Inspiration

Posted on February 27, 2009 by Tom Harold

I’m a little chagrined here, a little excited, a bit enthused, and rather admiring. It is my wont to occasionally peruse that veritable cornucopia of visual medium known as Youtube. There’s TOOOOONS of absolute crap on it, but there is also an amazing amount of truly wonderful material out there to inspire, assist, and educate. Today, while trying to re-find a video on a giant rolling ball sculpture that a college student built for his thesis in engineering or physics or something (it uses bowling balls that reach speeds of 80mph – sweet!) I came across a video I’ve never seen before.

Behold, awesome readers, a copper rolling ball sculpture that aspires to art as much as movement:

View, view, view, and view. I can’t get enough of this thing! I mean, just, like, just check out…LOOK! The frame, it’s not just eight pieces of water pipe soldered together to make a box. Those curves, so swooping and graceful, and notice that where they dip they become contact points for the supports that hold up the track – gorgeous and effective. Two points! The solder joints are all very well done, and the spacers for the track are shaped into rings rather than simple flat bars. Note that other support legs are formed into curved pieces as well, and small termination points are shaped into curls. All these elements add to the whole of the sculpture. It’s very harmonious, no?

And look at the use of open space. The marbles seem to zip and float across the curved track in the center, then gracefully move through the spiral, exiting at the bottom without a bump. The visual grace is fantastic. I admire how he has taken car to not use too many support rods. It has a very clean feeling to it. I wish I could see it up close without the shadows in the background to distract from the effect. It’s really great stuff.

In addition, the lift wheel is beautiful. I’m trying to figure out what it’s made of, as I believe a solid copper piece of that size would price in at an extremely health chunk of change (brass wheels of three inches in diameter are 80 bucks, for what that’s worth, and all metals have sharply increased in price in the past year). The fit and finish on everything is of very high quality.

I post all this, partly in reference to some comments made by Matthew Gaulden about some characteristics of my own work. I must enjoy the curving lines, as I was immediately drawn to this when it came up on my screen. I also post it as a point of interest, to give you an idea of just what inspires me when I do my own work. You and I are learning this stuff together, as I’m very early in the process, and there will be many discoveries as to what makes me go, “Oh, yeah! I wanna do THAT!” Right now, this is the sort of thing I want to do. I’m finishing a smaller work right now, but the long, uninterrupted lengths of smooth track on this piece are really, really getting me going. I wouldn’t be surprised if something like that doesn’t show up in one of my future works. This is finely crafted stuff. I wish the guy lived in the U.S. I’d love to meet him some time.

This weekend I have some free time. Hopefully, that means there will be more accomplishment news come Monday. See you then.

Accomplishment!

Posted on February 23, 2009 by Tom Harold

Oh, the weekend I had, kids! It was all set to be a bang-up, creative-filled weekend, and by golly if I didn’t just shoot the moon on that one!

The big ingredient in all of this madness was the lack of gigs this weekend. Usually the band plays both nights, if not just a Saturday. It’s not often I get two nights off on a weekend. In addition, I also had very few personal obligations this weekend. No one was getting married, baptized, bailed out, or otherwise taking part in some sort of activity that demanded my presence for very long. Well, someone had a birthday, and I showed for that, but it was for a (still very young!) old friend. Good times and merriment were had.

But back to the other merriment, my merriment. With the weekend free of gigs, I spent most of Friday night, Saturday night, and Sunday afternoon hunched over my workbench in the basement, floodlights ablaze, brow furrowed in concentration, and I made stuff. Pliers, wire, torch, solder, flux, wood, Dremel – I was a dynamo, I tell you! A friggin’ dynamo! You want proof? No problem!

View from the top.

Apparently, I got going so quickly that I never took pictures of just two spirals mounted, or maybe I did and offloaded them from my camera really quickly, I can’t recall. But here we are, already looking far more complete than a week ago. I think this photo is from Saturday evening. I have the second spiral mounted as well as the third. At the bottom you can just see the final wire with a little flux on it. I was getting close to adding the fourth spiral and realized I’d not stopped for a photo.

Side shot.

To the left here is a side view of the same. You get a good idea of the vertical spacing here. The most work involved is getting the exit ramps and entrance ramps all tweaked and worked out and smooth in transition. I easily spend the bulk of my time getting the track to leave the bottom of the spiral smoothly and move on to the next one without incident or drama.

Another top shot with four spirals mounted.

