After a couple months of website neglect, I thought it might be about time to let everyone know what I’ve been up to. The truth is, I’ve got a few too many irons in the fire right now, but I’m alright with that. Having to decide which interesting thing to do next is a good problem to have.

Much of my time since the last post went toward a recent class that I went back to CCS (my old college) to take. Many people look at the work I’ve done in the past, and believe that I cast everything. The truth is, everything I make is machined first, to ensure accuracy, and then is ground with a rotary tool to get all of the contouring. It’s a long, wasteful, and painful process, but it works.

So why learn to cast metal now? Two things prompted the decision. One, was the undertaking of “No.7″. That clock was so large, that it took a ridiculous amount of grinding. To do more work on that scale, it may be worth it to find a way to combine the process of metal-casting with the accuracy of machining. The other thing, is that I’ve been considering making limited runs of smaller pieces. In order to get something cast in multiples, I thought I should understand the process, so I can more easily talk to the vendors. It was great to visit my old college again, and it was VERY fun pouring a giant vat of molten metal into the investments!

So that was one of the irons in the fire, but it caused me to do a lot of thinking about my process, and what’s next. For a while there, I was mentally being pulled in a few directions at once. It was hard to make a decision and keep going.

But – now I’m going again. I’ve been working on the hybrid clock from the last post, and in its construction, I’ve also tried some new things. This one is going to be large, for a quartz piece. In order to make the rim of the face large, and thick, to match the clock, I did something different this time. I bought some 1 1/4 inch square bar, and I took it to a place to have it bent, hydraulically, into a perfect radius. I’m going to machine it further on my rotary table, and the end result should look great. You can see the two rolled bars off to the side of the photo. The straight parts will be removed once I finish machining everything. It might seem a little confusing in the photo, but it will all make sense when I get it assembled. It’s going to be around 3ft X 3ft.

A few other odds and ends:

Last year, I poured a lot of time into planning for a very large commission, that unfortunately is either on hold, or not happening at all. Work will go on as usual; no point in holding my breath. This whole process did get me thinking about how to tackle large scale projects, and as a result, I have some innovative things that I’ll post in the future.

Also, this June, I’ll be bringing a couple of pieces to a gallery in New York for a show. A lot of preparation is going to be required just to transport, and display them. I’ll post more details on everything later, but if you’re in the area at the end of June, you can see “No.7″ on display, and ticking for the first time in a public show! Opening night is June 28th, and it will hang for three months.

That’s all for now. I’ve got a lot to catch up on, but I don’t want to overload this post. More to come soon!