ONCE when a Lion was asleep a little Mouse began running up and down upon him; this soon wakened the Lion, who placed his huge paw upon him, and opened his big jaws to swallow him. “Pardon, O King,” cried the little Mouse: “forgive me this time, I shall never forget it: who knows but what I may be able to do you a turn some of these days?” The Lion was so tickled at the idea of the Mouse being able to help him, that he lifted up his paw and let him go. Some time after the Lion was caught in a trap, and the hunters, who desired to carry him alive to the King, tied him to a tree while they went in search of a wagon to carry him on. Just then the little Mouse happened to pass by, and seeing the sad plight in which the Lion was, sent up to him and soon gnawed away the ropes that bound the King of the Beasts. “Was I not right?” said the little Mouse.

Ok, I admit the blog title today is a bit cheesy, but appropriate. Today’s piece started out as a simple homage to Rousseau’s jungle art, but subsequently added a bit of Max Ernst in, and then all tied together in Aesop. Let’s see the start…

In the sticks

Even at this early stage, all three influences are showing through: 1. The jungle setting of Henri Rousseau, with a lion placed in a rather ecologically incorrect mannter. 2. The almost mechanical forest paintings of Max Ernst and 3. The fable of the Lion and the Mouse. The metal sticks used for the jungle backdrop are something that have shown up in a few of my pieces, including Stick in the Mud, as well as a series I did in Second Life.

Let’s look at the Lion:

Lion around

My father’s used bike parts served a great deal in the formation of the lion, with a gear as mane and a brake part as the piece that goes from the tail to one of the front paws. The head is a latch of some sort. The other two legs are shower faucet handles, I believe. After the lion was all attached, I quickly got to painting everything:

Purple trees and orange skies

I initially had the lion alone in the jungle, but as seen above, he seemed a bit lonely, and wanted a little story to it. That is where the Aesop’s fable came into play. It also yet another night and moon scene at first, but the dusk feel seems to work well for this setting, and I probably needed a change after about 10 moon scenes in a row. So it became a sun.

Almost done

The lion temporarily lost his eyes here, but was attached to the box, as well as all the jungle trees, and this was the first point I could stand the piece upright. Though hard to see, the mouse and rope bindings have been added back in again. At this point it was just a matter of cleaning up the mouse and attaching the ropes, as well as the eyes of course. Here are a few views of the final piece:

The Lion and the Mouse

The Lion and the Mouse - Left Angle

The Lion and the Mouse - Right Angle

The Lion and the Mouse is a 15 x 13 x 4 inch shadowbox and is available. Feel free to contact me with any questions.

Also get a print!

Today’s art is the followup piece to the one I submitted to the contest mentioned above, La Lunaphant. This is a somewhat smaller variation, and has a body that is similar to some of my older elephant assemblages. Like La Lunaphant though, it all started with a box:

A rather worn jewelry box

A jewelry box to be precise. And one with one missing drawer. (Someday I should make an elephant using a trunk as the enclosure…) I needed to first remove the lid as well as the top inside drawer. Next I had to add a wood panel where the second drawer was missing.

The side is fixed

Next I painted it the familiar maroonish color I like to use for many of my boxes, and a deep blue/black for the inside of the box. Instead of sticks as in the previous lunaphant, I used some material that looks like savannah grass.

Rusty Grass

For the elephant itself I used a clock body, in addition to the familiar parts seen in earlier boxyphant pieces, such as the steamer part and boat rig piece for the trunk.

Time for clock parts

At this point it was a bunch of painting and attaching. Like many of my other moon pieces, I used the little star washers for the moon glow. Some debris was added on the lower right, with a clock gear right in the center of it all. Here are a couple shots of the finished work.

Little Lunaphant - Right View

Little Lunaphant - Center View

Little Lunaphant may be a bit smaller than the original but still has the same nocturnal-dwelling spirit of its momma.  The box itself is 4 x 6 x 8 and can either be hung or set on a flat surface. You can adopt Little Lunaphant for $200. Feel free to contact me with any questions about this piece.

