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.
Tuesday, February 1, 2011 at 9:03AM
Many of my sculptures create optical illusions. Often patterns emerge that aren't really there. The following video is of a different type of optical illusion. The creator uses the flattening of an image through video to fool the eye. Fascinating to watch.
Thursday, January 27, 2011 at 6:48PM
David has been extremely busy over the past few weeks. He has been building the first full group of Silver Song kinetic sculptures, continuously plowing snow on our driveways, and working on a commission piece. The large commission piece is for a private collector in Missouri and it has reached the operational stage which is always exciting. Soon David will be showing a video of it in motion. But for now here is still photo of David tinkering. I snapped this earlier this week when he need some help in the placement of the sculpture.
This is a critical part of building every sculpture he creates and the portion that is impossible to explain. He is always watching the sculpture - looking for little oddities, a wheel moving too slowly, a odd jerk, a clank, lack of balance. These are subtle things and hard for others to see. It is David's attention to all these occurrences during the tinkering phase that makes a huge difference in the essence of the motion when done.
Here is another quick shot, this one from today after an additional 16 inches of snow. It is impacting studio time for sure!
Friday, January 21, 2011 at 8:23AM
While neither of these posts today would qualify as kinetic "art" both would make anyone that enjoys kinetic art and sculpture stop and smile.
The first video is definitely connected to the wonderful inventions of Rube Goldberg. I think most kinetic artists were drawn in by Rube Goldberg inventions and studied his cartoons in detail. In fact I have a hazy memory of one being printed every week in the Sunday comics .
Relax, enjoy and laugh!
Thanks to B. Schrieber for sharing this video via Facebook.
I have shared other works by UK artist Brett Dickins here on this site before. This one made me smile.
Thanks to Dug North at The Automata/Automaton Blog for the link.
Saturday, January 15, 2011 at 4:26PM While my work is mechanical in nature, viewers often see organic similarities. Check out the work of Washington artist Casey Curran. Casey has taken organic to an entirely new level. Fascinating to watch
The White Series (biosphere) from casey curran on Vimeo.
Visit Casey's website for additional information and more videos.
Tuesday, December 28, 2010 at 1:34PM
I built Dyad in 1986 when was experimenting with small freestanding sculptures and random motion. This is a small piece standing about 13 inches tall. It has two independent mechanisms each with its own spring and winder. Each mechanism contributes part of its momentum to the common base motion creating a jerky back and forth rotation. The sculpture only runs for about 30 minutes which was pretty typical for my small sculptures of that time period.