It has been a while since I added to the blog page – I blame inertia!
This odd bird was originally put together for the Lower Clarence Arts and Crafts Association (LCACVA) annual Small Works (8×8) Exhibition. The format of the show is that entrants buy an 8″ by 8″ canvas with their entry fee. The canvas must be used in the artwork, and the finished piece may be no larger than 8″ wide by 8″ high. There is no limit on how far the work may protrude from the frame, and the piece may be designed to as a sculpture, sitting flat on a plinth. Each year, the event has a different theme – this year the theme was ‘From My Window’.
I do like to have a little fun with this event. So my entry pictured a bird bursting through the canvas and out of the frame.
After the exhibition was over, I re-housed the odd bird – putting him on the shield shaped mount. Recycled, repurposed and christened ‘The Librarian’.
This was the first piece I’ve done that is more or less figurative, instead of abstract or geometric. The odd bird was carved from Jacaranda, and the glass eyes (and eyelashes) were provided by my wonderful Su from Xandolla Glass Art.
This year seems to have been crazy busy. A lot of my time was taken up with making for the ‘Out of the Forest’ exhibition – but surely I did more than that? I know I’m not the fastest maker out there, and I am retired, but I’m not that slow – or am I? Time to take stock.
After a dive into the various photo storage sites I have, plus a bit more, I realised that not all of my work has been recorded as images, and there are plenty of other domestic activities which get me out of the shed – lawns, baking days, shopping runs, duty days at Ferry Park, etc. However, we did get a fair bit done.
The big job in the first half of the year was to finish painting the house and to replace the flooring in four rooms in the house. We laid a hybrid floating floor system, and in two of the rooms, the flooring was laid in a herring bone pattern! The videos etc on the computer make it look easy. It might be easy if you have learned all the tricks of the trade – I had much to learn. I have no photos!
Realeaux Triangle in curly Mango
The first piece finished was the Realeaux Triangle in curly Mango. This piece was entered in the Wood Symphony Gallery ‘Turned and Sculpted’ on-line exhibition and was sold to a US based collector.
A Realeaux triangle is one of an interesting family of geometric shapes. The Realeaux forms all have a constant width or ‘diameter’, like a circle. Look it up on Wikipedia!
Bud Form – Silky Oak
I finished another sculpture in the first half – a small ‘Bud Form’ in Silky Oak. This was pretty much a prototype for a larger piece in curly Mango that has only just been started!
I spent a bit of time giving a colleague and fellow Clarence Valley Woodworker a hand to make his first piece of furniture – a rocking cradle for his soon to be born grandson. While this was happening, I began working on a hall table.
From around May through September, I was working on pieces for the exhibition.
Realeaux Triangle #2
First off was a smaller Realeaux triangle – also in curly Mango. This piece was made partly in response to a query from Wood Symphony Gallery.
Sci-fi Tri-spoke sculpture – curly Mango
The ‘Sci-Fi Tri-spoke’ came from an idea I saw on Pinterest, but significantly altered and developed until the original is only vaguely recognisable. The shape of piece reminds me of spaceships in old sci-fi comics when I was kid. This was a challenging piece to build. Although the blank was one heavy billet of mango wood, the piece is surprisingly light.
Hall table – Sily Oak inlaid with butterfly keys and a dragonfly
I had made a similar table in Banksia – this one was from a piece of Silky Oak that had been leaning against the wall of my shed for a few years. It had several small fissures in the top – these were filled with resin, then rows of Red Cedar butterfly keys were inlaid. The design required balance, so a Dragon fly was inlaid in the right hand side. This piece sold soon after the exhibition closed.
This clock and whiskey cabinet had been on my to-do list for a few years. Red Silky Oak, Red Cedar and some Camphor Laurel for the cabinet back. On the card, it says that the clock would suit a temperance household…
A boxed set – matching live edged boxes in Tipuana with glass by Su Bishop
A ‘Boxed Set’ or a set of boxes. Five boxes in Tipuana, lined with Jacaranda, and topped with glass by the wonderful Su Bishop of Xandolla Glass Art. I put them into the ‘Out of the Forest’ exhibition as a set, not for sale seperately. The Tipuana has a black stain in the sapwood, and the creamy heartwood will redden with time. The boxes have a live edge all round, and mitres of Australian Red Cedar.
