OK, Your Kid Probably Could Make Something Better Than This

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.