Amusement Value [Oct 2010]

amusement arcade token, camera iris mechanism part, two lenses, aluminium ring, text from a book, brass tubing, dot matrix printer part, marcasite, synthetic ruby watch jewel

Earlier this year, I travelled with a friend to Vietnam.  While over there, we met up with another friend, Robert Henke, who was in Hanoi for the debut of his latest sound work, Intersection. Before we left Vietnam, Robert gave me a coin he had found on the road there, and asked me if I could make something for him from it.  It had been run over by half a million scooters, but close inspection revealed it to be an amusement arcade token.  We decided to do an artist's trade - I would make him a piece from the coin, and he would make me a piece of music.

At first, I really had no idea what to do with it.  It took quite a while staring at it before I decided to lightly sand the surfaces, which brought out some of the brass base metal and a nice pattern.  I still didnt have much idea, but after a few months of it floating around my desk I came across the guide mechanism for a camera lens iris and things started coming together.

I machined out the inside of the mechanism, to give me as much room as possible, and found a lens that could be made to fit.  the coin went in behind that, and a very thin aluminium ring was machined to hold the coin centred. I also sanded the front lightly to expose a bit of the brass of the case through the black oxide coating.

Robert is a musician and sound artist, but with a scientific/engineering mind
also, so I found some text in the back of an old engineering textbook that gave the speed of sound in air. It is invisible when you look at the piece front on, but if you look from an angle, it becomes visible.

This was set into a channel I machined into the inside of the case.

Around this time, I found an old dot matrix printer and the print head had some wonderful pieces in it. One of these looked fantastic in front of the coin, but didnt quite look right when I cut it down to fit inside the case. A dilemma. scrap the case idea and start again? No. So instead I decided to make the piece double sided, with the printer part and the back side of the coin visible through another lens on the back.

At this point, I was pretty happy with it. Unfortunately, I couldnt find the right part to use as a hanger. I had shown Robert, and he decided he would find a nice antique chain for it in Berlin. I needed a hanging point that would accomodate a chain. Months passed and I spent ages sifting through all my small parts looking for something. Nothing turned up. I tried modifiying some parts that might have worked, but wasn't 100% happy with the results. In the end, the answer came while i was staring at a short length of brass tube that came out of a camera lens.

I cut a section from the tube, ground a reverse curve into one side that matched the curve of the iris mechanism, drilled a small hole and machined a flat section into the inside of the tube to act as a land for the tiny stainless steel bolt I would use to hold it to the piece. I drilled a larger hole in the top to allow me to tighten the bolt. I decided to add a couple of extra large holes to lighten the look a little. The section of tube then got roughened up a little, then left in an ammonium bath to age it to match the look of the rest of the piece.

Finally, a few extra details were added. first, six pyramid-cut marcasite pieces left over from another work, fit nicely with the dot matrix print head part. This part also had a very small hole in it, and I found a tiny synthetic ruby watch jewel that fit perfectly in it.

I think this has turned out to be one of my favourite pieces yet.

Mask [Oct 2010]

Another work in progress, something a little different for me because it isn't round! and will probably be a brooch, not a pendant.  The main part might be part of a lock mechanism - I can only guess, as I found it on the road.  It was very rusty, and I wire brushed it, then heated it and dipped it in an oil bath to give it the lovely dark finish.  Underneath are a CCD chip from a digital camera in the mouth, with glass and mother of pearl, with a filter from a mobile phone lcd sandwiched in between, for the eyes/nose.

The filter is quite interesting, as it appears a semi-transparent green mostly, so the mother of pearl is visible

but from certain angles, it flashes the most brilliant irridescent blue...

the photos don't do it justice.

Hon Shirabe [2002]

Hard drive platter spacer, roller bearings, spring, hematite

This was the first piece I made after moving to Sydney in 2002.  Its always been a favourite, and has aged nicely through wear.  The hematite bead has some lovely pitting, providing a bit texture.  The roller bearings - from an old car gearbox - have gone from a shiny chrome-like finish to something more like a dull grey, especially on the reverse side.  This is something ive noticed in other pieces that use steel bearings as parts.  It must be some property of the kinds of alloys that they use in bearings that means they corrode like this when exposed to the skin's natural acids.

The platter spacer was shaped by hand on a bench grinder, rather than using a lathe - a technique I used to use a lot, but not so much any more - you tend to end up with mild burns on your fingers from the metal as it heats up...

I've been drawn back to the simplicity of this piece again recently, and might make a few in a similar style in the coming year.

Amorous Soul [Sept 2009]

camera lens, camera lens barrel, brass plate, brass rod, text on paper

This piece was commissioned by a friend, Justin, as an engagement present for his partner Colleen.  Having not yet met Colleen, I started by asking him about her. He responded, including some photos of some jewellery she already had.  From this, it seemed to me that she wouldn't be afraid of a larger piece, which allowed me a bit more scope in what parts I could use.  He also mentioned that she has a passion for literature, and I asked if she had any favourite works or quotes.  It's been a while since ive done a text based piece, and the idea of this appealed.

The quote I ended up using is from Jack Kerouac's famous book "On the Road", and Colleen was including part of it in her email signature. I did some experimenting, and made a study to show Justin to see if I was on the right track. Initially the piece was quite starkly black and white.

While I think this could still have worked well, I decided to remove the black coating from the edge of the lens, and polish the blackened brass bezel up a little. This looked good, but left the stark white paper looking out of place. The solution (literally) was found by dunking the printed text into my cup of tea. The tea stained paper worked much better with the brass bezel and added some nice texture. Below is a more advanced study.