Mobius #7 – Mango
Another Mobius piece, this one exploring the relationship between inside and outside diameters. I spent a lot of time chasing the lines and curves. This was made for the ‘Out of the Forest’ exhibition. Curly Mango, finished tung oil and wax. Happy with that.
Once the work for the ‘Out of the Forest’ exhibition was done and dusted, it was back to the accumulated backlog of stuff for our house and other work I promised for others.
Caravan Shelter
The first of these jobs was to build a shelter to protect the caravan from weather damage – especially the effects of sun and hailstorms. The shelter replaces an existing structure which had a few issues. The shelter was delivered in kit form. I demolished the existing structure, excavated and poured the footings, and with the help of a neighbour (thanks Tim Gherke!) erected the shed. There were plenty of lessons to learn along the way. We still have to put some drainage in place – but that will come next year.
Handrail on the deck outside Su’s shed.
Next was a handrail around the deck on Su’s shed. The main plan was to provide a good handrail to go up and down the steps to make it safer. Su is prone to a bout of vertigo from time to time. The handrail was made from recycled treated pine, and is really quite solid.
Kitchen bench and cabinet – Camphor Laurel, Flooded Gum and laminated pine.
The last big job to get finished was the kitchen bench and cabinet under for Su. Su chose the Camphor Laurel slabs back in March, but the ‘Out of the Forest’ show meant that nothing got done for the next seven months. The cabinet houses a small electric oven that we often use instead of the big oven for sheet bakes, warming food, etc. There is also space for recipe books, and odds and sods that normally litter the house. The cabinet is made from laminated pine, with a white washed paint finish, sealed with a flat water based poly sealer. The slabs for the bench were flattened and thicknessed by hand. The brackets and butterfly keys are Flooded Gum.
There are, of course, numerous other small jobs that got done along the way that I’ve ignored.
It’s easy to forget our achievements. We seem to be more inclined to remember the problems, the failures or other misadventures. It wasn’t until collected all of these photos that I began to appreciate the output. We should all take the time to remind ourselves of our achievements and the good things we’ve done. Do it now!
I was in a proper exhibition in a proper art gallery!
I am 74 year old retired engineer who grew up on a farm and worked with machinery almost as soon as I could walk. As a young man, I rode and raced motorcycles, and worked in motorcycle workshops, before I returned to Universty studies and became a professional engineer. I have no formal art training – my schooling was all mathematics and sciences. If you had suggested to a 20 year old me that I would sell art works through a gallery, I would have called you a crackpot. But here we are!
Out of the Forest was a three man exhibition – Pat Johnson, Andrew Grady and myself – woodworkers all.
Pat Johnson is a well known and highly regarded professional wood turner. Pat has worked demonstrating wood turning in the US and throughout Australia. Pat’s father-in-law taught him how to turn wood, and Pat was a good learner. His output ranges from commercial production (turning balustrades and the like for builders, through craft markets (pepper grinders, bowls and platters) through art pieces produced to sell in galleries. Pat calls himself The Travelling Woodturner and has been known to take his workshop with him as he traveled around Australia.
Pat Johnson’s wonderful mushroom farm!
Andrew Grady is a woodworker with many years of experience. He is part saw miller, part cabinet maker. He has a well equipped workshop, with some chunky machinery. He is also a man of many talents, having worked for many years in the oil drilling industry, with expertise in safety operations.
Andrew’s Love Seat from Jacaranda with Purpleheart inlays
I have a lot less experience as a woodworker! When we were first married, we had three kids and not much income. I made furniture that we needed – mostly chipboard and hardware shop pine. I did some renovations to the houses we lived in. I had the basic skills with tools, but no training in woodwork. It wasn’t until about 2004 or so that I started to take woodwork more seriously. I got some better tools, and I read a lot about furniture design and construction. Every project involved something new, something I had never tried before, and with every project, my skills (and tools) got better. At some point, I worked out that if I was going to put all that effort into a project, I might as well use good timber. Then about 4 years ago, I did a brief workshop on wood carving and sculpture.
