Finally one of the first benches is done!. See it in person at my solo show at the Metals Museum in Memphis TN opening March 13.
Final step. Clear coating the prints with automotive paint, both for durability and to make the colors “pop”!
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If you are in Seattle this weekend come say hello… and get a first peek at the Smithsonian Fellowship during my lecture.
2014 Northwest Jewelry & Metals Symposium
www.seattlemetalsguild.org
Here we are racing against the sunset to capture this entire arch with the gigapan. It took a while to hike in with the equipment, but it was defiantly worth it.
One of the most interesting visual phenomenon in Moab area was the way the sky’s intense blue was constrained in these arches. I wanted to flip that around by making the arch the center of the photo rather than the frame. It ends up being a different sort of horizon. I feel like most of the large photos we made in this project are about horizon, and that much of my attraction to the desert is exploring that complex horizon for myself!
This was shot at the Bonneville Salt flats during Desert Design Lab,
Pictured here is visiting artist Jen Anderson exploring the flats for the first time.
We were lucky because the water across the flat was just inches deep for miles… a rare and fantastic time there in the UT/NV border.
Here is a detail of the top left corner of The Arch pic… the land formations are so giant out there you are/feel small. Its disorienting and exhilarating.
The Zephyr credenza was designed on the road in the DDL lab. It is the newest of the pieces in my Streamline series and the first case piece I’ve ever made.
The sweet custom refurbished Airstream pictured here had been one of our host’s home for many years, dry camping in the desert, until Beatty became his permanent residence. The ways in which it was originally, and re-designed by him, made me think about how the objects in our lives respond to our needs - instantly, effortlessly, specifically - and all while being smooth, sleek and fast.
With that in mind, the door on this piece is actuated with a servo motor, so all you need to do is touch it for it to open with smooth even movement.
It’s no Land Yacht (the original branding on this RV) but hopefully speaks to the way our lives and the objects within them (can/should/will) interact.
Water, people and time. The three things that have sculpted the landscape of the western deserts.
Some of the “man made” structures we encountered in NV. Everyone responded to the weathered corrugated metal left over in these mining ghost towns. I have one design going for a table that uses the curved corrugated form… thinking I;m going to weather and rest the heck out of it. There is nothing like a natural patina!
Back in Moab we worked on some natural dyes with tanya aguiñiga
www.aguinigadesign.com/
Tanya said she could do a whole body of work based around the colors on the Colorado river… her favorite location in this visit.
Now the molds… There are a number of designs that are in the woks for these, casting in different materials… so far just tests but this winter will see them done. Stay tuned.
Designing on the road… I used models and 3-d scanner to work on pieces while we traveled. The little model in the scanner here became this piece, Anchored Candy no. 7.
Rubbings in Moab.
We made this on a land bridge in response to the dynamic erosion in this endless landscape of rocks. I was just at a lecture on the Mars Rover at NASM this week and so much of the landscape was reminiscent of Death Valley and Moab. What struck me is that they/we are naming each land formation we find. Its a funny need/impulse that we have to name everything. It makes it feel safer and easier to think about. This was Gemini bridges, and yes, there were two of them. I’m planning to use this rubbing to create a surface pattern in the future to use in my work.