Here’s a nice top view of four spirals mounted up. I think the third and fourth spirals went fairly easily…well, no, maybe they didn’t, but going from the second to the third wasn’t any piece of cake either. The exit from spiral three was a real bear. Lots of tweaking was involved. I have to say, though, that I was putting together some fine solder joints on all this work. It was slightly incredible, if I do say so myself. It took an entire other sculpture worth of work, but I think I’m getting the hang of this soldering thing finally.

Top three-quarter view. Nice waterfall effect here.

Here’s a three-quarter view on the left giving a sense of the flowing path the marble will have – or at least I like to hope. The switchback effect from the second spiral to the third comes from the fact that spiral number two rotates counterclockwise, while all the other spirals go clockwise. I thought this would be clever and fun when I did it, but after I started assembling the whole thing I realized just how much harder it made things by switching the direction of the entrance and exit ramps. Yes, oh-so-clever me. I made it work, but it required a lot of figuring and scowling. I would do the same sort of thing again, but I think it would work better on a larger sculpture where I had more room to manipulate the changes in track direction.

Soaring high with four elements attached!

Spock's martini glass is starting to look less like a martini and more just plain...groovy.

And here we have the final results for Sunday evening. I think we’re getting the martini glass effect again on this one. I’m not sure about that whole initial ramp I made for the first spiral, but there you go. Seemed like a fine idea at the time. I’m not quite sure why there’s such a sharp drop between spiral two and three, but I think it has something to do with me not quite knowing how to design the exit ramp appropriately at that time. On this project I’ve learned a ton about spiral exits. They still take a lot of work, but I’m learning how to get them to exit in the direction I want rather than just letting them go wherever they seem to want to go. I’ve yet to figure out how to bend one exactly right from the outset, and since these things never end up going together the way I think they are in my little paper scribblings, it kind of doesn’t matter.

We’re getting close to the end, kids! I was doing bends and tweaks on the final spiral last night before I shut the lights out. With that and the exit ramp to build I’m guessing it may take me another week to get it done. Then…well, then it still won’t be done, because my friend Tina Hanagan is going to design a base for it! I’m very excited about this. Very. I think it will add a lot to the finished design, besides the fact that I think her work is really cool anyway.

With that in mind, I think it’s interesting to note that I’ve just recently found out that another friend of mine is doing lampwork – glass bead making. She tells me she might be able to make some custom marbles for me. Yeah, I know, you’re all just as giddy over this news as I am! We’ll see how that little wrinkle turns out.

Genevieve reminded me that I need to post whatever music I was listening to at the time. This blog’s auditory inspirations: The soundtrack to “Dusk Till Dawn,” and Dar Williams “End of the Summer.”

Until next post, kids, stay creative!

Brotherly awesomeness

Posted on January 30, 2009 by Tom Harold

Sometimes I just feel like I’m blessed with uncountable awesomeness in my life.

Tuesday my brother sent me an email with “Sculpture material” in the subject line. Now, my brother doesn’t do any sculpture that I know of, so I wondered what this could actually pertain to. I opened it immediately. “I found these in Ryan’s basement. I thought you could use them for your sculpture. They would look cool all rusty and beat up like they are.”

Attached was a photo of two objects that were definitely rusty and dirty. They looked like giant drill bits, the sort that are used for earth or concrete work. I couldn’t exactly tell how big they were, but they were maybe a couple of inches around and about two or three feet long. Nice.

“There’s one more,” he added. “I’ll bring them over later.” More nice.

Thursday my brother stopped by my place only moments after I got home. “Check ’em out, man,” he said, laying two of them down on the floor of my back hall. “Aren’t they cool?”

Oh, yes. Yes they are:

With my trusty beverage fuel can for reference, you can get an idea of how big these things are. Ben opined that the middle one and the one on the right were actually one piece way back in history, and at some point rent assunder. The one on the left is just a shorty, poor thing. I wonder if it ever felt insufficient in the bed of the construction truck next to the other, longer augers.

Clearly, my brother rules. It touches my heart that he said, “I saw these three rusted, broken, dirty things, and I thought of you.” That’s love, dudes. These pieces of cast iron are now destined for greatness at my hands. The only real problem now is that I have to create an entire sculpture specifically in which to use them, maybe even two separate ones. I’ve never exactly shied from more sculpture work, though, have I?

It will stand!

Posted on January 26, 2009 by Tom Harold

My brother and I were going to work on the Chevelle on Sunday, but by 2pm I hadn’t heard anything from him. I figured that, since I’d wanted to get some sculpture done, I might as well get started on it while I waited for him to call or come over. This turned out to be my greatest and wisest decision of the day.

My previous sculpting session had netted me with some design plans and three curved pieces of wire. I could have posted that the other day, but it was pretty unimpressive-looking, even though doing the work took me over an hour. As I mentioned previously, sometimes real progress doesn’t look like much.

