By Cory Doctorow at 1:00 pm Thursday, May 24
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Sculptor Jim Rosenau's "Reading Chair" is a 6" high piece made from volumes from an old Funk & Wagnall's and some blunt pencils. It's the perfect chair for a bookish gnome. I've featured Jim's work here before.
Reading Chair
(via Bookshelf)
By Cory Doctorow at 7:00 pm Wednesday, May 23
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Etsy seller FaustX2 made this Star Wars fig display table out of printing-press trays and other salvage items, topped with tempered glass.
This mixed media custom coffee table was made from reworked vintage printing press trays and a pair of vintage steel dock pallets. The interior display area is populated with a broad survey of Storm Troopers, Clone Troopers and other Imperial officers and droids from the various eras of Star Wars mythology. The pallets have been left rusted and all woodwork has been kept rough in keeping with the industrial style of the piece and are bound together with black steel wire. For a more modern look the pallets/base could be ground to a shiny steel finish depending on environment. The table top is 3/8" thick tempered glass and can be easily removed to rearrange the display area below. The table is very heavy (close to 100lbs) due to the steel pallets but felt sliders have been mounted on the bottom for easy movement on hard floors. Shipping is at cost in North America via Fedex ($500 due to weight and size).
Star Wars Coffee Table
(via IZ Reloaded)
By Cory Doctorow at 6:00 pm Wednesday, May 23
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DeviantArt's Ashleyisthebomb shows off a Starburst chewies castle whose individual bricks were melted together with a glue-less hot glue gun: "because there was no glue or anything, it was completely edible. My family and I had fun eating it until we got sick of starbursts, then i threw it out.
It took FOREVER and ended up weighing about 60 pounds."
Starburst Castle
(via IZ Reloaded)
By Cory Doctorow at 6:39 pm Friday, May 18
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Unsourced net.awesomeness: an Alien Pez dispenser. I'd buy that for (several) dollars.
alien pez
(via Wil Wheaton)
By Cory Doctorow at 11:18 am Friday, May 18
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Jeremy Mayer, the titan of typewriter-part sculptures, has sacrificed some more old beasts for a good cause, producing this wonderful 9"x12"x15" skull.
Skull I
(Thanks, Jeremy)
By Cory Doctorow at 8:08 pm Tuesday, May 15
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Artist Carrin Welch's first foray into sculpture is a marvellous set of "Four Rocking Horses of the Apocalypse," made from wood. They're nearly finished, and eminently ridable.
My interpretation of these horsemen from Revelations in the Bible is very loose, it's an artistic idea based mostly on how I want them to look, and less on the many academic and theological interpretations. I want them to appear ominous and imposing, but the catch is that they are giant toys. They are meant to be fantastic and absurd, but also beautiful and magical. You cannot ride one of the mammoths without feeling a little joy. With this world feeling so unstable, and all the theories of its end, the rocking horses bring light to a dark time.
All four horses are expected to be completed by end of May 2012, when they will travel to Burning Flipside for their collective debut. After that I will be collaborating with fellow artists to produce some fun, fantasy images of the rocking horses, and seeking opportunities to show them and let people interact with them.
Welch completed the horses during a period of unemployment, thanks to funding provided by her fans on Kickstarter.
The Four Rocking Horses of the Apocalypse
(via Neatorama)
By Cory Doctorow at 3:10 pm Sunday, May 6
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FeLion Studios, an ironmonger with style, has made a set of 48 interlocking "Made in America" skillets, in the shape of each of the continental states. Buy them one at a time or get the whole set (which, admittedly, would probably be a little impractical to store in most kitchens -- it's 500lbs including a maple mounting block).
Exclusively from the den of FeLion Studios, comes the 48 cast iron skillets of the “Made In America” original state-pan art piece. Now available for individual pre-sale, every skillet from the “Made In America” series fits together with the surrounding states, making these items fun to collect and build your own geographic regions of functional skillets !
Enjoy being the life of a party by hamming up your favorite baked and fried delights with state-shaped proportion! FeLion Studio’s cast iron art is a functional example of design concept meeting utility with a fun and social emphasis.