Mobius #7 – Curly Mango
I met Pat and Andrew when I joined the Clarence Valley Woodworkers Association (then known as the Northern Rivers Woodworkers Association). Pat and Andrew are both long time members – I was new in the district. Around that time, Mark McIntyre and Steve Pickering started up the Coldstream Gallery Ulmarra, and were looking for artists. Pat, Andrew and I sold our work through the gallery from then. Initially, I was just selling bookmarks and small treen, but as I got more adventurous, Coldstream Gallery started to sell some of my boxes and sculptural pieces.
Wall piece – various timbers
Around February this year, Pat asked me to join he and Andrew in an exhibition that he was arranging for the Coldstream Gallery’s exhibition space, The Black Room. The exhibition was scheduled for late August, early September. My first reaction bordered on panic – there was a lot of work to be done, pieces to make, and only six months or so. When the second wave of Covid ramped up, lockdowns required that the exhibition be postponed. As it happened, all three of us needed the extra time to get our pieces made and finished. We each produced four or five major pieces, and a number of smaller pieces.
Pat’s Banksia Vase
The exhibition kicked off on Saturday 9 October. A few days before hand, we dropped our work off the gallery. I got my pieces there in a single trip, and while I was unloading, Andrew arrived with a couple of his large pieces. Andrew’s pieces were stunning, especially the red cedar and glass coffee table!
Andrew’s Burl Table – Red Cedar
The first time I saw the exhibition assembled was when I turned up for the opening on the Saturday morning – and I was blown away! It looked fabulous. The collection of pieces that had been worked on for six months or more was stunning. I couldn’t believe I was part of this! And the comments from visitors were just great!
Pat’s extraordinary Dragon Fly – Ebony
Outside the gallery, the state was still under Covid restrictions, and travellers were staying away, so numbers were down. None the less, we did have some good sales. The gallery offered to let us extend the exhibition for a few more weeks. According to the gallery, the exhibition was very well received, and even in the last week, people were visiting the gallery to see the exhibition.
Andrew’s Chevelle Mirror – Jacaranda
When I agreed to join the exhibition, I knew that it would involve six months of concerted effort, and very little else would be done around the house. Since the exhibition ended, I have been in catch up mode. However, I still have a backlog of pieces I would like to make, and I look forward to getting back to my work early next year.
A clock… Silky OakWith a secret…
Being part of the exhibition turned out to be a very exciting thing. The feed back (and sales) were just great. The challenge of putting together the pieces and getting them done was significant, and I didn’t get to make all the pieces I wanted to make, but I am proud of the work we put on display.
Hall table – Silky Oak
Would I do it again? Yes – but with about 12 months lead time!
Who knows?
Box Set – Tipuana, glass by Su Bishop
Apologies for the quality of the photographs!All of the in-gallery shots were taken using a mobile telephone as a camera. I have said before that as a camera, a mobile phone is useful for happy snaps at children’s parties. I se no reason to change my view.
So I was in a local mechanical business, and right by the front counter was a proper up to date lay-down Jawa speedway bike. Not what you see expect to see outside a proper speedway track!
So I asked the guy looking after me – “Who belongs to the speedway bike?”
“It’s mine”, he says. He said used to ride in Europe a bit…
Now I used to be a big fan of speedway back in the day, when I was fooling about with motorbikes. Phil Crump, Billy Street, Ivan Maugher, Nigel Boocock, etc. So I asked his name…
“Mitch Shirra”
“Mitch Shirra? – you are famous!”
When life moved on, I didn’t follow speedway so much, but around that time, Mitch Shirra was pretty much the Next Big Thing in Australian speedway.
Mitch was a pretty good rider who made a living out of racing motorbikes. He competed in the finals of the World Speedway Solo Championships in 1983, 84, 86, 87, 89, 91 and 92. He raced the World Speedway Pairs Championships seven times. He raced the World Long Track Championships in 1991, 92 and 93, including a second place in 1992 at Pfarrkirchen, Germany. He won the legendary Morgan Mile in 1986 in both Open and Speedway classes. His most recent notable win was a Long Track event in 2006.
Mitch was a professional speedway rider for 33 years.
We talked about bikes and racing, about speedway tracks and riders. Mitch said to me that he had a great life racing speedway bikes, and that there is nothing that he regrets about the path he took.
