The Update

For those that follow my blog it must be really irritating. Months and months without a peep, then a burst of activity and posts. Well, welcome to my world - a field of rabbit holes where I scramble around, crawling in and out of cognitive tunnels.... of which, only one contains the fortitude to create blog posts.

Well, here I am
for the moment.

So, this is what's been going on the last few months....

As of the beginning of February, I entered into full time self-employment. I jumped into it with absolutely no savings, so I quickly discovered the very fine line between self- and un- employment. I also came to understand why the word 'hunger' is used to denote both an empty stomach and motivation.

In March, I found myself in other people's workshops doing a lot of welding. After working on such a small scale for so long, I really didn't think I could pull off some of the stuff I did. I welded caps onto a stainless steel tank. A seriously nerve racking job, because it had to hold water - the weld couldn't have any pitting or melt through. I also welded up this steel stand for a heavy machine....
I also found myself in the shop of the amazing duo, Christian Ristow and Christina Sporrong. There I had a bit of a hand in helping out with Christian's 'Fledgling', which made its way to the Coachella music festival and to Maker Faire. Here's an excerpt and image from Christian's blog...

Fledgling is a large mechanical bird, made from Stainless Steel, Carbon Steel, and Aluminum. It is modeled loosely on raptors, or birds of prey (eagles, hawks, and falcons). One person at a time, from the general public, is permitted to ascend the staircase up the tail-feathers and climb into the ribcage. In the ribcage is a seat and a pair of bicycle pedals. By pedaling, the operator sets in motion a set of gears, sprockets, chains, and cranks which cause the wings to open and close. There is a wing mechanism and a separate shoulder mechanism such that the motion of the wings is very close to the real motion of a bird.
I was honored to be part of such an amazing project.

Buuuuuut, this last month or so it has been all about my own work. As you can see in the previous posts, I've been communing with the titanium. The look is much more 'tekkie' and substantial than my more delicate stainless pieces, so it has widened the scope of my work.

It was really time to expand a bit, because on July 9th I have a trunk show at the Harwood Museum here in Taos and will be the featured artist in the gift shop for the month! My focus is pretty much consumed by this for now, but I do have another big welding project coming up and some very exciting goings on in the knifemaking realm, too... but more about that later....

See you next time I'm in the hole.