I spent a lot of time playing with the text in photoshop, not only cropping it, but playing with fonts and highlighting.  I wanted something old-typewriterish, and found a couple of free fonts online that suited.  The finished result uses a combination of these different typefaces (though this might not be immediately obvious) with some words having every single letter either from different typefaces, or altered in colour, size, spacing, baseline, or a combination of all of these.  Certain words are also subtly emphasised.  I experimented with lots of different ways of printing it, and different papers.

The above photo shows some of the different papers (photocopy, blank pages torn from old books, photo paper) and different print styles.  The final version is photo quality inkjet on matte photo paper, pre-stained with tea - Wagh-Bakri "Tiger-Goat" tea (so called because it is reputedly so good that a tiger and a goat would rather sit and enjoy a cup of it together, rather than the more usual outcome of their meeting...).  This tea was brought back from India for me by a friend of the friend who introduced me to it (thanks AB & C!).  The final text is the one visible bottom right of the above photo - not yet cut out.

The bezel is cut from a section of the zoom tube of a zoom lens. Machining it was extremely difficult, owing to the thinness required (between 0.5 and 1mm), and relatively large diameter (about 40mm).  The back is a piece of old brass plate I inherited.  Justin had his own ideas for a chain, so I machined a small brass pin and loop that he could attach to.  Normally I would include a chain of some sort - I often use plastic coated stainless steel wire and a custom made clasp - so instead of this, I made up a small presentation box for it out of a round metal tin I got while in Japan, padded with black felt.

I really enjoyed making this piece.  And congratulations - Justin and Colleen!

Works in Progress...

 

Study for "Flux Capacitor"

Here are two pieces I've been working on.  Flux Capacitor is at the stage of an idea that has found something close to its final internal form, but the details of its construction and assembly are yet to be worked out.  It is literally just a pile of parts.

Overclocked

Overclocked, by contrast, is very close to completed.  Most of the construction is well sorted, and I am just fiddling with a way of making the CPU rotatable - so you can wear it as a square, or a diamond.  Cutting an actual computer CPU into a circle was an interesting exercise.  Bonus points to anyone who can work out what exact processor I used.

There is quite a bit of fluff and grot visible in these images - the pieces have not yet had their final clean and assembly.

There are more pieces taking shape as well, and another commission piece that I finished that I can't put up until it has been given to its intended. More to come soon.

Time Machine [July 2009]

Watch parts, ball bearings, record player tonearm pivot, glass lenses, hematite, camera part

Recently my partner Rachel bought me a wonderful book, filled with full page pictures of the mechanisms inside very high end wristwatches. Absolutely stunning, complex and beautiful. not to mention inspirational.

So I got hold of a bunch of old wind-up watch mechanisms and have been playing around with them in my work. both sides of this mechanism were nice, so I decided to put glass on both faces of the piece.

The outer aluminium case is the tonearm pivot from an old record player - it turned up by chance at exactly the right time and was a perfect fit. The most difficult and time consuming part of this piece was the hanger - I ended up cutting a slot in one of the grub screws from the pivot, inserting the camera part, cross drilling a hole through both, and machining up a tiny brass rivet to go through the hole and hold it all together. This assembly was then screwed into the original threaded hole in the pivot.

Gaze [Jan 2006]

sewing machine tension disc, hematite, brass, spring, video recorder part

This very simple piece came about as a result of finding an old sewing machine by the side of the road.  It came together very quickly.  The striations in the inner part of the tension disc immediately suggested an iris, so all I needed to do was add a pupil.

Nothing Lasts, but Nothing is Lost [July 2005]

mother of pearl, lens, aluminium ring, text on paper, found bottlecap

My mother has this piece.

Things that might be considered ugly bits of mass produced consumer waste such as bottletops are transformed into things that can be considered beautiful, by nothing more than being present in a dynamic environment.

In this case - by being run over by thousands of cars - squashed flat, worn and polished by the endless stream of car tyres.

Everything is always changing, but what something is now affects what it will be. Its past as a bottletop is still visible.

Two Landscapes [July 2005]

camera lenses, camera parts, rusted painted metal disc, hematite, aluminium
given to Rie Yoshihara, 29th Oct 2006.

Another old favourite, this piece came together out of camera parts, and a rusty painted metal disc I found on the road. The amazing rusty bubbling paint on it has so much detail and texture, and I found it very evocative. It looked like a landscape to me, hence the name of the piece.

I like that it can be worn with either face showing.

I took this piece to Japan with me during my 2006 visit. While there, I went to a wonderful gig put together to showcase visiting musicians from one of my favourite labels, 12k. The event was held at Ryodenji temple, in the outskirts of Tokyo.

One of the unexpected highlights of the evening for me was seeing a group called "Trico!" play.

At the time, I wrote this in my travel blog:

"For me, the big surprise of the evening were "Trico!" (pronounced Toh-Ree-Coh) - A duo of guy on double bass, and a woman who played accordion, toy piano, harmonium and also sang. Their whimsical warmth and brilliant musicianship gently knocked me off my feet. Very deeply moved."

The woman was Rie Yoshihara.  I was wearing Two Landscapes that evening, and it immediately felt right to offer it to her as a way thanking her for the wonderful performance.



I went backstage, and eventually found myself talking to her, and gave it to her.  Some confusion at first, but I got across the language/culture difference and she was very happy to receive the gift.  Even without that difference, having someone offer you something, no strings attached like that must seem odd - but a gift in return for a gift - my work as thanks for the gift of her performance, seemed completely right and natural to me at the time, and has gone on to become quite a significant idea to me.