Tuesday, March 15, 2011
Story Project
The next project that I am to be working on is to be based around a narrative, and it is to have a flange. Here are the two spider charts for my main ideas.
They do not look very large, but they say big things come in small packages. I have quite the narrative in mind.
Sunday, March 13, 2011
New York Times Monday March 7, 2011 - A Libyan Leader at War With Rebels, and Reality
Speaking of the Middle-East, I have been following the goings-on over there for quite some time, especially since the Egyptian revolts. It is a terrible thing that there is so much violence going on over there - wars upon wars upon wars, all because a few people want all the power. It would be nice to see peace returned to the Middle-East in my lifetime, with free people in free nations. Some wonder if this is possible; I know it is, but it will mean a whole region embracing kinship over war. And this inevitably means that the warmongers need to be defeated. But the little people have to act; as has been said, if the good people do nothing, evil will prevail. The hatred and the oppression and the bloodshed will continue.
I wonder if the Western world realizes this yet?
I wonder if the Western world realizes this yet?
The Long Night
So it has been some time since my last update. The reason is, as I like to put it, "The sky fell on me." That is what I usually say when such things happen - and by such things, I mean all sorts of things happen at once and I somehow have to deal with all of them. Some medical, some work-related (jewelry work that is), some people related. It has been quite the third-of-a-month.
Inlay
These two tiles have proven to be nothing but trouble. On the left we have the unfinished lamination inlay; on the right, the unfinished 'puzzle' inlay. Both are horrendous tasks. The puzzle was a failure three times in a row before it came to the form in the picture below; my first time around it melted halfway. Part of the lamination inlay melted as well. I had to fill holes in my puzzle inlay's silver flame. Hopefully when I grind it all down it will be all right; for now, it's a mess. I do not foresee myself ever using that puzzle technique. But those are often famous last words.
The solder inlay was challenging too, but it was a much easier inlay to get straight by simply dogging on. The othetr two, not so much. There is just something about inlay that seems to be tough.
The Road Goes Ever On
As Tolkien's famous Hobbit once said, the Road goes ever on and on, down from the door where it began. I have finished a number of tiles, but there are more to be done. A chasing and repousse, finishing up my brass etches and their accompanying rollerprints, and the two inlay tiles above. A total of twelve tiles finished as of now, and eight in the works. Most of those eight are almost done, but for some grunt work. Hopefully it will all turn out; the next post on the subject will be a post of the finished product.
Sidenote: I have been documenting my work for this tile project, but I also did some investing today. Casting-investing, not money-investing. It just occured to me that I forgot to take pictures of my three models before I invested them; ah well, such is life I suppose. I can only hope the cast turns out; I also hope I invested it properly. I did it all by hand, following the McCreight book's directions on the subject, as I did not know how to use the machine. Hopefully....well, hopefully it will all turn out, as I have said multiple times. A lot is up in the air right now concerning this sort of thing.
Speaking of which, today was spent sun-up 'til sundown in the studio working. Normally I can spread my work between home, school, and in between home and school, but the nature of the beast kept me underground all day. That said, the good news is that over the course of the weekend I made advancements in my twenty-Persia-tiles project. And so here is a chronological picture list.
Beginnings
I have always been fascinated with the ancient Near-East; as a child it was primarily Egypt that I knew about, watching documentaries on the History channel about such things. Being Catholic, I also knew of Israel; but it was not until recently that I started to learn more about the interconnectdness of all of them, and it was actually through a story - Prince of Persia, the one released 2008 - that I started to get more interested in Persian history. The most influential designs came from these pictures. There were others, but these three were the most important, imagery-wise.
Unfortunately I do not remember where I found these images; please note that I do not own them.
Design
Ancient Persia has a rich and complex mythology. Perhaps one of the best examples of its mythology is Zoroastrianism, a forerunner of Judaism and Christianity, and named after its prophet, Zoroaster. As mentioned elsewhere on this blog, his proper name was probably Zarathustra; Zoroaster is likely a Hellenization. Zoroastrianism was a religion that clearly emphasized the difference between Good and Evil forces, and Zarathustra was keen on ending the paganism he saw around him, considering all gods but Ormazd to be servants of the evil Ahriman. Note that Ormazd did have servants of his own - the sx Immortals, among others. Sounds quite a bit like God and His angels arrayed against Satan and his Legion.
Onward
The actual work aspect of the project has been (as hopefully expected) the most challenging piece of the puzzle. I started with etching; I have been etching at home, and I am glad I did that. It has taken my etching far longer than the 1-2 hours that it should be taking. More like 5. Why so long, I do not know; perhaps it is just I am going for a deeper etch than other people.
Tiles post etching.
Tiles ready to be etched for rollerprinting.
