This is definitely a “coulda had” situation as the store has been in business  since forever, and the materials I have discovered there have answered a number of requirements going back over the years.  I have found myself seduced by a range of colors, transparencies, finishes and working qualities.

Over the last few years I have been exploring the potential of chains as artistically expressive. I am the proud possessor of a collection of linked items made mostly of wood. Clear plexiglass and something called expanded PVC  has introduced a new element to these efforts.

Linked gender symbols.  Varnished cut wood, 2008

Male and Female, Painted cut wood, 2008

QandA, cut and painted expanded PVC, 2008

This is an example of a theme of questions and answers. The idea is of a chain of causes and effects.

Two and Two, cut plexiglass, 2008

Some of my work occurs in series, some in fits and starts. For a long time I have sought to bring form to an arithmetical construct: the fact that two plus two and two multiplied by two both produce four. It’s elusive and doesn’t come across well in physical objects. In this case the operator is to be seen as hovering between a plus and a multiplying state. I have gone so far as to consider the operator as spinning. I might be necessary to do this as a wall projection.

A form of plastic sheet that I think is plexiglass deforms freely in sufficient heat – I have been trying 400-415 F. I had painted a sheet in two colors and, using an aluminum tray, I had used this sheet to cover an arrangement of home made studded ceramic balls and a few tripods.  The sheet encased the items while doing interesting things with the painted surface. The peculiarities of the image are the result of some Photoshopping.

Another painted sheet was placed over some tripods in the same fashion. The plastic enveloped the items.

I had mixed some plastic dust created by the saws, with some acetone. I expected to get a syrup, but instead the mixture was more like an extra-stringy bubble gum. I dragged some of this across a painted sheet and then deformed the entire thing. I had included a lot of plaster in the plastic/acetone mixture which resulted in a degree of brittleness, as seen in the broken strands.

Some effort has been given to creating multi-part units that are made up of a mixture of rectilinear and circular/ovoid pieces. These are all hung on a common spindle.

Piles of things hung on a spindle works more easily than something simple. In this case I’m trying for a certain elegance based in simplicity. Fortunately one can move the components about with relative ease, allowing for a degree of experimentation.

Reduced the white presence, made the blue oval, added silver and clear, replaced the oval mirror with one larger. The white cross shape is questionable.

Each of these is a work in progress as I try out different things. While initially attractive in terms of the basic ingredients, shaping the materials into a coherent whole can involve a lot of better and worse. It can be a matter of a slightly discordant color throwing the whole thing off.  Simply identifying what discordant might mean in this context takes a lot of mixing and matching. I am tentatively exploring textures and patterns and their potential relationships to the whole.

The plastic that I’m encountering tends to have a “look at me” quality as so much of it is either transparent , mirrored or colorful. Actually, if I were to seek dull plastic, I’m sure that it would come to me. But right now I’m seduced by the glitz.

Plastic has a number of potentials of which I am using but a few. For the spindle pieces I am simply cutting flat stock into shapes. Otherwise, I am seeing how the stuff drapes and fuses under the influence of heat. The above is an experiment in fusing. Pieces of scrap were sandwiched between two sheets of acrylic. I then heated the entire assembly until the top sheet collapsed around the pieces and onto the bottom sheet. Everything became glued together. In the above case you are seeing the pieces through the undeformed sheet. I spray painted the deformed sheet in yellow and red.

The fusing sheets can be seen as packaging the items introduced between them. This raises some visual and conceptual possibilities. Placing merchandise in vacuum formed or shrink wrapped packages is a commonplace, so doing something similar invites comparisons. Here I “packaged” a ceramics object that I had made many years ago.  It illustrates the process.

Drape form over a shape – in this case a lower case “a” cut from wood – and then repeat the process after turning the letter over.  A kind of airy “a” was created by placing the plastic halves together in clam shell fashion. This was then back painted, allowing the front surface to remain transparent.

This is another old ceramic object encased between sheets, with the front surface selectively painted.

In this case I positioned strips of acrylic over a collection of letters. I then did some selective painting on both front and back.

A little wooden Q and A sequenced is entombed and presented throug the smooth sheet.

]]> http://fatherfootie.wordpress.com/2009/04/12/157/feed/ 0 fatherfootie wooden-gender-symbols-processed-and-resized-3-30-08 male-and-female-2-processed-2-22-08 sculpture-growing-rub-processed two-times-two-processed heated-plastic-w-ceramics-p4501 heated-plastic-w-jacks-p4501 heated-plastic-w-strings-p4501 spindle-easter-sunday-pr spindle-2-easter-sundaypr spindle-in-side-room-pr spindle-4-13-09-pr hot-plastic-9-pr hot-plastic-7pr2 hot-plastic-6-pr2 hot-plastic-5pr1 hot-plastic-4-pr2 hot-plastic-3pr1 hot-plastic-2-pr drape-formed-silver-pr http://fatherfootie.wordpress.com/2009/02/07/park-walkways/ http://fatherfootie.wordpress.com/2009/02/07/park-walkways/#comments Sat, 07 Feb 2009 20:59:19 +0000 fatherfootie http://fatherfootie.wordpress.com/?p=80 ]]> When visiting for the holidays, son Bret commented on a painting languishing in the basement.  He saw virtue where I had seen frustration, and I have been prompted by his reaction to take another poke at it.

For starters this is a piece in foam board and carries the image of a park walkway with fencing and the occasional tree or two – all in snow. The original photograph was taken in a black and white format with no middle tones. I then enlongated the image.  This then was projected on the foam board, selectively painted in and the surface modulated with a hot air gun.

I had gotten as far as a kind of  dark brown and black application of paint in the features over a sort of yellow snow effect when I rescued it from the basement for a second go.  I decided to be more painterly and try to introduce some atmosphere.  This led to the first example shown above.  I then continued to alter the distribution of emphases somewhat. It certainly felt as though I was moving things around.  But, in this next image, one can see but little change. It didn’t improve by much, but then again, it wasn’t much damaged either.

I will continue to add to this post as further alterations arise.

The bus station downtown was an eyesore with a sign that had undergone unsightly modifications and then left to rot. Any number of sign companies had come forward with proposals to restore the sign, but all were beyond the Greyhound company budget. I pitched for the job and the detailing department came up with an attractive bid. Unfortunately, permitting for the job was held up in city hall after approval by Greyhound, and I wasn’t around for the actual work.

The sign is an important part of the overall art deco design of the station and clad in enameled steel. It was anticipated that the renovation of the sign would involve a re-cladding in aluminum. Any suggestion of using fresh enameled steel was dismissed as too expensive.

I decided to test that assumption and found a company that did steel enameling work and which had an oven large enough to handle the job. It turned out that their price for fabricating the replacement cladding was less than that of aluminum.

So today the Station’s facade has been returned to a close approximation of original and I can take some credit for making that possible.

I finally ended up with these: a flowing effect and an exercise in utter simplicity.

Varnish on figured foam

Jo. We’ve been married, yo these last forty years.

Matt. The eldest son and his better half, Shannon.

Jasmine. Matt and Shannon’s eldest child.

Wolfgang. Matt and Shannon’s second.

Vladimir. Matt and Shannon’s youngest.

Adam. Our second son and Wendy, his significant other.

Bret. Our youngest son and his better half, Elizabeth

My previous blog consisted of a number of portfolios of my work, sorted by theme. This time around will be more discursive. Posts will replace portfolios for the most part.

This is a picture of my grandson washing the van. The boy serves notice that Hoffmandu will be heavily into what matters to me – no, not the vehicle.