Hidden Spirit

Continuing on from my earlier blog on inspiration;
John Lee - His cabinet curves out which reminds me of architect Frank Lloyd-Wright and even Richard Serra's metal sculptures. The curve on my cabinet is different to John's.  By using a curve to add another dimension to the cabinet gives a three D look. 
John Makepeace - The carving on the cabinet front is inspired by this exceptional designer/maker. Once again my carving is different. My carving is focused on two lines, so if you look at it, it's all working towards these two lines. I can create different sized shapes off these lines. I want you to focus on a line, then you can see the shapes out from that line giving the allusion of flow. If you don't have any point to focus on it's random not flow.
Malcolm Harris - his cabinet has a similar carved front although my carving encompasses all the cabinet where as his carving is contained inside a frame.
 I didn't want the carving to look like John Makepeace, Tom Kealy or Malcolm Harris, I wanted to have some uniqueness about it. It's very important to me not to plagiarise anyones work. You can use other artists work to inspire you but NEVER copy anyone else's work.
Other furniture makers have used curves and carving before so this is nothing new. 

Hidden Spirit

My inspiration for this piece came from three sources. A book called 500 cabinets in which there is a cabinet made by John Lee called "Farraige", this appealed to me. Also a big influence  is John Makepeace, he has a cabinet  called "Flow"made by Tom Kealy (whom I know well from Dwellingup). He carved all his cabinet where I only carved the front. And of course Malcolm Harris (my lecturer at  The School of Wood). My cabinet is similar to all their pieces but different, selecting inspiration from each piece.


http://www.johnleefurniture.com/viewgallery.php?cid=1&pid=168


http://www.johnmakepeacefurniture.com/john-makepeace-furniture-designer-maker-flow-chest.html

International Turning Exchange

If I ever wondered what 2013 had in store for me, that question has been answered. Applied to ITE 2013, The Centre for Art in Wood, Philadelphia, first week in June until first week in August. Receive return ticket, plus accommodation and weekly allowance to collaborate with Ben Carpetner, Moscow ID and Zina Manesa-Burloui, Romania so far. 2 other artists, 1 photojournalist and a scholar still to be chosen. Taken to Echo Lake and Emma Lake Conference, meet David Ellsworth and visit Mark Sfirri's studio. Will be great to catch up with Mark and see how his carving is progressing.
A dream of mine this residency.

Things I have learn't

You need to keep your burrs sharp all the time as you can get texturing or colouring using blunt burrs, like it's burning. 
I used a 3mm burr for the initial carving and 0.6 mm burr to make the holes.
I intended to make this bowl thinner but didn't do the sums right so when it came to texturing the holes didn't end up piercing through, but having said that I think with the size and shape of bowl it ended up being right. 
I am happy with the end result even though it isn't how I first imagined. It would have been quite awkward to make the embellishment more square especially in the bottom of the bowl. This certainly would have posed problems trying to get the hand piece at the right angle.
Turning and sanding  took about 1 1/2 hours
Drawing of shape was 8 hours
Embellishment took at least 70 - 75 hours

As this piece of wood is not overly pretty it can withstand that amount of embellishment. Luckily it does have lines that draw your eye into the bottom of the bowl.

The Base

I chose the base of the bowl as I think it grounds the piece better, rather than legs. But it had to be a small foot not a big foot as this is not a functional piece it's definitely a decretive piece. 

The edge

When embellishing the top I took inspiration from coral 

The experiment

I rounded the edges of the embellishment for more speed because I would have to change burrs to physically get that square. So this ended up an experiment to see what it would look like, I think it's a different sort of look. And it certainly didn't turn out  like I imagined, as coral form is quite deep and square where this could quite easily be honeycomb, but I still think it would evoke coral. I'm hoping it shows there could be another layer in between.

The Wood

The bowl was made from sheoak, acquired from Djarilmari Timber in Denmark WA, good friends of mine Neale and Carla tucked this piece away for me. I don't normally get pieces of sheoak this deep, so this allowed me to turn this shape, which was great as I like the shape, I like that it's deeper. 

Coral Spirit finished

The inspiration for coral spirit came from a piece of coral found on our beach but also from a piece my mother had in her china cabinet. I think it was given to her for a wedding present. This piece was quite large and I remember it was quite jagged and rough with a lot of little holes in it. When I was allowed to touch this piece it seemed magnetised to me, like it would grab hold of you. I don't know what it was, but somehow I liked that it was sharp, rough, but beautiful. That's how I remember this piece. 

 That's how I got the idea for the holes, I've never worried about replicating the slits that you see in coral, because they never attracted my eye. It's not an exact copy not suppose to be but I've used some elements to create this embellishment.

Coral Spirit

My inspiration, coral from my local beach

May as well relax while drawing the pentagon shapes onto sheoak bowl

If your sitting doing this for 8 hours per day you may as well be comfortable

Randomly drawing shapes

Using a 3mm round burr for the initial carving

Carving 1mm deep

The world looks small at the end of the day when you take these babies off.

These are my best friends

Checking burr size

Each pentagon section has on average 25 embellishments

Focus