Mitch still rides competitively – just for fun. Mitch is just 63, living in rural NSW, and as fit and active as ever.
Sport, Speedway, Overseas Final, Belle Vue, England, 15th July 1984, New Zealand’s Mitch Shirra is ahead of Great Britain’s Jeremy Doncaster (Photo by Bob Thomas Sports Photography via Getty Images)
This is my most recent sculptural piece, carved from Mango and Flooded Gum.
I had been thinking about the shape of the rotor of a Wankel rotary engine. The geometry of the Wankel engine is particularly interesting, because the rotor tips remain in contact with the inner surface of the engine as the rotor spins around its central gear. We had briefly studied the motor at the South Australian Institute of Technology (now re-badged as University of South Australia), and the term ‘trochoid’ stuck in my head. Consequently, I referred to it as the Trochoid as I worked on it. Surely a trochoid is a triangular solid shape?
I was wrong – it is not a Trochoid. A trochoid is the path of a point on a circle as the circle is rolled along a straight line. The shape of the piece is a Reuleaux Triangle – the points on the outer curve are equidistant from the opposite vertex. Interestingly, the Reuleaux triangle is one answer to the question “Other than a circle, what shape can a manhole cover be made so that it cannot fall down through the hole?”
According to Wikipedia, the Reuleaux Triangle also gives it’s shape to guitar picks, pencils, fire hydrant nuts and drill bits for drilling square holes – fascinating!
In the case of the Wankel engine, the rotor shape is a modified or flattened Reuleaux triangle, while the stationary part of the engine, the oval housing, is a variation of a trochoid, called an epitrochoid – the shape generated by a point on a circle rolling around a stationary circle.
This piece is based on the Reuleaux triangle and is carved from curly Mango wood and ebonised Flooded Gum.
I might save this for an event coming up later this year.
Back in November, I posted about box making and included photos of six boxes that were on my bench. Three of the boxes were finished, and the post included some glamour shots.
This box – a collector’s box of Banksia, Camphor Laurel and Red Cedar – was entered in the Lower Clarence Arts and Crafts Association’s Phyllis Austin Award at the Ferry Park Gallery and was awarded an honorable mention. The box sold during the exhibition. The other two boxes were promised to Cowper Gallery for their annual Collectibles exhibition, and are now with the Coldstream Gallery in Ulmarra.
The remaining three boxes were completed, however I neglected to post any images of them. Time to rectify that!
The ‘Tree of Life’ box was made from Crow’s Ash, Coastal Cypress, Red Cedar and Jacaranda. This one went to Art Aspects Gallery in Lismore and sold before Christmas.
This little box was made from Blackbutt, Apple, Red Cedar and Flooded Gum. Concealed hinges and magnetic fasteners gave a very clean look. All in all, I was very pleased with the outcome. Currently available at Art Aspects Gallery, Lismore.
The final box was made from Flooded Gum, Coastal Cypress and Camphor Laurel. The design on the front was an adventure – it is so hard to draw a recognizable figure in low-res silhouette. I like the tree, and it deserved to have something else to share the space, so the little man took his place. Happy with these – also currently available at Art Aspects Gallery, Lismore.
The Lower Clarence Arts and Crafts Association held it’s annual Phyllis Austin Award completion this week, and the work is now on display at the Ferry Park Gallery. The award is open to all members of the LCACA who have not previously won the award. The artists and crafts people who enter include painters, basket weavers, ceramicists, woodworkers, sculptors, glass workers, jewellery makers, quilters, embroiderers, weavers, spinners and more. My entry – a wooden box – was good enough to be awarded a Highly Commended.
The competition is particularly difficult to judge, because of the variety of arts and crafts involved. The judge needs to weigh up the work in so many different mediums and crafts – for example comparing weavers and woodworkers to quilters and painters.
Pam Birrell with her painting and the Phyliss Austin Award
This year’s winner was painter Pam Birrell, for her watercolour. Pam produces mainly with floral paintings, and her work is consistently of a very high standard.
I would encourage artists and craft-workers to enter competitions – not because you think that you might win, but because the winner is only as good as the artists who entered. You might not win, and you might not agree with the judge, but the entries received set the standard by which the winner is judged.
Much as I would like to have won the competition, I am delighted to have received a High Commendation behind Pam Birrell.