So I sat down with my three pieces of wire which were to form the frame, and I thought about what I wanted to do. About all I knew was that I needed them to form a sort of tripod. Oh, and that the ends of each piece were to be curved in small spirals themselves (I do believe a theme is developing here, no?). Seeing as how I couldn’t assemble the frame without the pieces being curved first, I went to work on those. I used a piece of small pipe for the “big end,” and a small screw driver shaft to form the “small end.” After initial work, I had this:

The photo above shows the main supports along with a rough drawing depicting the top and side view of what I’m going after with this one. The top coils are yet to be modified into spirals at this point.

Above you can see the results of working the top coils into spiral shapes. Once that was done I brought the pieces together into a standing configuration. This took a bit of doing. At first I thought I was going to have to build a wooden frame to mount and position each piece. That would have obviously eaten up a lot of time, and I didn’t want to get that involved. Instead I took a stab at lining everything up by eye, and I’ll be hanged if it didn’t kind of work! I was completely amazed that I was able to get these pieces even remotely even/straight/aligned without a miniature scaffolding and sixteen extra sets of hands. Actually, that one pair of vice grips to the right performed amazingly well, and I thank it for its assistance.

The one thing I hate about lining stuff up is, once you have it all positioned and you’re sure you can really do it the way you wanted to do it, you have to take it all apart and prep the pieces to solder them, and then put it all back together all over again. This I do not like to do, and so after I got the pieces positioned and became exalted over the relative ease with which they came together, I stared at it for a little while, simply not wanting to take it apart…and then I took it apart.

Surprisingly, amazingly, and fantastically, when I got all this stuff lined up and positioned and put the torch to it, I only bumped it out of alignment one time. And when I bumped it that one time, I was unbelievably able to get it nudged back into place within seconds. Truly, angels and things otherwordly and and awesome were at work here, because that s*** just never goes my way! I got pretty darn lucky, though, and after a few tense moments was rewarded with this not-too-perfect-looking bit of solder work. It could be better, and I wish it were, but I got a good, solid joint, and that’s the important thing. This photo is before I washed and scrubbed it, so it looks a tad better now.

Here’s the finished effort! It stands alone after only four hours of work! (Well, it did after I took the clamps off, I assure you.) Not bad, kids, not bad. I honestly cannot believe that I got all of that stuff lined up and soldered using a pair of vice grips and two Third Hand clamps. Really, I’ve spent hours doing seemingly far simpler tasks and been rewarded with endless frustration. This was gold, gold I tell you! (Of course, right after I decided to knock off for the day I wished I’d gotten even more done. Never satisfied, I tell ya.)

The next step is to start hanging spirals. I realized immediately that adding elements to this might necessitate heating up that initial joint which I’d just made, and this freaks me out. Sometimes that stuff just falls apart again if it gets too warm. This could be a really big challenge, one that I’d not foreseen. Hopefully I’ll find a way around it. It’s looking nice so far, and it’s been fun. I hope it doesn’t turn into a nightmare. (Nightmares are great in movies and all, but they kind of suck at a workbench.)

On a related note, after I went to the doctor this morning (nothing serious, just annoying), I got some coffee in the building’s coffee shop. Dig the glass wall sculpture in the background! However, my main focus as I sat there waiting for my latte was these stands that they had for their lamps. The metal which comprised them was about as big around as my thumb. The night before I’d been fighting with a pair of needle-nose pliers to bend .10-inch copper into little spirals. I just looked at this thing and went, “Wow, must have been some big pliers.”

Sculpture Soundtrack: She and Him – Volume Four

Twistin’ the Night Away

Posted on January 22, 2009 by Tom Harold

Well, it wasn’t the whole night, but it felt like it constituted the bulk of my activity for last evening, so there ya go.

I told myself once again that I was going to dedicate one hour of my evening to doing sculpture. This program seems to be producing results, so I’m sticking with it. Yestereve (it’s not a word, but, eh…) I had gotten two coils bent and gotten most of one spiral formed. Last night it was dauntingly simple: make more spirals. The plain simple obviousness of what needs to be done, the real work rather than the planning or figuring or talking about it feels intimidating, but I went back to the prayers from the day before, and I was on my way.

After only an hour of work I had this:

Woohoo! Sweet! Five spirals of varying sizes. They look nifty, don’t they? I think they turned out quite nicely, if I do say so my humble self. I tested a marble on all of them, and it looks like they’ll serve pretty well just the way they are, although some minor tweaking will likely result during the rest of the build. The exit ramps are a bit touchy for me as well, but I’ll have time to fuss with that later.

