velocipede big wheel bore

Yesterday afternoon I was able to get the velocipede legs bored, a 3D printed bushing designed and made (that will be made in bronze), and the big cast wheel bored to the shaft size. I also made a "stand in/mock up" shaft that I could use to put things together. The bronze wheel is a hefty beast but the big diameter shaft supports it well. I think the big wheel should still be mounted on the rotary table on the Bridgeport and the outside trued slightly. I think it would just help the piece to function a bit more smoothly. I'd like to machine the small wheel this weekend if I can finalize the design.

It's interesting how an object like this requires so many different parts that have to come together for the object to function. For some reason, when I make things I need the piece to be capable of mock up stage, so I can see everything and then evaluate the design and "look" of things. I have the entire model in CAD, but my brain requires to be able to see the parts all fixed together to then make changes or additions to. This is the area where I think a piece gets better. This is why I just need to see the piece together regardless of everything being resolved. I also think this is why I like modifying existing objects so much. I'm not sure why, but I have had that desire from the time I was a kid. I always had this desire to stick an engine from one motorcycle into a different frame, or I wanted to combine different bicycle parts to build a completely unique bike. Where does that impulse come from? I need to think about this more...

It's like I need to see something as a complete unit so I can then modify it. This mock up stage is critical for me and I need to see this piece come together as a whole with all it's parts, regardless if they are going to be the final design or not. I just need to see this together as a whole as soon as possible. As I build things I feel like I get to a point where I have built all of these parts, I assemble them, and then I tear it all apart and restore it to final finish. This is the part of making that I enjoy and always have. 

Why can't CAD suffice for this "mock up" stage and then I'm just building parts and assembling them? I hate having to figure out details in CAD I guess. I want to do that part in the physical world instead. Seeing something, touching it, handling it, having a visceral response feels necessary to me. I would love to be a fly on the wall when iconic things were being built to see how the ideas developed. Have all of these iconic things been built from engineering plans/drawings on paper and then just emerged as a direct one to one of that object or did people have a chance to respond to the physical parts and let the object evolve as more parts were created? It's probably not really all that important, but I think about the call and response to making a lot more these days. This piece is reminding me of how I like to work and that IS important...to me. It's not fast nor is it efficient, but it's just the time it takes for me to be happy with what I'm making.

 

snag slide library - mark rooker

I came across an interesting find today. I was going through some of the content from the SNAG archive. SNAG is the Society of North American Goldsmiths. It is the professional organization of academic and professional metalsmiths in the country and an organization which I am a member of. I became a member of the organization when I was getting ready to start graduate school. 

When I was a graduate student at the University of Illinois Urbana Champaign, one of my jobs was working in the SNAG slide library. Our school housed the collection for SNAG and we would receive collections of slides from artists and then we would have duplicate sets made, and then we would label the dups and create sets of slides that would be loaned out to individuals who requested specific slide sets. We would mail and receive slides from people who requested these slides, and we would catalogue and keep the library organized. I can't exactly remember the specifics of my appointment, but I think this was part of my assistantship duties. Again, I can't remember exactly, but I think there were of a few of us grads that worked in the library. If Ian happens to read this maybe he will remember.

Anyway, we had a small room in the Art Annex building that the Metals Department was located in and I remember it being a great resource for me when I was starting to teach. Of course this would be a time in which you would prepare carousels of slides to show to current and historical work to students in class. Since we housed the library, I had free reign to show the latest work that was coming into the library. Anytime I started a new assignment in class I could pull slides to show students to serve as inspiration or to demonstrate how a technique was used. It's crazy to think that this was one of the only ways to see contemporary metalwork at the time. 

Apparently in 2004, SNAG donated a slide archive to The Metal Museum. It contained the portfolios of over 330 metalsmiths of national and international significance. The Metal Museum then partnered with the American Craft Council Library to make the collection available online. The complete 16,000-slide archive was digitized for long-term preservation through grants from the John and Robyn Horn Foundation and an ArtsFirst grant from the First Tennessee Bank Foundation and the collection is now hosted online at the Center for Craft.

Well it was fun looking through the collection today. The work you see above is by Mark Rooker. Mark was a graduate student in the U of I program a few years before me, so this work was highly influential to me. I used to look at these slides a lot when i was working and if my memory serves me correctly, Billie had framed postcards of the teapot rocket and maybe one of Mark's brooches in the hallway as you walked toward the BFA studio. Again, Ian or Eric might remember this better than me. These images set the bar for the caliber of work that I needed to be making in the program and it probably helped that my best friend, Ian, had been taught by Mark when Ian was getting his undergraduate Industrial Design degree before being in the same cohort with me in graduate school. I remember Ian talking about these pieces so they made an impact on me.

It's funny to use these images as a representation of how much our world has changed. First, slides are a thing of the past. The quality of these images is horrible, but they were the best we had at the time. The images don't come close to the quality of the actual pieces. You only had a limited number of shots to get a good image and once you did, having dups made was expensive. You had to be selective and intentional. Teaching and how I expose students to work has changed so much as well. Students can access videos of people making actual work and speak directly to the person making the work and this can all happen in real time. 

All of that said, there is something romantic and nostalgic about the thought of sending a physical catalog of your work to represent what you've been doing for the last year or two. There is also something romantic about a physical postcard along with a handwritten note that you send to people that represents something you are proud of. Now everything is relegated to the same level of minutia because we just scroll past image after image and it all gets lost in our overcrowded minds or the pace of life. 

