We have been keeping a blog since 2008. It is a chronological listing of many topics related to Wood that Works. You will find information about sculptures, inspirations, other artists, day to day life in the shop. The topics are many and fascinating. If you are an avid follower of David's work we encourage you to subscribe to this blog to receive the regular updates.
People often ask where David gets his ideas and it can be a lengthy question to answer. Everything in life is an inspiration to an artist; it just may take a while for it to come to fruition in a creative work. Today, David is introducing his latest kinetic sculpture, Swoop and the original idea for this piece came from an 8mm Howdy Doody video from his childhood. David shares more about the origin and provides a link to the actual movie (now up on YouTube thanks possibly to someone else that loved it as a child as well) at the actual sculpture page here.
Swoop Technical Details:
Limited Edition of 95 Size: 29"h x 23"w x 5"d Power Source: Constant Force Spring Run Time: Approximateely 10 hours per winding
This piece is the combination of two new leaps David has recently made in mechanism design. Previously, his mechanisms always gave a power push through a minimum of 120 degrees. He needed to reduce the angle in order to give many small pushes verses one big push. To get the impact of the swoop motion he needed the smaller pushes. Swoop pushes through an angle of 60 degrees. He combined that new mechanism with a technique to have the front wheel move in an opposing direction without having a drive belt running directly in front of it. Those two "discoveries" allowed him to finally create the Swoop motion he remembered from the Howdy Doody film.
The Swoop mechanism works well in a smaller scale. So much kinetic sculpture is large scale and not appropriate for personal ownership. David has always tried to create sculptures that can fit in the homes. Swoop does that a bit more easily than some of his recent works.
David has just introduced a new sculpture edition. He has revisited the mesmerizing yet peaceful motion of flight combined with a touch of playfulness in "Frolic".
David developed a new ratchet system which allows for the sculpture to be very, very quiet, almost silent but not quite. He has again added music to the video because he discovered a new on line source for royalty free classical music!
Frolic Technical Details:
Limited Edition of 95 - Signed and Numbered Size: Can vary but basic dimensions are Power Source - constant Force Spring Run Time - Approximately 9 hours per winding
Frolic is composed of two base pieces, one is the spring and power source and the other is the motion. There is a degree of flexibility in how these are mounted on the wall which allows for Frolic fitting into many different spaces well. It works in a room with high ceilings as well as one wit normal 8 foot ceilings.
Frolic is on display (along with lots of other sculptures) in David's studio/gallery which is open by appointment. Click here for more information on visiting.
He will be crafting the first group during September and they will be ready for shipping at the beginning of October. He is taking orders now. Click here for more information on ordering. There are additional photographs and details on the Frolic webpage here.
David just released the video and photographs of his second new sculpture edition for 2012. It is the birth of a butterfly, not because David designed a butterfly, but because that is what viewers see now that it is a reality. People often "see" things represented in David's work.
Check out the YouTube video to see the motion of this mesmerizing kinetic sculpture.
In this design, David decided to make the mechanism very visible. He opened up the front and put all the parts right there for you to see. Those of you that have been studying David's work for years can really observe an escapement mechanism in action in this design.
Monarch Technical Details:
Limited Edition of 95 - Signed and numbered Size: 34"H x 34"w x 7" d Power source: Constant Force Spring Approximate Runtime per winding: 7.5 hours
Monarch is on display in David's studio/gallery. Click here for more information on visiting the gallery by appointment.
He will be crafting the first group during June and they will be ready for shipping at the beginning of July. He is taking orders now. Click here for more information on ordering.
I’m often asked how long it takes to design a sculpture. My normal answer is that it varies, it can be days, months or even years. I think Labyrinth holds the record for length of time from conception to final execution.
I started working on it in 2007. The inspiration came from an animation I found online showing an interesting optical effect created when multiple parallel straight lines are rotated in opposite directions. (Unfortunately I can no longer find the animation.) I loved the dynamic patterns created and started a set of animation studies of my own. I wanted to see if I could extend the concept to wooden wheels. The practical constraints were different of course. Wood lines have to have a certain thickness and they need to be tied together with a hub and a bearing system. I played with dozens of different designs, drawing in Adobe Illustrator and animating in After Effects. I found that if I curved the lines and tied them together at the rim I could retain elements of the original concept but add a subtle shift in the dynamics. Of course it could be that I just prefer curves!
(working photo of prototype on test wall)
The wheel design turned out to be the easy part. Next I had to design a mechanism to move the wheels at the pace and in the directions I had developed in the animations. What is easy to do on the computer screen was a completely different challenge in the analog world! The wheel closest to the wall was the work horse. It had to rotate in both directions and occasionally give the front wheel a little nudge. It had to do all this while moving slowly so the patterns could evolve and flow at a pace that felt right to me.
The problem was the wheels were heavy and took a lot of energy to get moving and even more to stop and reverse direction. I thought I had a solution, two separate mechanisms that that would work together to power the sculpture. The mechanisms would work together with one side rotating the back wheel clockwise and the other side counter-clockwise. Each side would have its own drive spring so I would have ample energy to play with. I built the complete sculpture and it worked, sort of.
The patterning motion was as I had hoped but the sculpture was hard to set up and operate. It was also very inefficient. I was using two drive springs and only getting around 5 hours of run time. It was also difficult to keep it from stalling when I had the wheels moving slowly enough. I brought the sculpture down to the house and set it up on the “preview wall” in our dining room so we could live with it. It was there long enough that my daughter’s boyfriend (and now husband), Jared came up with the name. In the end I took it down and packed it away, it was too complex and unreliable. I felt a little bad because it was a great name chosen by the newest member of the family but the mechanism was a failure. (Naming sculptures is a family and friends challenge because I'm so bad at names!)
A few months ago I unpacked just the patterning wheels, spun them by hand and decided they were worth another effort. I have learned a lot about mechanism efficiency in the past 5 years and had some new ideas about how to handle the large wheels. The result, using a new mechanism design, was far different this time.
The sculpture produces exactly the motion I wanted, it’s easy to set up and operate and it runs for a bit over 12 hours on a single spring. The key is the 5 little wood balls you see marching up the string; actually not the balls but what they are covering, a short section of coil spring.
This spring absorbs the extra energy of the rotating back wheel when it comes to the end of its rotation in one direction and then feeds it back to the wheel but in the opposite direction. The rest of the 2 lever mechanism is also new but the use of this spring to aid in the change of direction was the breakthrough. Sometimes patience and frustration pays off!
The new Labyrinth operates for over 12 hours on a single spring wind. The mechanism is flexible and reliable enough that I could set exactly the pace I wanted. It’s also far easier to install and operate than the old version.
Link here to go to the website for additional ordering information on Labyrinth.
David finished his first production run of North Star last week as we were dealing with the lack of power in the Hurricane Irene aftermath. Timing worked out because David was up to final assembly and testing, neither of which requires much electricity.
David is going to have to adjust his schedule when working on sculptures like North Star. It has an incredible runtime of over 40 hours on a single winding. He has always tried to get each sculpture to finish two complete windings in the testing cycle. North Star remarkably just takes too long!
In the early days of Wood That Works David often heard the question, "Can you make it run longer?" I don't expect many will ask that now.
North Star has mesmerizing optical patterns. Two of the visual phases are shown above. You can view a video of it in motion here.
Tuesday, April 9, 2013 at 3:21PM 
