I have been testing a variety of staplers and plastic materials recently, so it has been very exciting around here! After going through (breaking) 7 or 8 different models of staplers, you’ll be pleased to know that I have finally settled on the Arrow P35 heavy duty plier stapler. It is fabulous. This first test is made from polycarbonate sheet with a light spray of white primer and a coating of polyurethane for bounce. It’s okay, but I only sprayed it with paint so that I could see it. This sample also has a nice bounce to it and is about 1’x1’x1′. I noticed that the more paint I layer on these pieces, the less bouncy and more leaden they become. I am trying to do more with less paint going forward.

I am thinking about not painting the structure at all. This one is made of mylar sheet stapled with the p35. It is incredibly sturdy. I plan to build it into quite a large piece to test the limits of the mylar and the staples. It should be interesting to see the balance between the composition of the staples and the form of the plastic. Which will end up being more dominant? I do plan to coat it with polyurethane and add some areas of color. It will be large in any case.

When I started to scale up my work, the paper and encaustic I had been using did not have the strength to support the weight of the new larger pieces. I started experimenting with different plastics, rubbers, staplers, rivets, glues, etc.  I just finished this piece. It is made from polycarbonate sheet, PVC tubing, polyurethane, house paint and spray paint. It is stapled and riveted together, then coated with a layer of polyurethane, which ads a certain boingy-ness to it. To see just how sturdy this thing is, click on the video at the end of this post!

Detail of the front

View of the back. You can see more of the house paint here.

Detail of the back. The drips are polyurethane with house paint

One side

The video !

[wpvideo X9abfTNk]

I like working obsessively and with extreme attention to detail. These wire pieces provided an outlet for both. You can’t really see the detail and dimensionality of in the photos I’ve posted; they are very difficult to photograph well.  I worked with this material so much that my fingernails turned orange from the contact with the iron in the wire.

Image 1. Blade of Grass Is based on the scientific vocabulary associated with monocot plants. It is like a longitudinal section through a blade of grass using the vocabulary to form the structure of the piece.

Click on the image to get a better view.

Image 2. Point, Line, Plane, Cube. This is 1 foot x 1 foot x 1 foot and is made of snaps and steel wire and peels apart into two halves at the snaps. It is an expression of my frustration at learning some scientific concepts in depth. At some point things are not clear anymore.

Image 3. The Strand. It is an expression of the beauty and chaos of nature and the cyclical nature of an ecosystem. It’s about 8 feet long and 1 foot wide

Image 4. This piece takes the radially symmetrical forms used in The Strand and lays them out flat in a 3 foot x 5 foot rectangle. Click on it for better detail.

Did you know that you can get 20,000 coffee stirrers for about $5.00? That does not include shipping, but it’s still a bargain. This piece is made out of probably 15,000 5-1/2″ wooden hot drink stirrers (some spray painted) glued together with Elmer’s white glue. I went through several iterations before settling on this snake-like form. It started out as seven separate pieces, which I dipped in red Plasti-Dip, burned with a kitchen torch, and then sawed apart and reassembled into this. It looks very relaxed, considering. (See detail below. Next time I will try to do all the images in one post!)

… to all of my FIVE followers. I am still learning how to use WordPress and that last post of four or so pictures, well, let’s just say I put it up all backwards and then tried to fix it. Yes, I learned a lot. I will use the gallery function next time.

Okay that’s it.

This is my first attempt. This seemed a little dull, so I decided to use it as a mold to cast silicone.

The silicone oozed out of the mold and was so sticky that I had to rip out all of the cardboard, but I left in one little piece. The results were not pretty, but people liked to touch the piece and it moved like it was made out of jello. SO I started to make more cardboard molds.

This is one of the molds. I used a picture frame to contain the oozing silicone. I used fast curing “dragon skin” silicone. Only takes 7 hours to set. Resulting piece is below.

This kind of looks like a factory to me, especially from the side.

This is a top view of the last silicone piece I did. It was inspired by the landscape of San Francisco. It moves and stretches when you pick it up.

These small paper pieces were originally part of a much larger piece that completely fell apart. I picked up the pieces and glued them into different configurations and have been using them as models for larger works.

A rubber puppet head.

When I look at these pieces head on and at eye level, they look very aggressive and gun-like. From other angles, they are soft and organic. A friend noticed that a toy gun laying near by had the same orange and gold color scheme as one of the pieces. The paint was not yet dry and when I came back to take some pictures, I noticed the orange and gold blood and the little heart.

The next few images are of old or abandoned projects I have sitting around the house.