The Blog Carnival* topic this month is “nobody’s perfect”.
We are frequently told this applies to us.
Someone once said “art is making the difficult look easy. Maybe,
but not the way we usually do it. Truth is, you never get to see the artist’s
prototypes, almost made its, and dead ends. Most artists have lots and lots of
this stuff and we’re no different. Art is really the discipline to work through
lots of trial and error to arrive at satisfying solution. What you see is often
the result of dozens attempts to make real what the artist see’s in their
mind. Over time the artist gets more skilled,
and is capable of making more sophisticated and complex art. This usually
translates to making more sophisticated and complex mistakes too. It’s a vicious circle, this art stuff
In our case, we’re always experimenting with different
materials and techniques so we leave a pretty wide swath of drek in our wake. Eventually
we figure some of this stuff out. But today you’re in for a special treat. We’re
going to pull back the studio curtain and let you rummage around in our big box
of crap. Welcome to what keeps us up at night.
We liked to play with matches when we were kids. As adults
we have ever more varied and sophisticated devices for playing with fire.
Applying same to plastic can result in some really neat effects. Unfortunately
this isn’t one of them.
Quiting while you’re
ahead is a maxim that has applications in the arts. This was supposed to be a
simple piercing project with a new alloy we were working with, but
noo-o-o-o-o-o, we decided to see what
would happen if we enameled it too. A
thinking person would have simply used a piece of scrap for the test. No
problem, it’s a piece of scrap now.
This bracelet actually came out looking pretty close to what
we saw in our minds. As it turns out
however, gravity works differently in our minds than the real world. We either
need to establish a lopsided bracelet trend or figure out a solution for
gravity. Art really is making the
difficult look simple!
We really thought we had it on this one. This bracelet is a
highly experimental combination of materials, and changes color as it moves. If
only we could have left it at that. But we just had to layer on a few more
effects because, who knows, we took too much acid at Woodstock. We’re warming
up to “simple”.
So we decided black and white is simple. Except the black
& white neoprene cord has a mind of its own. What it has in mind is not what we have in
mind. So our next step is to introduce Mr. Neoprene to Mr. Fire and see if that
changes anybody’s mind.
We got fired up on SteamPunk and this piece for a while and
er…well…we sorta ran out of steam. There are always one or two pieces that just
hang around the studio nagging you, mocking you, reminding you that you have no
discipline. We hate this piece, its an asshole.
We’ve had this thing for Jules Verne and 20,000 Leagues
Under the Sea since we were kids. This periodically manifests itself from time
to time as one piece or another some of which are actually quite cool. Then
there are brain farts like this that are pretty much DOA.
This is the BFF of the asshole steampunk piece. We actually
like how this is coming out, it is just taking f-o-r-e-v-e-r-r-r-r-r. Part of
the problem is that it is an incredibly tedious piece to work on. It will be
killer if it ever gets completed and we won’t be making another.
We have a boat-load of these little black shells with white
dots, and are just aching to do something with them. The process for us is to
play around with different components and let ideas percolate. This is one of
at least two dozen directions we are going with these little buggers. Sometimes
the solution comes fast, other times not so much. Oh well, back to the drawing board.
* Blog Carnival is the group musings of EtsyMetal, an
International conspiracy of people dedicated to taking glitter, macaroni and
glue to a higher plane.
