Juror’s Award – Through the Woods: Around the Block

This basket bowl was created for the Through the Woods: Around the Block exhibition at the The Lubeznik Center for the Arts, Michigan City Indiana, February 18th through April 10.

The Through the Woods, Around the Block show had the following requirement:

Starting with 2 identically sized indigenous, non-endangered solid wood blocks measuring  6x6x3, artists were asked to create an original piece from one block while leaving the other untouched.Juried by renowned woodturners Cindy Drozda and David Nittmann, the resulting exhibition of wood and object will provide a thought-provoking visual “before and after.”

When I first heard of this exhibit I knew that the basket look veneer work that I’ve been doing was perfect, fortunately I had two blocks of spalted maple left – one to transform and one to leave as is.

This construction uses seven parallels alternating (3,4) between layers of veneer. The parallel arrangement causes the visual energy to change from the tightly woven end view to a calmer side view. This is analogous to the experience of lathe work where cutting changes every quarter turn – side to end, easy to hard.

Material is Ash – It’s funny that its from one of the largest trees that I’ve ever worked from logs (4′ + diameter!) and I milled the 588 match sticks from it. The sicks are .16″ square. The full cube is 7″ on each side.

It’s an Op-Art piece. This photo really demonstrates the effect (Thanks to Ed Kelle). If the piece is placed high with light behind it you get many different effects as you walk around it. Straight on it appears to just be a grid, it morphs through several different spherical appearances depending on the angle.

This piece was shown in the exhibition Masters of Contemporary Wood Turning at the Vale Craft Gallery in Chicago November 5th – November 27th 2010.

A collaboration with Harry and Wendy Besett of Vermont Glass Workshop (http://vtglass.com).

I met Wendy & Harry at the annual League of NH Craftsmen fair on Mount Sunapee. Last August, I asked if they were interested in doing a collaboration.

The collaboration  was more challenging than I expected. The original idea was to simply use one of my bamboo spherical boxes as container for one of their glass spheres. The biggest challenge was creating a stand that would support the substantial weight of the glass but still allow for the light and shadow effects caused by the pierced bamboo sphere.

One of the ideas was a gimbal that would allow the sphere to be tilted, at the same time I was thinking of Victorian era iron work girders and beams – this stand is the result. To create the “beam work” effect I sandwiched bamboo sticks between two layers of ash veneer (sparsely) this allows you to look right through the beams when viewed looking straight at the ends of the sticks.

The glass sphere is one of Wendy’s “Stillness Spheres” it has the 3 silhouettes embedded on one side and a single silhouette opposing on the other. When you view it the glass acts as a magnifier enlarging the silhouette on the farther side – this creates a 3 against 1 larger/smaller effect that is quite provocative. It can be seen as one big person embracing three small ones or as three big people intimidating one small one.

It was tough to balance the regular formal appearance of the bamboo with the human natural feel of the glass. I think that led me to think of the elegant engineering of the industrial age.

I have always collected small bits of archaic technology.  About 20 years ago I acquired a small cube corner retroreflector. Having been interested in optics in high school (I ground my own telescope mirror), I was familiar with the principle of the corner retroreflector but had never had the chance to play with one. To my surprise, I discovered that when you look into a cube corner retroflector you always see your own eye (of course!). I realized that this was an experience that was alien to most people (as it was for me the first time) and a bit of a magic trick or wizardry, hence it was added to my collection.

I had been thinking about incorporating the retroreflector in a work for some time. This past spring, I attended a week long class with Bonnie Klein and Jacques Vesery at Arrowmont – a perfect opportunity to finally make the piece.

The design (if you can call it design) of the 3rd Eye evolved during it’s creation. The front face of the eye is carved to look like a six-leaf iris, modeled from a 20(!) leaf  iris that I acquired from an old bellows camera. The hollow inside was made deep enough hold the retroreflector with a little extra space. I decided that the iris top would have knurling on it to allow the device to be opened. This much was determined from the outset.

I kept the device in my pocket most of the week. I found small magnetized and polished hematite at one of the tacky shops on the strip in Gatlinburg, three of them fit together inside and stuck to the metal case of the retroreflector. I liked the way they added to the already unusual weight (because of the glass). I had the humorous idea that the hematite stones were “memory stones” that stored whatever it was that 3rd eye was observing. I started taking myself seriously and describing it as an earnest child would, to virtually anyone who would listen.  At this point it took on a life of its own.

Obsessing about the device

• It can be turned on or off
• It will get hot when it runs
• You need to hold it carefully
• It is a serious device, although not entirely clear what it does.
• It’s not perfect

Inspirations for details

The start button on the back has that dull, much used red Bakelite color to it. As a kid, I would tear old equipment apart and save whatever I deemed might be useful. This button is surely from that collection. It’s worn out. If it was an actual button it would make an unsatisfying click when pushed and you wouldn’t be sure it actually worked.

The heat vents are styled from my memories of the vents on the backs of VW vans and bugs. We had a camper that manged to make trips all over the Northeast. I also attempted to rebuild a bug. I got as far as pulling the seats out and stripping the interior.

The writing looks child like. This was not intentional, my actual handwriting is quite bad. That coupled with attempting to write with a burning tool resulted in what you see.  I was rather worked up about trying to be neat and quite disappointed (at least initially) with the results. It should have been intentional.

The revision (1.b) is a reversal of “Saturn B1″, an early booster in the Apollo project, a fascination of which certainly help lead me to a professional career as a software engineer.

Form

I’d like to make some comments about the structure and meaning of this piece.

When you look into the cube corner, you see the 3 lines that intersect, the edges of the cube. In between these lines are the reflections on each face of the opposing cube edge. The result is the perfect division of a circle into six triangles. I’ve intentionally carried and referred to this 3/6 symmetry in the details on the rest of the piece.  There are 6 leaves on the iris, 3 vents with 3 finger holds between them, 3 sets of external component details above each of the 3 vents, but I have broken this with the 2 text panels. Whether or not you are aware of it, this has an impact on how you perceive the piece when you pick it up and handle it.

Finally, an aspect that I appreciate in the work of others is an intense layering of intent and meaning. Once this piece found it’s direction, it was “easy” for me to just pile on references to my past. It astounds me looking at it now, how much additional layering and meaning is there. It literally contains something I collected at a tech job 20 years ago, at a company that is long gone. I decided that the stones were memory stones and then proceeded to unconsciously fill this piece with details from my memories.

I was also completely unaware of the mystical meaning of “third eye” at the time I made this piece -

“In the Indian tradition, it is referred to as the gyananakashu, the eye of knowledge, which is the seat of the ‘teacher inside’”

I don’t think of this piece as being that serious, but when you put as much as you possibly can into a work, other people will pick up on it.

Nest is the beginning of a new exploration of ideas. It consists of twigs collected in the New Hampshire woods, gathered into a small bundle which is mounted in a cherry base. A steep parabolic hollow is then turned in the sticks, creating a “nest” that holds the egg.

The egg is actually a box, turned from a branch collected from the side of the road. It was turned around Easter time, inspired by the plastic eggs in which one hides candy.

Every box must have a surprise inside. This egg contains a small, fully functional top of my own design, which can be worn as a pendant. The top hangs from a clip and allows for hours of spinning pleasure.

I like the fact that this piece is three separate works, made over the course of three years.

Two sets of identical offset rings. Turned to a shallow spherical dish form.

One set was painted black, the other white.

Then vee-grooves were carved in each set, one horizontally, the other vertically.

Finally, the rings were shuffled, alternating black and white in each set.