Styll 2- Two, B

I had mentioned yesterday that I would show off my second piece for the upcoming 'Style Squared' show...

'Now in 3-D'

Forged work can be very difficult to effectively photograph. Compound this with rushing, and the fact the piece contains a mirror!

'Now in 3-D'
Forged structural mild steel & polished stainless steel
Fall 2011

The concept for this piece started with some material I had on hand. My neighbour, Steve, dropped over some pieces of stainless steel - cut in error at his workplace. There were about a dozen pieces of this mirror polished material, about 18 gauge, each about 14 x 16 inches.
For the Styll 2 show, I wanted to make one piece that had some depth to it. This partially to distinguish my work from that of one of the gallery owners, who do cut and paste style (laser/plasma cut) work.
Those following my recent work have seen the 'feather' profile, which has come to be one of my signature techniques. For Now in 3-D, the starting bar was 56 inches long. After forged to contour, then coiled into a spiral, the finished diameter was about 9 inches (!). The completed spiral was then pulled outwards, to sit with the inner tip about three inches above the outer edge. The forged work was given a coating of stain finish varathane, with a copper highlight along the inner surface.
The outer frame is made of 3/4 inch wide angle, painted flat black. The forged element is welded to one edge of this. The stainless steel mirror was carefully tack welded to the inner surface of the frame.
The net result is that the spiral element is seen inside the mirror, as well as standing above it. The result is that the spiral both rises from the surface, as well as appearing to descend within it.
The title 'Now in 3-D' is an off handed reference to the current trend to take almost any old feature film and remake it as a 3-D version (This for films that were hardly worth the effort the first time around.) Also the piece specifically is intended to stand out among the other contributions to the exhibit (including my own), which have tended to be rather 'flat' in layout.

In process - a report on DARC's day with the Viking Age glass bead making furnaces...