Apologies for my blogging absense as of late. I've been busy visiting friends and family, what can I say? It'll be the last time I get to see them in a long time, so I have to absorb as much as I can while I can. :)
Anyway, you may recall from a past post that during my visit home I was hoping to have my friend, John, help me build frames for the artwork I plan on submitting to the Meller Merceux Gallery in Oxford. Lucky for me, John's a great friend and he gracefully agreed to my request. After a bit of brainstorming and indecision, followed by decision and then more indecision, and finally a firm decision, we managed to get the wood purchased, cut and assembled in a few hours before having pizza at one of our favourite haunts: The Patio Inn - which is a great neighborhood bar and restaurant where the drinks are cheap the staff is friendly, the great atmosphere more than makes up for the average food... and "everyone knows your name".
Anyway, you may recall from a past post that during my visit home I was hoping to have my friend, John, help me build frames for the artwork I plan on submitting to the Meller Merceux Gallery in Oxford. Lucky for me, John's a great friend and he gracefully agreed to my request. After a bit of brainstorming and indecision, followed by decision and then more indecision, and finally a firm decision, we managed to get the wood purchased, cut and assembled in a few hours before having pizza at one of our favourite haunts: The Patio Inn - which is a great neighborhood bar and restaurant where the drinks are cheap the staff is friendly, the great atmosphere more than makes up for the average food... and "everyone knows your name".
My practice router cut
I thought I had a pretty good design in mind for my frames, but John quickly set me straight. I still think my original design would have looked wonderful, but when a guy who builds cars from scratch - and I mean totally from the ground up without the help from a computer program - offers a suggested alteration in plans, you don't really go against it. I don't anyway. I bow down to John's powers of amazingness.
John's Indy car
Let me take a bit of a detour in my story for a bit of description and back story. As I mentioned, John builds cars. In order to build a car one must bend metal. And in order to bend metal in such a way as to be fit for making a car, one must use a machine to bend the metal. And in John's case, this means building metal-bending machine. Yeah. I know. And get this - he recently built a 30s-style Indy-inspired race car. From the ground up, of course (which is, incidentally how I first met John; he took this metal enameling course I was teaching so he could make his own hubcap covers. Over-achiever.), which means he carved the steering wheel, designed and created his own dashboard knobs and sewed his own upholstery to fit on the seats he made by hand. But that's not the most incredible part of it. I stopped by his shop one day while he was trying to sort out the steering mechanism for the car. To solve the problem he used a piece of paper, some matte board and a pushpin to simulate the steering radius. So basically what I'm saying is that this guy is some kind of genius. And he's MY friend. Which means that I must also be pretty incredible. You know, by association and all.
So proud of my efforts!
And such a good friend is John that he helps me re-think my frame design, drives me to the store to pick up the wood and then rips the wood, cuts it to size, and mitres it. I hate to see someone working really hard on a project of my initation (honestly!), but found myself with little to do but watch in awe as John carefully passed his hands over a rotating blade, protected by about a quarter of an inch of raw material. Because John - ever the gentleman - wouldn't allow me to cut the wood so that I might keep all of my digits intact. But, I did get to fit the frames together using a 90 degree clamping system so that I could then drill holes in order that I can assemble them later back in the studio. And I used a counter-sinking bit on the drill. So basically, by proxy, I'm pretty awesome too. Rather than stuff 36 pieces of wooden strips into my suitcase, John helped me pack it up and we took it to the post office so I could send it home. It was kind of expensive. But totally worth it! I'm so excited to get home to get these frames sanded, painted and assembled. Watch out Oxford, here I come!
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