Motion Everywhere!

Marji has spent a good part of the spring organizing my studio work space. I can't believe what a difference it has made! I should have asked her do this years ago. One of the huge benefits is a large increase in my wall space. When you specialize in kinetic wall sculpture, that makes a difference. It often takes a period of weeks to tune and test my sculptures. The more I have up at once the better I like it. I enjoy working with the sound and motion all around me. 

 A variety of things came together at the end of July resulting in my needing all of that wall space. There were sculptures on every inch of available real estate!

All walls were covered and Marji couldn't resist taking a video showing the visual impact of motion, everywhere!

There are 16 different White Water mechanisms in operation here at once in a variety of combinations including Avalanche, Falling Water II and  White Water. Notice how soft and melodic the sound is. A single White Water is a very quiet (although not silent) sculpture. I love the sound of 16 running at the same time. I also like the fact that they are all being well behaved!

Upgrading My Design Space

My tools for designing kinetic sculptures continue to evolve. For years I have been designing on a a 50 pound MacPro behemoth with a 30" display. I needed the horse power to render my animations quickly and to make videos. I thought I needed a big screen. With the evolution of more powerful laptops with beautiful displays like the Retina Macbook Pro I have changed my tool of choice.  I moved out of my office, sold my desktop setup and bought a laptop. I can now do my designing wherever I can take my laptop. My favorite locatio is sitting up in the gallery space at my studio, often sitting on the sofa enjoying a cup of tea or coffee with Silver Symphony ringing gently in the background. This is a wonderful solution except when I need to be working on two computers at once.

I have a physics program (Working Model) I use for center of mass calculations. It only runs on "ancient" Mac system 9, that in turn, only works on old Macs. . When I need to figure out a center of mass, I work between this program on a 10 year old iBook and Illustrator on new Macbook Pro. I can't balance the two laptops (and my tea) on the sofa. I asked Marji to think about designing a desk for the gallery. I had an old, beat-up press board folding table that just didn't fit in. 

This week, she finished my new desk and it is wonderful!

My "office space" is located in the kitchen area of the gallery space. It is open and visible to the gallery so I requested that the desk be artsy yet functional. Marji thought using a live-edge slab of wood would create a perfect desk. I can sit up high, gaze out the windows and dream.  It's a great place to work.

Marji has posted a couple of blog posts over on her blog, AshbeeDesign.com about this desk and how we made it. Take a look at these two posts: 

• DIY • Live-Edge Desk
• Live-Edge Desk Tutorial

Here are a few detail shots.

 It's perfect!

Quandary • Another Kinetic Sculpture Edition is Done

David and I get to have a celebration dinner every time he completes an edition. During March he made the last four Quandary kinetic sculptures in an edition that numbered 95.

Three have been shipped and the last will go out this week.

There is always a mixed set of emotions with the completion of an edition. We are pleased to be done with an edition because it is great that they are selling, but also David is generally ready to move on to something new long before he reaches 95! But there is also a sense of loss. Quandary has been shipping since April of 2009. One could almost say it has become a member of the family! Its entire existence has been since the economy crash of 2008 and still, it sold out! 

Two things happen next..... a new sculpture gets introduced (coming soom!) and a whole bunch of new orders come in for Quandary. It never fails - many people wait until an edition is gone before they finally get around to ordering.

And no, David doesn't make more! But we do get to go out to dinner.

Journey Comes to an End • Sculpture Edition Done

This week David and I got to have a celebration dinner. We do every time he completes a sculpture edition. He put his signature on Journey #95 and that ends an edition that began back in 2008.  

Journey was the sculpture that almost wasn't. David had been trying to design a sculpture with his favorite bird motion, that was small for international shipping but still graceful. It took a lot of experimentation to achieve the best effect. Now, five years later, all but one has been sold. They have been shipped to Canada, England, Turkey, Italy, Germany, Switzerland and Ireland.

As he made this last group he discovered some new production techniques that would have saved him bundles of time over the past five years. He never stops experimenting!

Read more about the design process of Journey and see other photos here. The last one can be ordered here.