Dragon from 1989

My current sculpture Phoenix was inspired by an earlier sculpture of mine called Dragon. I built a small edition of Dragon sculptures in 1989. This was long before I was doing digital video so I didn't have any record of the motion. Recently I had one come back for new strings. Other than the tangled strings it was in nearly perfect condition and ran great. I decided I could not pass up the opportunity to make a short video if it.

By my current standards Dragon didn't run very long and the stringing was a bit challenging but I loved the movement and pattern. If memory serves me correctly the patterning wheel design was the result of learning the Adobe drawing program Illustrator and inadvertintly turning the wheel inside out with a flubbed "scale" command!

Part 13 - Where do sculpture ideas come from?

I've been refining the design I put up in Part 12 with the idea of making a prototype. I like the general motion and pattern but I find the "flash" when the outside forms overlay each other distracting. I tried several different methods to get around this and finally found a very simple solution. I simply made the outside rings on the front wheel slightly larger than those on the back wheel. Now, rather than flashing, the two forms seem to flow into each other. I also gave the outer rings a little more form by thickening the center parts of each ring part.

Blizzard from 1979

I design and built Blizzard in 1979 as and edition of 75. It was one of the first sculptures I built using ball bearings. This is a weight drive sculpture using two independent mechanisms.

Each mechanism drives its own patterning wheel. The mechanisms operate at slightly different speeds so the wheels go in and out of phase. This was an early attempt to add constantly shifting patterns to my sculptures.

The sculpture runs very quickly but is quiet relative to my earlier pieces. It took several additional years of work to develop mechanisms that allowed me to control the pace of the motion.

Part 12 - Where do sculpture ideas come from?

I like what is happening in the center of the wheels wheels in part 11. In order to bring even more attention to this area I added more spokes and changed the inner arcs. The collapsing "star" inside of the expanding arcs is the mix of patterns that I have been looking for.

Now it is time to stop playing and get to work trying to translate these drawings and animations to wood and then building a spring driven mechanism that will move them.

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Part 11 - Where do sculpture ideas come from?

In part 10 I tried applying color to the outside crescent. As usual I found that I did not like it. The large areas of color obscured the underlying pattern. I removed the color and worked on the center of the wheels. I expanded the center circles. You can see the old circles in light blue. The larger circles had two benefits. The form of the inner crescent more accurately reflects the outer crescent and the center space opened up. I stretched the spoke connector to fill this space. 

I like this direction. I like the way the center draws my eye and the outer crescents frame it.

How about you?

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