Sunday, March 29th .... Yesterday was about the best possible of the early spring days, 65 degrees and sunny, where you want to be outside just every second, followed by today when it was mostly cloudy with occasional cloudbursts and showers, high in the 40's. I've been reading this sort of tedious, sort of interesting book, called 'The Black Swan' by Nassim Nicholas Taleb. It's about the power of unforeseen and unpredictable events (prescient I guess this guy is since it was published in 2007). Two of its more interesting (to me) premises are #1. the thought that the daily news just reinforces our views and can close our minds to new ideas, an interesting idea to someone who has spent a not small part of his life reading The New York Times, and #2.,that prediciting the future is a nearly useless, wasted effort.. That hit close to home on my woodworking estimates. I can make a plan with my morning coffee and it can go out the window 10 minutes after I get to the shop. Happens time and time again. The Black Swan guy uses as an example the Sydney Opera House that was supposed to open in 1963 at a cost of 7 million Australian $. It actually opened around 1973 at a cost of 104 million Australian $. Even I'm not that bad. So today, in honor of premise #1, for the first time I can remember, I made a point of not buying the Sunday Times and of not sitting on the couch and reading it. I decided instead to make a new sculpture. It's been rattling around the metalshop in parts and pieces for a month or so and today was just its day I guess. We get our fair share of good old red sunsets here, at least when the leaves are off the trees and after about 12 years or so of them, they bore into your brain and show up in your sketch book when you least expect them, like here, back in November. Anyway, there's not much to my sculpture ... some 1.25" solid steel square stock that will eventually turn a nice rusty orange out in the rain, some kind of base and a red/orange (or maybe gold leaf) sun/moon motif. The one in the picture's spray painted plywood. I mocked up the base today using some pressure treated 2 x 12's, cut on the cnc, and later, I'll probably use some locust planks I have stickered and drying. I cut two different hole patterns but didn't have enough steel verticals to mock up the alternative, dual sided concept. Maybe next Sunday I'll finish it if I can truly kick the newspaper habit ... We'll see ... Click the pictures to enlarge them ...
From my sketchbook ... 11/7/08
The temporarily 'finished' piece ... Just before dark Sunday evening ... high ISO digital photography is your friend .. available light, ISO 1000
Showing the alternate double sided pattern
Cutting the square holes on the CNC
Lining up the assembly with a short steel and a framing square ...