Like Frying Bacon

As you have probably noticed (all two of you who read this blog) I haven't posted anything for the past two weeks, but this time I have an awesome reason for not doing so and that reason is this:

Welding. Say it with me, welding. W-E-L-D-I-N-G, roll it around and contemplate it. More to the point my last two Saturdays have been spent at the Rochester Arc & Flame Center taking their two day eight hour sculpture class that uses the MIG welding process. The simple way of explaining it is that its a lot like using a glue gun. The longer way is that a consumable wire electrode is fed through a torch tip like gun with an inert gas to shield it. A circuit is made (with clamps and things) which make an electric arc that melts the metal together. You also have to hold the tip of the gun 1/4th to 3/8ths of an inch away from your welding. Too far away and it spatters and pops but when its the right distance away it sounds like frying bacon. 

After practicing laying down beads, it was time to have fun practicing with scrap! From left to right I have a lousy abstract sculpture, a cool  doorstop, a base for a bud vase, and a small wall hanging. Personally, I like the doorstop and wall hanging the most along with the final project for the first day of the class:

A Universal Positioning Device (To borrow the one of the instructors' jokes!) To us laymen it is a stool and a surprisingly handy one too. Bonus fact: I cut out those cross braces with a plasma cutter, which was lots of fun and easy to use, except it shows every stop, start, and jittery hand movement you made.

Day two was eight hours to work on a sculpture you designed. I decided to go all out since part of the reason I took a welding class was to work in a larger scale. It took me an extra hour and quite a bit of help, but I ended up with

THIS FREAKING AWESOME FIVE FOOT SEVEN INCH GIRAFFE!! There's nothing to say about this other than it's a big ol' animal sculpture and I made it. Other than being wildly happy about it I already have a million touch up plans to make it even better. Of course because of all this I've been eyeing MIG welders in catalogs and staring at a short TIG welding workshop also offered by Arc & Flame because apparently TIG welding, although difficult and finicky, can be used in jewelry.

Enjoy this giraffe head detail before we must return to college arts, which also has had a lot happening on that front, from Runway 5.0 to me finishing my super secret glasses project.

Science Fiction Flashback & Studio Blah

While prowling around the internet recently I found out that the Star Wars concept artist, Ralph McQuarrie, had passed. It's interesting to look through the images of his work and to find out through the article that he was responsible for much of the Star Wars aesthetic. It also hadn't occurred to me that Star Wars does indeed have its own distinctive aesthetic as compared to other sci-fi franchises. Perhaps it's because I was more of a Star Trek kid?

Nothing thrilling happening on the studio front; my love-hate relationship continues in ceramics, the details are driving me up the wall in CAD, I'm doing super secret things in jewelry and finally finished a piece in metalsmithing. My nested vessel went from this:

To this over an all too short spring break:

During which time it gained the title Sea Flute and coincidentally resembles this lamp at ARTISANworks which is a take off of Maryling Monroe's white dress in the infamous photo of her standing over a street vent.

I swear I made Sea Flute before I even saw the lamp, I guess curving, flared forms are in now? For anyone who missed it my thoughts on ARTISANworks can be read here in last week's post. Ciao until the next project lurches towards completion!