Buy “Made in America” Skillets
By Cory Doctorow at 2:57 pm Saturday, May 5
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Sculptor Chris Bathgate writes, "I have just self-published my first book of sculptures that features all of my machined metal sculptures from 2007-2011 as well as technical drawings and process images."
We've written about Chris's work before. He produces some of the most beautiful machined-metal pieces I've seen, somehow stark and embellished at the same time. I called them "beautiful, abstract machined forms with edges that look like they'd cut and curves that are cold and stern. They're like the gleaming brass sex-organs of some exotic, alien life form." The book looks like some kind of wonderful (see the excerpts after the jump).
Chris Bathgate Metal Work
(Thanks, Chris!)
Read the rest
By Cory Doctorow at 2:00 pm Friday, May 4
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Maximoriera, creators of the memorable Octopus Chair, have a new offering: an elephant chair. Pretty regal.
Elephant
(via OhGizmo)
By Cory Doctorow at 9:46 am Thursday, May 3
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Liu Wei, an artist from Beijing, is currently exhibiting a show called "Foreign" at the Almine Rech gallery in Paris. Wei's art plays with cityscapes, and "Foreign" features cityscapes made from schoolbooks affixed with steel rods and clamps. To the right is Library No.4, above is Library No.6.
Almine Rech Gallery - Current
(via Neatorama)
By Cory Doctorow at 4:02 pm Wednesday, May 2
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Etsy seller Steampunk101's GOLIATHON is a truly shitkicking steampunk Nerfgun mod, though that craftspersonship doesn't come cheap: $350!
What happens when you weaponize all the horsepower of a full-size steam locomotive? You get the Goliathon. One shot can level a building, down an airship, or turn a man inside out.
This is a modified Nerf Vulcan. It has many real metal elements added to it, including 4 gauges, copper piping, brass embellishments, and a solid metal valve wheel. It is roughly 2 1/2 feet long. It is a prop only and not intended to fire anything.
Steampunk Gun - THE GOLIATHON
(via CNet)
By Cory Doctorow at 8:09 pm Sunday, Apr 22
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"Avaritia" is a new mixed-media assemblage from Jud Turner: "The name is taken from the Latin term for 'greed' and the bait this mechanized angler fish is using is a coin from 1799. Heightening my enjoyment of the subject (greed) it's a commission for a German financier!"
"Avaritia"
By Cory Doctorow at 8:01 pm Saturday, Apr 21
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Tal sez, "Tal Avitzur has updated his website with new robot-related night lights made from scrap metal and other urban salvage: Barbiebot, Snork, Work in progress. Tal has been invited to show his work with the Applied Kinetic Arts group this year at the Bay Area Maker Faire."
By Cory Doctorow at 6:18 am Sunday, Apr 15
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Brent Thome, a computer scientist in San Francisco, is building a mechanical computer out of beautiful, laser-cut gears that will compute and draw fractals. He's documenting as he goes in a fascinating blog, in which he also recounts his adventures with kinetic wooden sculpture.
I've been working on this for a while now. Its a wooden computer that computes continuous self-similar fractals. I'll post the working model of a general computer implemented in gears as soon as I get some laser cutter time to complete the counter/comparator unit. Anyway, here is some pictures of the core assembly.
This prototype of the core stands about one meter tall. The final version of the core will stand over two meters tall and is one of three subunits that preform calculations, logic operations, and store/load values.
Below is the disk drive. It literally turns disks with lookup tables, each with a 96 bit capacity. The disks are not shown here.
Fractal Clockwork
(via Make)
By Cory Doctorow at 12:02 pm Saturday, Apr 14
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"Everything is coming up roses" is an electrical sculpture by Robert Weschler: it's a clothes-iron that's been modified to scorch images of the Virgin of Guadalupe into any garment upon which it is rested.
The steam holes of a working iron were re machined to mirror the iconic aura of the Virgin of Guadalupe. When cloth is scorched by the iron an image of the Virgin appears in the burn. The text on the T-shirts (everything is coming up roses) accompanies the burns and refers to the Virgin of Guadelupe's first appearance when she caused roses to grown on a barren hillside for the lone peasant Juan Diego.
Everything is coming up roses
(via Neatorama)
