Art meets Parts

Art comes together piece by piece. I pulled some antique clockworks from bin in the studio last night, searching out elements to upcycle in the fabrication of a pin for a steampunk medal commission. It was the best excuse for playing with my Smith minitorch using oxyacetylene. With oxyacetylene gas, metal temperature moves from the solder point to fusing in a split second; it's really just too hot for most applications. But periodically, there is nothing like exploring the nature of such enormous heat in a fine-tipped, exquisite instrument like the Smith mini. I was part surgeon, part reckless adventurer. Thats an addictive place for a jeweler.

It is said you have to know the rules to break them. Flux is the layer of ground glass used to stop metal from oxidizing and preventing the union of one metal surface with another when soldering. There was plenty of excitement in fusing the clockworks to fashion a simple spring mechanism and soldering a steel flange into the jaws of a brass fitting for the catch. The surprise to me was in the finishing. I loved the combined patina of brass skin and flux. Under the high heat of this particular gas, the brass had accepted the flux, shading it like a burnished layer of enamel that captured the microscopic copper brought to the surface in the near molten metal during the process. Copper reacts to heat more quickly than the other metals, so it left its fingerprint in a most painterly way which the glass captured, melted into the thinest glaze of enamel, like a slide would what is under a microscope. Usually one cleans off the heatskin, filing, sanding, and polishing to reveal the shiny surface beneath. I could not bring myself to remove it everywhere because it fit the coloration and dimpling of a warm, autumnal planet, serving the thematic nature of the medal which captures a stormy moonlit night. It just FIT the piece. So I broke all the metalworker's rules, keeping this rough, worn, organic surface and using it as an artistic element. This is not to apologize. Why not break them in the service of this gleeful, natural magic?

I say, give me your poor (old clocks), your tired (steel coathangers) yearning to breathe free. I was in Halloween costume enjoying the treat of my amazing torch. Picture this silvery haired Deaf lady liberty: jewelers headset on, but bent over the work, the magnificence of a Smith minitorch in her grasp. Exhileration and freedom. Chemistry + art = metalwork, just like art + reUse = smart. That's the equation of this kind of liberty, to make of each piece something distinctive. A fun trick, too.

Here's my challenge: what new can you bring of your tired, poor or castoff lifestuff? Bring some liberty out of the parts and pieces. Make it count. Here's a mental medal for your efforts.

Art meets Incision

Art isn't precious. Fringing the edges of owl feathers, I ruthlessly incise and scrape at the paint with the attitude of this short earred owl rendered in reverse on a glass panel. It's a tiny fierce energy I recognize in other parts of my life. I circle noiselessly for a time, but once the target shows itself, swoop down, all knotty knuckles and tearing talons. I've eaten neurobehavioral and developmental books whole, in big gulps, remembering pages and citations in the same frozen detail of a digested carcass. Friends and colleagues email to ponder various cognitive, emotional and behavioral or developmental questions, asking me to exume these informational owl pellets from time to time. My mental archive of desicated cases reminds me of CSI Grissom's shelves of samples, without the jars.

I am rivetted by birds and their ways. I imitate their tool use (yes, tools) and habits unknowingly as I fuss with my own tools, razor blades, dental scrapers, paint and interference powders, deciding how to interpret seamless contours and defined articulation of feathers, beaks, birdfeet.


I realize I unknowingly married a bowerbird.


Sculpting as they do, he strewed my path with bright objects and led me to our home in the sticks, where we make and do.

Why birds? I am unexpectedly captivated by things of the air, being a creature whose motion has lost its grace and swiftness. Their alertness is the irrestible draw. Who could imagine? A bowerbird man brought a sawhet owl woman into the bower, where we faithfully serve our three masters, the cats. Here's one of the masters now, in the repose of his own bower. Today I have no questions. I indulge, revelling in the secret symbolism of birds which pull apart the mice of the mind, leaving a soft trail of feathers as evidence of incising carnage. There comes a time when the past goes where it lives. When the mice are finished. The meal complete. The present its own purpose. I study the Master. Life is good.

Art meets Language

Art is the language of my family. I finished up in my studio today and was joined by my oldest daughter and her crew. My daughter and I cooked while her husband and my grandson painted using the ancient paintbox of gouache colors I purchased back in my student days in Salzburg. Did I mention it's ancient? My daughter saw it and told six year old Kaiden, "Oh! That paintbox has been with Oma longer than I've been alive, Kai. I remember it from when I was little!" He was already settling in, at home with art materials all around him. The tradition continues.

This is how it works: give most people genuine art materials when they are young and they'll speak art throughout life, in one form or another. We paint, eat, live a handmade life, and set our own pace. Art is engrossing without being overstimulating. Our bodies love this. Art really IS our air. My question is how will people know this relief, this pace, unless they take several steps back from the virtual world? What is the value of art beyond the objects? How does creating it play a role in your relationship with the environment?