I find making boxes frustrating and demanding, and in one unusual respect, it reminds me of running a triathlon.
Now to be clear, I am not a triathlete, and I have only done a couple of ‘corporate’ short course triathlons. I am no great swimmer – floundering more like it. I am not a runner – never was, never have been, but I could ride a bike pretty fast. I didn’t enjoy the swim or the run, and wondered what the hell I was doing to myself. But once the event was over, and the glow of the endorphins set in, I found myself thinking of doing another triathlon. Fortunately, good sense prevailed.
Making boxes is intense, and demands high levels of concentration. On a small box, there is no such thing as a ‘small’ mistake. Any mistake is glaringly obvious! Halfway through any batch of boxes, I swear I will never make another box. But as the finish goes on, the hardware is fitted, and the box gets assembled for the last time, I can see the box as an entity rather than the sum of parts, and despite deficiencies, I start to feel good about the boxes, and I start thinking about making more.
Fortunately, I have a bunch of other projects, so the next batch of boxes can get put to one side for a while.
For now, I have finished three boxes of this batch of six, and the other three are close…
The internet is full of rabbit holes – the kind that lead to all kinds of mysterious and fascinating places. I came across an interesting image which lead me to the work of Michael Foster. Michael is Breezy Hill Turning, and he has a curiosity about the mathematics and sculpted surfaces.
In his website, Michael states that he has “exploring the intersection of math and sculpture. One of the really cool things that I have discovered is the class of math objects called minimal surfaces. Â These are surfaces that describe the least amount of surface area that will connect a circumscribed area.”
A soap bubble or film is a natural minimal surface. The forces of surface tension will always try to adopt a state of minimum energy – and that is a soap film that occupies the minimum area for a given volume or other constraint. Soap bubbles are spherical, because a sphere is the surface that encloses a given volume with the least surface area.
But soap films can get much more interesting when they are not spherical. If you pick up a film of soap on a flat wire loop, the soap film will form a flat film – the least area of film that conforms to the boundary of the wire loop. And if the loop is twisted out of flat, you get a curved surface that is a new minimum surface.
Now Michael Foster is a wood turner. His sculptures start with a turned form on which the boundaries are drawn. He then sculpts the surfaces that join those boundaries as a minimal form, resulting in spectacular swirling curved surfaces. Think of the marking on a tennis ball – and imagine a soap film that connects that curve.
Michael Foster – Enneper II – Minimal surface
Then there are various special classes of minimal surfaces – helicoids and catenoids, and many named after the mathematician who described them – Enneper, Hennenberg, Bour, Scherk, Schwartz, Costa, Reiman, etc – conjectures, theorems, proofs and laws. Plateau’s laws describe the behavior of soap bubbles and films. And then there is the Double Bubble Conjecture…
The understanding of these shapes is enough to give serious mathematicians a serious head-spin, but they do make beautiful shapes.
Michael Foster – Scherk Tower VI – a five story saddled towerMichael Foster – Convoluted – A 5 story Scherk tower that has 3 perforations on each level like Tower IV with 90 degrees of twist and then the whole tower bent 360 degrees into a torus.Michael Foster – The Tao of Geometry- Based on Infinite loop trefoil.Michael Foster – Costa Hoffman Meeks- A minimal surface named for the mathematicians that described it mathematically.Michael Foster – Cayley’s Nodal Surface – a 3D representation of the formula wxy+xyz+yzw+zwx=0A double bubble surface – photo by Brocken Inaglory
Finally got this one finished! – Camphor Laurel and Oregon (Douglas Fir)
I started it back in October 2019 – seems like a lifetime ago… Since then, there were plenty of interruptions. However I had the piece carved and sanded by March.
Since then, it has spent a few months sitting on top of a cupboard while I dithered about the base. I tried a couple of different ideas, but finally stumbled across the idea of using Oregon (known in USA as Douglas Fir, also known in Australia as the Irish timber). The base has been carved then charred before finishing with oil and wax, giving an interesting texture and grain pattern.
Overall, I’m kind of happy with it. The shape was limited by the size of the camphor laurel billet I started with, so the twist is a little cramped, but an interesting experiment all the same.
Shed on a One Acre Block 