Completed tiles. The Top Right tile of the second picture has been etched and solder inlaid in the eyeys and nose. Many of these have been patinaid with Liver of Sulfur
Etched and Solder Inlay. Not complete; after his eye is finished being sanded he will be patinaid like the others.
Rollerprinting
Rollerprinting is a relatively quick, easy, and painless process. It might take a few tries to get right, but each try is a sneeze considering the amount of work it takes for other jewelry processes. About the most involved thing one has to do might be a bit of annealing afterwards. This is why, when two of my other designs failed (miserably, I might add) I replaced them with rollerprints. I had originally intended three first-tier rollerprints and two second-tier rollerprints, but I ended up with five first-tier.
First-tier: when one uses a found object to create a rollerprint - straight from object to copper.
Second-tier: a rollerprint that started life as another jewelry process - I.E. a pattern cut out of a
brass sheet that is rolled over a sheet of copper to produce the final product.
My two second-tier rollerpints will come from these tiles after they are etched:
The First One
Indeed, this was the very first tile I made, shown here before it was fully done.
Left: the 'maquette'
Right: the finished First One
Three tries at another rollerprint. The far left was the one I ended up using.
The five finished first-tier rollerprints. All but the First One (bottomm right) also have a hammer texture.
Inlay
These two tiles have proven to be nothing but trouble. On the left we have the unfinished lamination inlay; on the right, the unfinished 'puzzle' inlay. Both are horrendous tasks. The puzzle was a failure three times in a row before it came to the form in the picture below; my first time around it melted halfway. Part of the lamination inlay melted as well. I had to fill holes in my puzzle inlay's silver flame. Hopefully when I grind it all down it will be all right; for now, it's a mess. I do not foresee myself ever using that puzzle technique. But those are often famous last words.
The solder inlay was challenging too, but it was a much easier inlay to get straight by simply dogging on. The othetr two, not so much. There is just something about inlay that seems to be tough.
The Road Goes Ever On
As Tolkien's famous Hobbit once said, the Road goes ever on and on, down from the door where it began. I have finished a number of tiles, but there are more to be done. A chasing and repousse, finishing up my brass etches and their accompanying rollerprints, and the two inlay tiles above. A total of twelve tiles finished as of now, and eight in the works. Most of those eight are almost done, but for some grunt work. Hopefully it will all turn out; the next post on the subject will be a post of the finished product.
Sidenote: I have been documenting my work for this tile project, but I also did some investing today. Casting-investing, not money-investing. It just occured to me that I forgot to take pictures of my three models before I invested them; ah well, such is life I suppose. I can only hope the cast turns out; I also hope I invested it properly. I did it all by hand, following the McCreight book's directions on the subject, as I did not know how to use the machine. Hopefully....well, hopefully it will all turn out, as I have said multiple times. A lot is up in the air right now concerning this sort of thing.
Sunday, February 27, 2011
A Visit to New York City and Other News - Part II
Well, considering my last entry did not mention New York (save for a brief mention of the Times), I will now speak of it.
As readers may already be aware, this trip was partially mandatory for students in my art program. I say partially because I did the mandatory part but then I did some extra things that my fellows did not do. We attended art museums in New York City, namely the Museum of Modern Art (often called MOMA, of which my primary interest was thev architecture, actually). This had been my first visit to New York, and my thoughts were more on the sheer scale of the city.
We entered through the Lincoln Tunnel into what looked like an old district of the city, around Central Park. Which, honestly, is not so central, I found out - given the size of the city and us entering on the outskirts of it. My first impression was that it looked a lot like Baltimore, just bigger. This impression held with me until I left the rest of my group in SOHO and went on to seek out the diamond district and the location of my possible future, the Gemological Institute of America on 5th Avenue. It took us (my family and I) some time to get there, in no small part due to the amount of walking we had to do just to get back to our vehicle, and then once we did traffic funneled us across the Manhattan Bridge into Brooklyn, where we had to turn around and go back. It was a much warmer-looking section of the city, all of red brick, and I initially liked it more because of the warm colour - but on closer inspection I found that it looked very akin to certain areas in Baltimore. The good news is I got to see the Statue of Liberty from afar, and I am glad to have done that.
Going through the maze of the city, we passed by the Empire State Building and finally came to Times Square, where we luckily found some parking just off of it. We walked back through Times Square to reach the diamond area, and it was getting late. My initial reaction to Times Square was one of wonder; it was enormous, huge, brilliantly bright, full of lights and colour and people, and buildings tall beyond measure. I felt like the archetypical back-woods fellow who comes to the big city for the first time in his life and is amazed.
I was able to see the Diamond District, and witness the many wondrous things the jewelers there sell. It was dazzingly bright, so many diamons, plenty of gold and silver; it was all very exciting. I visited GIA, and when done, we finally set our sets towards heading home. We browsed Times Square briefly before heading home, and the more we browsed, the more the city's night life came alive. And that is when it all really started to grate on me.
