Sunday, December 12, 2010

Making stuff

Forward: I'm really annoyed with the way this post is laying out the images, but don't seem to be able to fix it. Will continue to mess with it.
I really enjoy making things, but I don't like having things. And unfortunately, I forget to take pictures of them. I didn't take pictures of the big paper crane I made for my mom several years ago, or the origami bouquets I make, or the paper birdcage, or the sequined stuffed lizard... it's a shame, because now I find that I'd like to share those things and talk about them.

These are pictures of some things I made a couple months ago. The nautilus was an experiment with embossing; I'm interested in embossing, and I think it has a lot of potential, but the actual thing I was trying to make was a disaster. So I stepped back and made the nautilus in order to get more practice with the technique before I tried something more ambitious.








The lotus bowl is a plaster form with paper petals glued to it. It's fascinating how repetition makes something attractive- the identical shapes in that spiral pattern is so visually appealing. I never finished it, since I wasn't sure where I wanted it to go. It's still sitting on my desk, and now it's all squashed from my cat sitting in it.















The lockbox was an experiment inspired by a scene in Mirrormask. I find that image so interesting and compelling.

The lockbox started with a shoebox and a trip to Hippo Hardware (holla! I love them!). One of the pieces had an integrated doorbell, which I loved, but it took some tweaking to use it the way I wanted it to and retain the button-pushing functionality (it involved the spring from a ballpoint pen, cutting up a tube that held exacto blades, and some weird foam tape I have). I could have just painted the box beneath the escutcheons black, but I wanted people viewing it to have a sense of interior space, which meant opening it up. But I also didn't want people to be able to actually see through it, or see what's inside it (yes, there's something inside). So I traced all the keyhole shapes onto the box, and cut out each hole, and then built a small black paper box for each hole and glued it to the inside. Also inside I used wood to give it more structural integrity than the shoebox had, and used wires to attach the knob/handle on the top to the knobs/feet on the bottom, so that lifting it up or turning it doesn't allow the weight of the knobs/feet to distort the shape. And I didn't want to just glue the escutcheons to the surface, so they are all nailed/screwed in place, reinforced with glue. And finally the hinges are placed to give a sense that the box could be opened, but not to indicate exactly how.
I'd like to play with these techniques more- I really enjoy what my brain does while solving these kinds of problems, and it's so fun to watch it come together.