once I fine tuned the template I placed it onto the blank and scribed an outline onto the bottom of the foam. I used a brick to keep the template secure to the board, I did this on both sides. Making sure things were as symmetrical as they could be I sawed on the outside of the line to create a crude blocky representation of a surfboard, I now had my door. 

Initially I was excited about shaping the entire thing by hand, the old fashion way. This idea was quickly abandon due to the fact that a surform is simply no match for a hand planer when it comes to removing material. Traditions overrated... After a few nervous attempts with the power planer, my passes became less timid as I worked out a rythem to remove the material. Along the way I found that a basic shop vac hooked up to the hand planer worked really well to keep the dust down as the whole process is like being in a snow globe without it. Before I knew it I had taken off at least a 3/4" of material all around and felt it was time to stop and measure some things before I had nothing left. Using a caliper that I fashioned out of some old plywood, I could check the thickness of the board from nose to tail. I didn't mess with the edges since the line that I had drawn was my only visual guide I had to follow. From here I began working with a surform, drywall sanding block and hand plane. The removal of the material was far more slow and deliberate at this stage, but I was able to visualize a more refined form taking place. 

I've recently been working the edges of the board with a drywall sanding block, this has allowed me to remove material slowly and gauge the rail symmetry. I have also been studying up on different bottom contours for speed and stability. I'm feeling confident that this aspect of the shaping will be done fairly soon. I'm looking forward to the next few stages...

Pico de Gallo

My oldest roommates have recently been relocated to the back 40 due to their negligent manners of cleaning up behind themselves. From the beginning I gave the little birds free range on the more pristine part of backyard, this was primarily to keep them safe from other winged predators. I have a few shade sails set up and a pretty solid fence that keeps most intruders out, or at least it acts as an obstacle until the chicks realize what is happening. I had the sad misfortune of loosing on of my favorite chicks early on, Bernadette Rosebud was picked off by what I assumed was a hawk. She tended to be the one chick that was always by herself, leading the way and not really giving two shits what the others were doing. Ultimately, I believe this is what got her in the end. So a good moral to this story is use the buddy system, always... My remaining 3 chicks, Opera, Gail, and Blanch are the inseparable lezbo sisters that have made it to young adulthood. Watching them grow has been better than any T.V. one might need to survive. But the time has finally come to reclaim my precious lawn back, since the grass needs only so much fertilizer... Not to mention ever time I made my way into the back yard I would return to the house with wet chicken shit somewhere on my sandal. (Gross) It got to the point one day where I finally flipped my lid when I noticed how carless they were with my struggling Plumeria plants in pots. Something had to be done. I gathered enough scrap wood to throw together a make shift coop that I scabbed onto an already dilapidated shed on the property. The environment was a little less than what the chicken where use to, but premium compared to what most chickens get. Either way they looked at me with the, "really, what the fuck is this?!" expression that I have seen chicken give me more than once. I explained to them that it was just time to move on, no hard feeling but every bird needs to fly from the nest at some point. I promised them a larger area when I get around to it but until then this dorm will have to do. They looked back with no response. Typical. Since the eviction they have become a little more friendly with me, every morning I bring them fresh greens and grain to nosh on. They also have more time now to be with themselves as  am not stepping over them constantly. I will keep updating as the Pico de Gallo apartment goes through its renovation process. P.S. still waiting for eggs...

New digs, sparse but technically still free range

The Previous Playground

The "Look"

seeings believing

thought this was an interesting use of perspective with a furniture object
http://xspblog.com/2009/03/06/wireframe-table/

tres amigas

New work in response to the napkin challenge. Tights, sawdust and ready made funnels.