It was magic to pick up a full sheet of slides and realize that it represented that person's work and effort for the last year or so; even the sheet of slides were precious to me. I remember being so careful with the sheet of slides. Even the room that we kept the collection in was clean and particular; almost sterile. There was a reverence to that room (which was kept locked) and the contents of the room was something to be protected. A sense of purpose is an idea that I am left with after thinking about this. The work having purpose, the act of choosing what image best represents the work.

Maybe I need to think about making some postcards again...

more pizza

Here is Sunday's pizza. I usually make enough dough for two pizzas when I make dough, so I can let one cold ferment in the fridge for the next day.

I had enough dough left to make a set of cheese sticks and a smaller pan pizza. The cast iron does a great job cooking the dough. I know the cheese looks burnt around the edges but honestly this is the best part of the pizza due to the flavor located here.

At the moment I think the c rust is suffering from not having a consistent thickness. I feel like I need a dough roller. It's something I've thought about building though so maybe it's just my desire to build something I can use to make pizza. This also makes me want to cast some specfici cast iron cooking pans for pizza. 

 

velocipede jeweler's saw

I mentioned in a previous post that a few folks from the AppState DigFab group have been getting together each day this past week to work in the studio at school and make some work over the span of two weeks. We meet for breakfast and lunch and work in between. It's been fun to dedicate some time to making some work for an upcoming exhibition. I have a few things in the works this week, but the main big project has been my velocipede jewelers saw. I cast the parts for this in Milwaukee in July of 2010 and this piece has moved across the country with me in an unfinished state for the last sixteen years. You can read and see pictures of me casting it back then in the foundry with Chuck.

https://frankieflood.blogspot.com/2010/07/velocipede.html

https://frankieflood.blogspot.com/2010/07/velocipede-progress.html
https://frankieflood.blogspot.com/2010/07/fragmented-day.html

https://frankieflood.blogspot.com/2010/07/day-of-work.html

https://frankieflood.blogspot.com/2010/07/open-molds.html

https://frankieflood.blogspot.com/2010/07/hot-tear-weld.html

I also cast a bunch of bicycle seats in aluminum around the same time. 

https://frankieflood.blogspot.com/2010/07/aluminum-bicycle-seat.html

https://frankieflood.blogspot.com/2010/07/in-progress.html

https://frankieflood.blogspot.com/2010/07/seat-shells.html

https://frankieflood.blogspot.com/2010/07/broken-seat-shells.html

https://frankieflood.blogspot.com/2010/07/cut-seat-sprues.html

I had mocked up the piece a while ago in my studio next to Spice Bottom Creek and it was sitting there a few weeks ago when I was cleaning and organizing my studio and I figured it was time to drag it out and attempt to finish it. This past week, I brought it to campus and set up a workspace in the Sculpture studio. I 3D scanned the piece in it's current state and then I got to work making a few prototype wheel designs for it. I think I've come to a final design that will work for this. I have some mdf glued up that I'll use to make some foundry patterns for making a mold in resin bonded sand. I spent most of the week cleaning up the cast texture from all of the parts since I want this to be fairly sleek. I'm trying to accentuate the various curves and facets of the cast pieces and I'm pleased with how they are coming out. I'm not moving as fast as I would like on this, but I need to take my time and do things right. I hope I can CNC mill the wheel pattern first thing tomorrow. I still have a long list of things that need to be made and figured out. I also have a few smaller projects that I'm also currently working on.

The tool aspect of this piece is something that I'm enjoying. I had gotten away from making tools for a while and this feels right to me. It also hits a part of my soul since I cast this in Milwaukee and it gives me the midwest feels since the original Barnes velocipede was designed and made in Rockford, IL.  There is also something about this that hits the mark and reminds me of bare metal hotrods from Rodder's Journal and hand built cars and motorcycles and furniture. I can't yet put my finger on it yet, but it is starting to have some of the vibes that I was hoping for, but had not taken the time to get it far enough along to start feeling good about it. It's funny how you have to get past this certain point with a piece to feel like you can continue. I think I'm there now, just too bad it took sixteen years to get there.

Getting back into the blog this week is making me think about some things that I've been discussing with Jill. Eric's visit has me thinking about these things too. I took a break from social media last Spring. I got back on at the start of the summer and now I've had to leave it again a few weeks ago. I felt good the first time I left it and I feel even better this time. What is it about that stuff. On one hand I want to know what's going on with friends and people I know, but it's a curse at the same time. I'm realizing that I haven't done any real introspective thinking about what I'm doing or making since i stopped blogging. I don't write enough in my sketchbook or even sketch for that matter. 

Scrolling other people's content has a numbing effect and leaves me empty with no ability for self reflection. Maybe that's the point. Rewire our brains to look at others; compare and then render us unable to formulate a real sincere and unique thought of our own. Bombard us with content so we don't have to tackle the important quiet moments that we NEED to have with ourselves. Steal every quiet moment from us, and make us a part of a perpetual machine that accomplishes nothing but to brainwash us by segregating us into our own echo chambers. Make it so we don't really connect with people where we might hear other people's points of view and tackle hard conversations and topics. Steal the time we would normally have, loving the people that we live with, sharing our thoughts and feelings, and being creative.  

Well, I'm going to try and work on these things and myself and make an attempt to think about things I feel and see; and use this space to do it all again. We'll see how long it lasts.