Art
Original art, made without a commercial agenda.
Max in the Beaver Street house
He must’ve been four or five. He NEVER lets me take pictures of him any more.
Sprocket Hole Photography
I invented this. It sounds rude, and no one will believe it, but I did. Modern sprocket hole photos are usually shot with a Holga, but I use a Ciroflex and a Mamiya. I have instructions for making the adapters in my Flickr stream.
10 little boxes
A wooden saint; 8 or 9 buttons; a bulb; another bulb with a small ceramic block; a marble and a piece of circuit board; nothing; blobs of brass, aluminum and glass from Glass Beach; a die and flower photograph; a small ceramic block that says “Thomas;” a fly and marble.
Typewriter Man Sculpture
I made this from an electric typewriter and most of a plastic “Mr. Thrifty” anatomical skeleton. I traded it to my friend Sharon for a disturbing painting a long time ago.
bad photo retouched
My friend is selling his 1958 Rene Herse randonneur bicycle (Google it), and the only picture he had was taken inside his garage with his cell phone. Not a lot to work with, but I did figure out a super-fast way to eliminate garage-door handles.
He did go ahead and take better pictures, if you’re interested in the bike. The bike is sold – a reader of my blog bought it.
Painting of an LED screw-mount light
This is an LED bulb you can use in a vintage dynamo-powered bicycle tail light. So much easier than re-engineering modern LED circuits into the antique light housing! Just screw it in and ride away with a much brighter light. 10,000 hour lifespan and a (short) standlight feature that stays on when you stop.
Bike seat ram’s head
I built this blatant ripoff of homage to Pablo Picasso’s “Toro” out of the left over pieces of my Brooks saddle repair and a particularly scary pair of handlebars. My son and my mother-in-law both love it and won’t let me sell it yet.
evinrude machine mask
Currently for sale on Etsy at the bargain price of $110 $197.00
This is one of three “Machine Masks” I’ve made by painting eyes on old metal things. There’s a vacuum cleaner made up to look like an alien, this Evinrude gas can with scary eyes and a protruding tongue, and a Samurai adding machine that actually works. I have another gas can I’m turning into a suprised cyclops.
Cross-eye 3D for sculpture photos
Cross your eyes to see the 3D
I’ve been amusing myself with my sculpture listings on Etsy by including one shot that shows some evidence of the photographic process – my shadow on the image, the camera taking the picture, etc. Some semi-random, semi-throwaway image to use up the fifth detail shot.
For my Machine Mask Alien, I did a “crosseye 3D” shot, where I moved the tripod about four inches to the right, between shots. To see the image, you unfocus your eyes, concentrating on getting a phantom ‘third’ image to float in between the two images you see. In a very chi gung way, focus on that image, without forcing it. If you relax and concentrate enough at the same time, the center image should solidify into a three-dimensional (looking) image.
Cross your eyes to see the 3D
I moved the camera between shots, marking the floor where the tripod legs were, and then a spot four inches over for the other “eye.” It seemed to work okay, but I’ve seen more striking 3D effects with this. I think that moving the camera more, or using a shorter lens might exaggerate the effect. This was shot with the zoom set at 70mm, and moving the camera about 4″. I think it may help to NOT turn the camera toward the object, too, but I’ll have to experiment.
As if you didn’t notice… I did the same thing with the 3D glasses I made. If you create the third middle image by looking past the glasses (parallel 3D), they appear to flip over, at least for me.
anime secretary
This painted and cut-out gouache on paper character goes with a Machine Mask sculpture I made from an old adding machine.
My Machine Mask sculptures are cast-off objects of the Industrial Age (vacuum cleaners, gas cans, adding machines) that I paint eyes on to create tribal masks.
workbox fantastic tandem bicycle
A sculpture of a tandem bicycle that hinges in the middle. Each rider drives one wheel, for dual-drive traction. It also allows much shorter drivetrains and a freer pedaling style for each rider.
My own design. In theory it should work!
This image was used as an editorial illustration in Bicycle Times.
Self-portrait ID card paintings
philip – huge ID card, originally uploaded by Philip Williamson.
I paint portraits of people’s ID cards. It started out on a whim, but I’ve done a fair number of them now. I like that they’re almost sculptures (I made this 6 foot oil on linen painting with rounded corners), and the undertow of this being the State’s view of you. And I think people like little things made big.
ID cards – friends and strangers
This is a fairly substantial 3 foot painting on heavy plywood. The corners are cut and rounded, and it’s hanging on David’s wall. Below are some other ID card paintings I’ve made of people who are not me.
‘Workbox’ Sculptures
These assemblage sculptures are very simple – wood and metal. A downspout, a monkey wrench, or a vacuum tube from a radio transmitter, they are the most distilled-down assemblages I’ve ever made.
I like the serendipity that simple rules can lead to, like the metal downspout exactly fitting inside the box. These three are for sale on Etsy.
assemblage sculpture on Etsy
Curves and Masks to bring out detail
All the shadow detail in this image was blocked up (see below). I still liked it, but messing with the curves showed that there was a lot of detail captured – another figure, signage and roll-up door texture.
psychic: Sony Nex + Zeiss Biotar 58/2.0 (effectively 85mm).