I learned (both from here at home and away) was what one of the objects from this outing was. I didn’t get a picture of it before I started working so here is one I found on the web:

Snaffle Bit

For anyone familiar with horses, which doesn’t include me, this is quite familiar. It’s a snaffle bit, and according to wikipedia it “is the most common type of bit used while riding horses. It consists of a bit mouthpiece with a ring on either side and acts with direct pressure.”

So there you have it. This bit and a very worn coinpurse became the start of this piece. To me, the rings of the bit look like they are being held by little hands, so thought it might be interesting to have these hands come out of the purse. I got an initial design going, and this is how it looked:

I opted for another shadowbox composition to house them, with some lockfaces as background, and a piece of wood that says “silent butler” at the bottom (which was one of the many items Cheri has found in her journeys.

As we learned about the snaffle bit earlier, it may as well also be mentioned that a silent butler is a small receptacle with a handle and a hinged lid, used for collecting crumbs or ashes, according to the American Heritage Dictionary.

So the silent butler piece looked like it would look good as a drawer, so I constructed one with it. I had it slightly longer than the box, so it would be sticking out just a bit (but not a snaffle bit)

First a photo of the drawer constructed…

And then with it inserted..

As can be seen springs were added. I wanted the purse to have the feeling of being sitting in the drawer, but needed to fill it up with something so it would be sitting at the top. The main parts attached, painting was next. Once I get to this painting stage, I don’t really like to deal with progress photos. With that in mind, the next photo shows the piece very much near the end.

The issues at this point were 1) attached the glass beads to the lock parts in the back, 2) glueing each spring in the drawer, and 3) getting the bit to stay both upright and overlap a little. #1 and #2 were straightforward, though #2 was a bit messy and smelly. For #3, I used a bit of wire, as I didn’t want to rely on glue alone. With that the piece was done. Here are several shots of the finished piece:

Silent Butler

Silent Butler - Left Top View

Silent Butler - Right Top View

Silent Butler - Left View

Silent Butler is 14 x 9 x 8 inches. It can either hang on the wall or does fine sitting on a surface as well. It is $550. Feel free to contact me or check out other assemblages.

Bad Hair Day

Definitely not static, unless we are talking static electricity, at least the visual after effects. Now the big question is how this would all be attached. Watt I came up with may not be a shock to those who stay current with my art.

Boxed Frame

Yep, another box, or rather a boxed frame, if you will. I thought of attached all the hooks with epoxy, but it sounded like it would turn into a huge mess. Instead I decided upon this frame, into which I would drill many many holes and then insert the hooks, as well as using some goop to keep them in place. This turned out to be quite the undertaking.

I'm getting hooked

This part took a few weeks of on-again off-again work, as much as I could do before getting sick of them. I must add at this point that I like to have 2 or 3 art pieces going at once for this very reason. At some point during all this I added sand, because, no matter how many hooks I added, the wood underneath could be seen through and it felt unfinished. I was quite happy with the way it looked:

Sand in the hair

Next it was time to revisit the center…you know, that which is supposed to be the visual focus of the piece. I had spent so much time trying to get the “worms” to work that this part went a bit neglected. Here is a shot of how it looked after they were mostly complete:

Before the switch

The main components of the interior consist of the underbelly of a toy train, a spring, a peeler, belt buckles and some other kitchen utensil. At this point the center composition seems dwarfed by the activity around it. So basically, that which had been the focal point from the start of the piece was yanked. But what would replace it?

Heating Element

A heating element which screws into a light socket became the focal point.This provided more of a contrast to the exterior activity, as well as being a more dominant object. I added the belt buckles again underneath, and added some long “nails” that would go inside the element. Some magenta touchup was made to the peg hooks so that they would tie back into the interior more.

I tried taking pictures of this today and am largely dissatisfied with them. I had trouble getting crispness in the photos, except for the detail shot. But here they are:

Tesla Medusa (center view)

Tesla Medusa - detail

Tesla Medusa (left view)

I may replace these photos if I can get better shots in the future.
Tesla Medusa is 18 x 11 x 5 inches. It is a hanging piece, but seems to be self-standing as well, though not intended as such. Feel free to contact me with any questions about.