New York City is huge and impressive. It was nice to visit, and I was glad to see many of its important sites, if only from afar. But it felt stark; the city's night life in particularly, rowdy as it may be, was not particularly nice to be around. It is not my kind of place. And it took a long time to get out of; the city is truly massive. And truly, can I really call Baltimore a city after that? Is any city I have been in comparable to New York? It went on for what seemed like miles - even crossing into New Jersey, the city still continued on in another form: Newark, New Jersey. And nary a tree to be seen. So much conrete and metal, and so little green. I was glad to have seen it, and just as glad to have left it. There may be those who love New York City, but from what I have seen, I am not one of those people.
It has been a long weekend, and I am very tired because of it, so now is the time for resting.
As readers may already be aware, this trip was partially mandatory for students in my art program. I say partially because I did the mandatory part but then I did some extra things that my fellows did not do. We attended art museums in New York City, namely the Museum of Modern Art (often called MOMA, of which my primary interest was thev architecture, actually). This had been my first visit to New York, and my thoughts were more on the sheer scale of the city.
We entered through the Lincoln Tunnel into what looked like an old district of the city, around Central Park. Which, honestly, is not so central, I found out - given the size of the city and us entering on the outskirts of it. My first impression was that it looked a lot like Baltimore, just bigger. This impression held with me until I left the rest of my group in SOHO and went on to seek out the diamond district and the location of my possible future, the Gemological Institute of America on 5th Avenue. It took us (my family and I) some time to get there, in no small part due to the amount of walking we had to do just to get back to our vehicle, and then once we did traffic funneled us across the Manhattan Bridge into Brooklyn, where we had to turn around and go back. It was a much warmer-looking section of the city, all of red brick, and I initially liked it more because of the warm colour - but on closer inspection I found that it looked very akin to certain areas in Baltimore. The good news is I got to see the Statue of Liberty from afar, and I am glad to have done that.
Going through the maze of the city, we passed by the Empire State Building and finally came to Times Square, where we luckily found some parking just off of it. We walked back through Times Square to reach the diamond area, and it was getting late. My initial reaction to Times Square was one of wonder; it was enormous, huge, brilliantly bright, full of lights and colour and people, and buildings tall beyond measure. I felt like the archetypical back-woods fellow who comes to the big city for the first time in his life and is amazed.
I was able to see the Diamond District, and witness the many wondrous things the jewelers there sell. It was dazzingly bright, so many diamons, plenty of gold and silver; it was all very exciting. I visited GIA, and when done, we finally set our sets towards heading home. We browsed Times Square briefly before heading home, and the more we browsed, the more the city's night life came alive. And that is when it all really started to grate on me.
New York City is huge and impressive. It was nice to visit, and I was glad to see many of its important sites, if only from afar. But it felt stark; the city's night life in particularly, rowdy as it may be, was not particularly nice to be around. It is not my kind of place. And it took a long time to get out of; the city is truly massive. And truly, can I really call Baltimore a city after that? Is any city I have been in comparable to New York? It went on for what seemed like miles - even crossing into New Jersey, the city still continued on in another form: Newark, New Jersey. And nary a tree to be seen. So much conrete and metal, and so little green. I was glad to have seen it, and just as glad to have left it. There may be those who love New York City, but from what I have seen, I am not one of those people.
It has been a long weekend, and I am very tired because of it, so now is the time for resting.
A Visit to New York City and Other News
We all have times when one becomes so busy with everything that the more superfluous details fall by the wayside. So it is with this journal, as I prefer to think of it; but regardless it is time to share recent news.
First and foremost, something that came to my attention: we are in general supposed to be reacting to articles from the New York Times, but news has reached me that I believe is far more important than anything the Times has written today (unless they too have written something about it). The issue concerns food. Apparently, the FDA is planning to approve genetically engineered and cloned organisms as foodstuffs (right now the issue on the table is genetically altered fish), and they will not even require labels to be put on these foodstuffs warning the public of their potential poison.
Yes, poison. I am an artist/artisan, it is true; I am in an art program. But what many people do not realize is that I am also a scientist. I have a fascination with biology in particular. It is not official, but the interest is there, and I can tell you that I know enough about biology to know that no human being, however brilliant, is a match for nature. We have no business genetically altering anything, be it flower, fish, tomato, or tree. It is one thing to breed one animal (or pea plant) with another to bring out the desired traits - it is quite another to tear into an organism's genetic code amd violate it by forcibly inserting the genes of, say, a jellyfish, into a chimpanzee! Or a more important issue is, currently, the creation of 'natural' pesticides. Natural, that is, by taking the genes that make a tomato plant's leaves and shoots toxic and inserting them into other plants. Food plants, Only one animal can eat a tomato plant and not die - the tomato horn-worm. Human beings can be killed by the poison. Indeed, it is only recently that humans realized that we could eat the tomato fruit without dying. Genetic engineering is a very serious issue, partially because there is no way we can predict the results (as much as scientists boast, we really have no idea how genes work and how interconnected they are), and what is more, those who perform this kind of alteration often think only of the supposed beneifts, and rarely (if ever) of the negatives.