It’s incredibly satsifying to be able to crank out some complete sections like this in one sitting. A lot of RBS building involves gradually piecing together sections over a period of time, sections and elements that can’t be tested or used until a certain point is reached. It can feel like no progress is being made. Last night it was easy to see the progress in my work. I value those moments. Perhaps I’ll come back and read this entry some time when I’m knee-deep in soldering together support braces or some similarly necessary yet time-sucking and not so fun task.

My big issue now is I’m not sure how to integrate the spirals as a whole. I’ve come up with a couple of different ideas, but not I’m not married to one or the other just yet. They kind of look like little flower blooms, don’t they? Hmmm… Stay tuned, it’s getting interesting!

All Coiled Up

Posted on January 21, 2009 by Tom Harold

These past few days I’ve sort of renewed my commitment to working on sculpture. I think it started sometime last week. After my post at the beginning of the month I had a delay in activity for about a week, and then I realized how much I was procrastinating. I went and found a machine shop near my office to do some work on part of my sculpture. It’s literally a five minute machining job. Unfortunately, the particular shop I found is a commercial shop, and they don’t handle five minute jobs. Sucks to be me.

I’ve not found another shop yet. I’m still looking. These sorts of places usually operate for tradesmen, so it’s not like they have evening hours or weekends. I certainly know where some shops are located, but it’s difficult to get to any of them without sacrificing half a work day to do so. I’d rather not burn vacation hours or take time without pay for this job, so it’s taking a while to find a shop. I got some ideas from a friend last night, though, so maybe I’ll have more to report on that before long.

In the meantime, I realized I was once again sitting on my haunches and not doing any work. I have this huge problem with setting aside time for art. I always minimize its importance in my life and to the world at large. It’s fun, I say. It’s playing around, I think. It doesn’t need to be done when there are more important things to do, I lecture myself. This is how art does not get done.

I finally told myself, in fact I wrote it down: “I’m going to work on sculpture for 30 minutes tonight,” and then the next day: “I’m going to work on sculpture for 60 minutes tonight.” This is how art gets done.

Since I’m in the middle of this larger sculpture with the crazy brass and clockwork lift, I figured I’d spend my extra/down time on a small one. It’s a bit of an experiment to see if I can make a small one that’s interesting and fun. My inclination is always to go for the complex and/or grand (see the pottery I’m decorating – Oh, wait! You can’t. That’s because it’s complex and has ended up taking weeks instead of hours.). This is an exercise in restraint of scale and complexity. This is hard for me, but we’ll see how it works out.

Coils/spirals are pretty easy to do if you don’t make them too large. They can be pre-formed easily around a piece of pipe, and this offers the added benefit of me not having to use my right hand so much as it still bugs me a little bit. I used two different sizes of PVC plumbing pipe clamped in a vice as my forms for the sprials below.

These don’t come out quite as nice as they look here, but with some massaging it’s pretty easy to get them nearly uniform, and while bending them around the pipe it takes the majority of the kinks out quite nicely. I can cut these into sections and make several different sizes of spirals out of them. None will be very large in diameter, but that’s fine with me. This is my exercise in a more simple design. I’m guessing I may be able to get anywhere between three and five spirals out of these.

Last night I wrapped the second coil, and having finished that, I began making one into a spiral. Actually, it wasn’t that easy. I held it and stared at it for a little while. I made the coil more tidy and uniform. I was fiddling. I was afraid to start. I was afraid like I’m always afraid: What if it doesn’t turn out right? I’m going to ruin it! I’ll make it crooked! This is going to suck, it’s too little. I’ll never get this right!

At this moment I remembered a couple of the prayers that I learned from the Artist’s Way: “It is my job to do the work, not judge the work,” and, “God, I will take care of the quantity if you take care of the quality.”

I sat there and said those two things to myself as I started bending. I certainly cannot take care of the quality. I never think my work is good enough (well, not never, but I try!). If someone or something else is taking care of that, all I have to do is take some action, and so I let go and went to work.

After about an hour’s worth of work, here’s what I had. It turned out rather well. This spiral is about at its point of termination. I can’t really turn it down any farther and still have the marble clear the exit. I’ll likely snip it off the rest of the coil at this point. I’ll make some more of these. They will vary in diameter and, consequently, the number of turns then have in each. Hopefully this will add some variety to the piece and make it fun to watch even though it will be of small size.

I’ll bring you more as I progress. I love building this stuff, and I can’t wait to see how it’s going to turn out.