The Wilder Remakes

WIlder at Heart

The Wilder One

Born to be Wilder

Where the Wilder Things Are

Boxes of Turtle

I called this one “Boxes of Turtle,” for obvious reasons. Though only going to Canada, it had a much rougher ride than the one going to Australia did. It arrived with the top piece of metal dented, a bottom piece knocked off completely and the glass, which is over an inch thick, cracked. The first parts could be fixed, but the glass of course could not. So we both decided, in the spirit of Marcel DuChamp, that the Postal Service finished the piece for me.

I then decided to make a third, and probably final piece. In the following two progress photos, please not the difference between the glass:

As you can see I decided to take the bumpy ride that Piece #2 suffered in the mail and incorporate it into the series. As the theme is shipwreck, you would expect to see some cracked glass after all. So In #3, I went and threw the glass against the concrete a few times. Considering I had to actually throw the glass at the concrete to get the above results, it makes me wonder whether the Post Office threw the package from the top of a four story building.

Anyways, here are a few final shots of “Boxes of Shipwrecks II” which is the third in the series but is “II” because piece #2 is called Boxes of Turtle. Always good to be clear.

Boxes of Shipwreck II

Boxes of Shipwreck II - Right Angle

Boxes of Shipwreck II - Left Angle

Boxes of Shipwreck II is 12 x 9 x 4 inches. It is available and is $400. Feel free to contact me or also check out other assemblages.

Here’s how it began:

The main inspiration for this piece was the larger piece of metal on the left, which forms the head, trunk and front leg. At first I thought it was a shame that this all worked so well, seeing as how how it would be to match it for the back of the elephant. Instead of shelving it, and probably never finding the right piece, I instead decided to have the back half have a “clockwork elephant” feel, made up of many little parts. I saw potential in this so decided to continue.

It was early on that I decided that the box would be a nice way to feature the elephant, as most of the animal assemblages I have done to this point have been freestanding. So I took the box, and first started to attach the head piece to it.

Attaching the elephant to the box proved to be the most difficult part, as I wanted it raised about an inch from the back, which meant a series of bolts with a nut attached in the back as well as another to keep the body parts in place.

After a lot of cursing this is what it looked like:

Next the elephant would get a golden-brown paint job, the moon would be affixed and painted, and a very familiar moon glow was added. I also added some brush in the right back of the piece as it looked kind of empty. I have no more progress photos at this point so will share some views of the final piece. After taking these I realized I used my less-than-ideal lens, but hope these images are good enough for viewing:

Lu Lunaphant

Lu Lunaphant - Left Angle

Lu Lunaphant - Right Angle

“La Lunaphant” is a mysterious elephant that only appears under a full moon, especially a very gear-looking moon. It scours the earth in search of WD-40 to keep its joints well-oiled. This shadowbox (elephant and moon included!) is 9 x 10 x 4 and is sold. Feel free to contact me or see other animal assemblages.

There is a second video of Lil Drac as well.

As you may have guessed, the art I am about to show is a bat. Like so many other pieces, the objects found largely determine the direction. Earlier this week, I went to a sale through Craig’s List that stated old stuff was for sale. It took 40 minutes to get there (though part of that was due to I-35 being a parking lot). It was located behind a boat shop and I had a drive down a dirt road into an area with storage sheds. I figured I would either get gunned down or find some interesting stuff.

Fortunately the latter occurred. I gathered a number of interesting objects, haggled with the owner a bit, and walked away with some rather overpriced pieces of charming junk.

One of the pieces I got formed the larger part of the bat body. It is a hollow circular piece of metal with 2 points sticking out both on its top and bottom. The 2 points on top looked like bat ears to me, so I figure that’s how it started. I added a heavy duty hook that serves both as a hook, as well as the fangs. Wings were made from some kind of vice grips. And another circle with metal mesh became the belly. First lets look at the back side and see how it all attaches:

Back of Bat

Next I did an initial paintjob:

Bat - First coat of paint

The main body dried very dark so I added speckles of gold and into it for highlights, as well as altering the wings a bit.