So what shall we do about the FDA's decision to allow this? Stop them in their tracks, I say. At least we must make the attempt. They are obligated to listen to us, for we are the country's citizens. If they, once again, ignore what we as a people desire, then that is a whole other issue. But at the least we can make the attempt.
Here is how to do your part: write to your representatives and tell them to block these fish from our markets. Perhaps the easiest way to go about this is by following this link.
http://cfs.convio.net/site/Advocacy?s_oo=trNsbK4-VJ0Gosr6PxW99Q..&id=365
First and foremost, something that came to my attention: we are in general supposed to be reacting to articles from the New York Times, but news has reached me that I believe is far more important than anything the Times has written today (unless they too have written something about it). The issue concerns food. Apparently, the FDA is planning to approve genetically engineered and cloned organisms as foodstuffs (right now the issue on the table is genetically altered fish), and they will not even require labels to be put on these foodstuffs warning the public of their potential poison.
Yes, poison. I am an artist/artisan, it is true; I am in an art program. But what many people do not realize is that I am also a scientist. I have a fascination with biology in particular. It is not official, but the interest is there, and I can tell you that I know enough about biology to know that no human being, however brilliant, is a match for nature. We have no business genetically altering anything, be it flower, fish, tomato, or tree. It is one thing to breed one animal (or pea plant) with another to bring out the desired traits - it is quite another to tear into an organism's genetic code amd violate it by forcibly inserting the genes of, say, a jellyfish, into a chimpanzee! Or a more important issue is, currently, the creation of 'natural' pesticides. Natural, that is, by taking the genes that make a tomato plant's leaves and shoots toxic and inserting them into other plants. Food plants, Only one animal can eat a tomato plant and not die - the tomato horn-worm. Human beings can be killed by the poison. Indeed, it is only recently that humans realized that we could eat the tomato fruit without dying. Genetic engineering is a very serious issue, partially because there is no way we can predict the results (as much as scientists boast, we really have no idea how genes work and how interconnected they are), and what is more, those who perform this kind of alteration often think only of the supposed beneifts, and rarely (if ever) of the negatives.
So what shall we do about the FDA's decision to allow this? Stop them in their tracks, I say. At least we must make the attempt. They are obligated to listen to us, for we are the country's citizens. If they, once again, ignore what we as a people desire, then that is a whole other issue. But at the least we can make the attempt.
Here is how to do your part: write to your representatives and tell them to block these fish from our markets. Perhaps the easiest way to go about this is by following this link.
http://cfs.convio.net/site/Advocacy?s_oo=trNsbK4-VJ0Gosr6PxW99Q..&id=365
Sunday, February 13, 2011
New York Times; Thursday February 10, 2011; The Arts; Innovation Far Removed From the Lab, Particia Cohen
In this article Cohen sounds awfully surprised that consumers can innovate just as readily as producers; the revelation comes as a result of a Mr. Daniel Reetz (who works at Disney Research) built a scanner that could scan a 400-page book in 20 minutes without breaking the book's spine. To quote a well-paraphrased movie line (from the recent movie Iron Man), Mr. Reetz built his scanner "In his garage, with scraps!" Now, he might not have built it in his garage (he might not even have one), but the point remians the same: using junk he found in dumpsters he built his scanner. Following this industrial-grade scanner build, he posted a 79-step guide online and now roughly a mille of people has joined his forum, and 50 of them have followed in his footsteps. The cost of building it himself? Accordingly, $300, versus the $10,000 he would have to spend to buy one from a company.
Frankly, the whole article exudes an air of surprise that any person, no matter how humble, can innovate. I do not know if I can express in words just how ridiculous a notion this is (that only paid professionals can innovate). Yet apparently, (according to Cohen, mind you), the whole economic-legal-business district of life operates under this very assumption.
For goodness's sake we are human beings! What sets us apart from the rest of the natural world is our ability to make tools and connect the dots! Why is that so surprising?
Frankly, the whole article exudes an air of surprise that any person, no matter how humble, can innovate. I do not know if I can express in words just how ridiculous a notion this is (that only paid professionals can innovate). Yet apparently, (according to Cohen, mind you), the whole economic-legal-business district of life operates under this very assumption.
For goodness's sake we are human beings! What sets us apart from the rest of the natural world is our ability to make tools and connect the dots! Why is that so surprising?
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