That’s my dad! Usually the dude is busy doing things for other people, but once in a while he cranks out a project for himself. He makes it seem easy to make this copper sunflowers sculpture, and for him it probably was. He’s got the gear, and the skills. Dad used a nibbler to cut everything out but you can definitely use a bandsaw with the right blade or maybe even a jigsaw. Snips? I doubt it, with copper this thick. Once he had all the pieces fabbed up he used an oxy-acetylene torch to braze everything together.
In honor of artist Grayson Sigler’s birthday today we are featuring one of his more recent creations. Seen here is a Mobius Strip rendered in concrete. The artist has apparently decided to juxtapose the fluidity of this shape with a decidedly solid material. Or, perhaps his intention is to combine the seemingly infinite movement of the form with the complementary permanence of concrete. Whatever the intention, the result is an intriguing sculpture that compels the viewer to touch it. And it’s seriously heavy.
Sculptor of squash, punisher of pumpkins, gouger of gourds Keith Pelczarski has finally gone public with his monumental carved pumpkin patch. Similar to Andy Goldsworthy, Pelczarski is creating short-lived pieces using natural and unprocessed materials. Art aficionados will appreciate that the artist carefully documented this piece using digital photography before it was ravaged by rot or small mammals.
This melon magnum opus was created in October of 2006 and is only now being shown outside of Northern California. Why has the artist withheld such a major work from the public for so long? We may never know.
For many more images as well as explanations by the artist visit GoNutty.com.
For you fans of Clive Barker horror films, and I know at least one of you who is, how about this Pumpkin Pinhead action? It’s even scary in broad daylight!
Is a Potato Cannon art itself? Is it functional scuplture? Or, is it a prop in a form of performance art featuring torched, toasted and tossed tubers? I say it’s both. The combustive potato gun featured here is really a carbine, and not the standard long barrel PVC version. Also, it features knock-down construction that allows it to become even smaller, and stowed using very little space. With the exception of the spring latches, the entire gun is made of aluminum, with machined fittings and TIG welded joints. The end of the barrel has been chamfered, making it easy to core a potato and achieve a tight barrel fit. This vegetable weapon has recently been retired, but only after two beautiful long potato launches. Don’t try this at home.
Happy Father’s Day! Here’s something I couldn’t have made without my father. I did the work on this table, but he taught me how to weld and use almost every type of tool there is. Moreover, he is a living example that you can build anything you want if you can just get started. This was built in his garage, using his welding gear, torch, grinding tools, etc. around 1990. I was also hogging up a lot of shop space with scrap metal and steel I had ordered. Thanks Dad, for being you.
The table top is aluminum plate. This is another piece that has a connection to Peter Pittman. For a while that I knew him Peter was doing design work for some metal fab shop. He offered to take me in the shop on the weekend and let me pick out some scrap. I found this large piece of aluminum behind a jumbo shear. It was surely usable for some job, but after hesitating for a second Peter said I could snag it. He’s cool like that. And nobody was around to notice.
So, this construction was made to the dimensions of that first piece of plate. The frame below it is mostly half inch steel rod, painstakingly welded together on a jig I had made. Then, even more painstakingly, and painfully, the welds were ground flush. Never again! The only pictures I have of it are from a gallery show, on a contact sheet a friend gave me. Thanks again Pam Taylor.
Another Father’s Day note: Our good friends the Pelczarskis now have this table. AND their second child, Tatum, was just born a few days ago! With an infant and a toddler in the house it’s a good thing I made that table baby-proof with only four sharp metal corners.
Here is a little construction Mars made a couple years ago when he was about seven years old. This is a recent picture. Like many artists before, Mars is using his art to comment on the oppression in the world around him. In this case, the oppression was a time limit for playing video games. A standard kitchen timer became the enforcer. By applying wings to the enforcer the artist has reshaped this symbol of his oppression into something of visual interest, even beauty.
My nine year old son Mars made this papier mâché bear for his annual Cub Scout dinner. Cubs are grouped by age and each group has an animal name. Mars is a Bear. Here we see the Cub Scout Bear in his natural habitat, the backyard. Mars creates art in many mediums, and I think his sculptures are some of his best work.
I had a major crash on the bike that used to have this saddle and handlebars. Lots of broken bones, etc. That saddle was always a little too uncomfortable, even for a racing bike, and the handlebars were really meant for the track which means they only feel right when you’re in the drops. So, I rapped them with some new white tape, attached the stem and wedged it between the saddle rails, and there it is. My own “metamorphosis” as Picasso would call it.
Now, Picasso didn’t make “Bull’s Head” until 1943, but it has always reminded me of the “Ready-Made” art that some Dadaists were creating two or three decades earlier. Which brings me to the next pic. Trying to get as much out of D.C. as we can before we move, today we went to see the Dada and Cézanne exhibits at the National Gallery, and some new cool stuff at the Hirshhorn.
This one’s for you, Gary Taylor. Thanks again, for lunch.
I believe this is the first piece of metal furniture or sculpture I ever made. I made it when my brother and I had a record store in the late 1980s. We had a large space and a small inventory. So, occasionally we would have events like art shows or even spoken word gigs. That got me thinking I should make some stuff, in whatever medium. I ended up leaving some of my pieces in the store; this chair was one of them.
One of our regular customers, Peter Pittman, saw it and eventually displayed it in a hair salon, of all places, that his wife owned and operated. I think they would also have “exhibits” there. Anyhow, someone(?) saw it there and it ended up in a place called Breit Functional Crafts in Norfolk, VA, where someone else(?) saw it and it ended up in an exhibit at the Reynolds Minor Gallery in Richmond, VA. Funny enough, a woman from Virginia Beach saw it there and decided to buy it. I can’t remember the exact number, but I do remember I priced it high enough that no one, I thought, would buy it. Then the gallery doubled that number, and someone actually did! Oh well, I think it’s kinda corny now, but back then I hated to see it go.
The frame is made of rebar with most of the slag buffed off with a wire wheel. The seat and arms are 11 gauge stainless steel. The most interesting part, the back, is an ancient Dayton floor fan that we had laying around the store. It had a small frame that held it in position, and it took a few minutes to get up to speed. For some reason I thought it would obviously make a comfortable chair back. I meticulously cleaned it and even had the bullet-shaped motor housing re-chromed. The only pictures I have are from a contact sheet of shots a friend (Pam Taylor) took. She probably gave me the negatives but who knows where they are.
I made this at least ten years ago, maybe 15. I had those four heavy duty casters laying around for a while just begging to be put on a piece of furniture. Each wheel is rated to hold 1500 lbs, and there are grease fittings on the axles and the caster bearings. I paid something like $5 each for them at a salvage store. New they cost a few hundred dollars each. I’m heavy duty, but these rollers are way heavy duty. The chair is of course silly, but still funny to me. Stainless steel 11 gauge seat and back, gun blued cold rolled half inch steel bar, and quarter inch steel plate make this rig quite heavy. At least it’s on wheels!
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