Sitting Mobile sold

This piece was recently sold.

I first posted about it here. I was thrilled that it sold and was happy to ship it out, but was also quite sad to see it go. I’ve had it for some time and had gone through what is a typical cycle for me of really being passionate about it when I first made it, then slowly becoming very critical of it to the point of apathy, and finally, as it becomes almost a fixture in my studio, finding a real appreciation for it. It was sold on my Etsy site.

This cycle of like – dislike – like is something I’ve learned to watch for. I try not to make any disastrous moves that I may come to regret during the dislike phase.

What I find interesting is that the qualities of a piece that I’ve made, that I was trying for when I made it in the first place are often not the the elements that I come to value at the end of this cycle. And this cycle is not continuous, it does end. It’s important to trust myself, that my initial instincts are often valuable.

Some pieces, however, I am lucky enough to not to go through this cycle with, and I just like what I did.

Intrepid

My Microtek 4850 scanner has an attachment for scanning slides. It does a pretty good job on slides that are not very dark, but on dark slides it adds a lot of noise that is hard to edit out. In working on my new web site I’ve been going through a lot of old slides and a lot of old digital images. I found a few slides of a piece I did some time ago as a commission for a fund raiser. It was auctioned off and I’ve lost track of it now so these slides are all I have of it.

I think you can get idea of the piece even with all the image noise.

Here’s a scan of slide I did in the same session. It’s of one of my 3 legged stools. This was sold through a gallery.

You can see the difference in image quality between the two scans. It must be that the stool slide had a lot of light.

Over the years I’ve done quite of few of these three legged stools all based on the stools of Wharton Esherick. As a matter of fact here’s a set of 3 I recently made on a commission basis.

OK, why am I posting stools and mobiles? Maybe it’s because I think of the stools as sculpture. I really like the carved seats, each one is unique and they are a sculptural element that you interact with. Also, I like the contrast between the sensuous carved stool seats and the flat, metal elements in primary colors of the the mobile.

sitting mobile

Here’s a small, self standing mobile I did several years ago. It’s an abstracted figure in 3D. At one point I replaced the little wire “S” curve connectors between the moving elements with brass ball chain, I’m going to go back to the “S” curves. I wanted to get a 360 degree turn on the elements but it looks a little clunky.

This piece is one of my metal sculptures in which I try and create something of an abstracted narrative within the piece.

-Todd