As I mentioned, I didn’t get many photos, so let’s see the final:

Rolypoly Bat - Angle

Personally I think this piece looks better at a bit of an angle, which can be achieved easily by adding a nail as support to either of the wings. Here is an example of how that would look:

Rolypoly Bat - Angle

RolyPoly Bat is a very well fed bat; Its metal mosquito netting belly comes in very handy for those late night flights searching for nourishment. Roly has a wingspan of 15 inches and is 9 inches from tip-of-ear to toe. RolyPoly has been sold. Feel free to check out other available animal assemblages.

Recently I have been using shadowboxes, and having found another nice little box at the Goodwill Restore, it seemed time for another. I like to have the action spill out of my frames and boxes. I had some object that what either a toy or a decoration, in which a 5 gold circles of various sizes were attached to a thin rod. I took them apart, and created a composition in which they either spiral into or spiral out of the shadowbox. In this inital design I took some stamped squares of metal, into which or out of which these shapes would appear:

The first trick was trying to attach these circles to the box. I wanted to have the largest furthest from the back, and one of the two smallest right near the back. This would requiring nailing the largest to the edge of the box, and attaching the next three with a series of screws. The last would be glued to the materials at the bottom.

It seemed like a good start, but was lacking something. If you are familiar with my other moon spirits, the next step I took should come as no surprise.

Another little moon spirit is born, made of various bits of metal, including some chain gear as its arms. Most of the parts would attach with tiny computer screws.

It was about that point I had to set it aside. I had created what I thought was a final version, but the square bits didn’t seem right. As I had glued them all down, it required a lot of ripping out of metal and glue, and then retouching. The little moon spirit above also required some makeover. Later on, I found some more organic shapes to replace the squares. I don’t have any more progress shots at this point, as I think I was focussed on getting it done.

So with that here is the final product:

Moon Spirit Multiples is a shadowbox that measures about 5 x 4 x 10. It is available for $200. Feel free to contact me, as well as check out other available moon spirit assemblages.

Moon Spirit Multiples - Detail

Click on the following two thumbnails for a larger image.

The first thing to do was make a box to house the backdrop, as well as another piece that served as a lower shelf. The metal piece was set on another piece of wood inside the box and screwed down to it later on.

The next photo shows the early stages of the composition. I found another rod that I cut and served as the other two girders inside the box. Some metal squares that I have used in several other pieces would serve as the background pattern.

When I initially started this piece, I hadn’t thought of it as being part of any particular series. But as I continued to work, I figured that the gears from the Pascal series would be ideal inside the holes, and at that point it became the third in that series. The below photo shows the addition of these images, as well as the first adding of color. While the first two Pascal works are brown/gold/yellow on the outside and blueish on the inside, this one is the reverse.

As seen, some springs were also added to the top and some cylindrical metal part were added to the girders. These have the feel of an abacus to me, but that just may be because I entered a mathematical state of mind once the Pascal aspect was added again.

The Pascal gears were added as a repeating but feint image along the outside blue border. Like many other pieces, they were taken from a photocopy and then transferred onto a gel medium,

While hard to see in the image above, a plank was added to the bottom of the metal lid, which gave it a little more visual support. While I thought the piece was just about done at that point, the interior wasn’t popping out the way I would have liked, so spent a considerable amount of time working on the color balance between the inside and outside, as well as the giving more emphasis to the little cylinders on the girders.

At last it seemed to come together. This piece is called Pascal’s Conveyor, and is 18 x 11 x 6 inches. It hangs on the wall, but have noticed it seems to stand on its own as well.

Click on the next three photos for a larger image.

Pascal's Conveyor

Pascal's Conveyor - Right Angle

Pascal's Conveyor - Left Angle

Pascal's Conveyor - Detail