Oh, and Olivia, weren’t you going to send me Hot Wheels and stuff, or was that just a tease? I was all fired up about that challenge.

Metallic return

Posted on January 4, 2009 by Tom Harold

Finally. FINALLY! I’m working on sculpture again. It’s not much, but it’s more progress than I’ve made, more work than I’ve been able to do, in over a month, and, man, does it ever feel good! I’m coming up from the basement with sooty black marks in random places on my face, and my fingers look slightly blackened and they smell like metal. Life is good.

This is the top gear for my chain lift. Getting things to line up and track properly could prove to be a challenge that will have me cursing and swearing on future blogs, but I trust you’ll all get a big kick out of that anyway. The chain is called ladder chain. I found it on the web. The gear is out of a windup clock, because I thought the gears that you could buy to fit the chain perfectly were ugly, being plain black plastic. This is way more hip. It will likely be the source of much cursing (aforementioned), but you can’t tell me that it looks unbelievably boss. The bracket holding the whole mess is a cut up and bent harmonica reed plate. I think I found that one in the kitchen, or maybe the bathroom…or maybe…it was on my dresser. I don’t know. It’s serving a better purpose now.

I hope to have more RBS niftiness to blog about as the weeks go by, but progress on these things can be slow. Tonight I found out that I need to get the shaft for the lower gear turned down at one end, and I don’t own a machine that can do that. Kind of a problem. We’ll see how I figure that out. Much of the immediate work will be getting the lift positioned and mounted properly. It’s not the most interesting work, but there’s no way around it. I’m just happy to have my hands on metal once again.

Artist Date #7: Children’s Museum – Art Glass, Rhoads Sculpture, Comics

Posted on October 30, 2008 by Tom Harold

I’ve had my mind on the Children’s Museum of Indianapolis for quite some time. They have a rolling ball sculpture there that was the genesis for all my sculpture madness at present, plus they have an exhibit on vintage comic books. One or the other alone would have gotten me out of the house, but with both it was a sure thing that somewhere in this twelve weeks that is The Artist’s Way I would have found a way to make it there for an Artist Date.

When you first step into the main part of the Children’s Museum, you come face to face with this enormous art glass sculpture. At 43 feet, the sheer size of it is impressive. It’s the largest permanent installation of blown glass anywhere. My friend works at the museum, and I joked with her once about how they clean the thing. She replied rather seriously, “Oh, they have a crew that comes in and does it regularly.”

It weighs 18,000 pounds, and took over 14 days to install 4,800 pieces of glass to build it. You can get some idea of the intricacy of the whole thing with this closeup. An assembly photo at the site showed the blown glass pieces being slide onto metal stakes that protruded from a central metal column. The scope of this project is astounding – makes me want to try something! (Um, like maybe carving sixty pumpkins for Halloween?)

I’ve mentioned this in previous blogs, but my current (and quite possibly eternal) fascination with rolling ball sculpture was sparked by a trip I made to the Children’s Museum about five or so years ago. I went with my nieces and their mom, my older sister. It was really just a trip to have fun. I didn’t have anything in mind, except I always personally liked the science exhibit. My niece Abby was extremely excited that “We’re gonna make a boat!” The boat turned out to be a few pieces of that styrofoam like they use for meat packing trays, and we taped it together with some straws. I admire the mind of a child for thrilling in such simple pleasures. Honestly, she made it seemed like we were about to construct a battle cruiser with working weaponry and a functional engine room.

When we entered the area of battleship/foam raft construction my eyes came upon one of the most fantastic things I’d ever seen in my entire life:

The George Rhoads rolling ball sculpture, Science in Motion. Incidentally, you won’t find any of that information readily available anywhere near the exhibit itself. There is this:

But you have to look for that to find it. I didn’t even notice it, and the sign next to the exhibit says that it’s a “Rube Goldberg ball machine” or something like that, and that it’s in operation thanks to…individuals or some company which escapes me. I was actually bummed that it didn’t mention George or any of his other work. That befuddles me somewhat. He’s a pretty well-known kinetic sculptor. (I found out what I know about it by doing multiple internet searches, and finally exchanging emails with one of Rhoads’ staff members.)

Be that as it may, at the time I wasn’t concerned quite so much with its origin. I was more amazed that such a thing actually existed. I hadn’t seen anything like it in recent memory, and it just reached out and grabbed 100% of my attention. There was so much to it that appealed to me:

1. Its inherent sense of fun and playfulness. It said, “Behold! I am a machine upon which much time was spent in construction so that I may perform the extremely important task of…being entertaining! Woohoo, I am a machine for fun! Watch me! Play with me!” Children need no encouragement whatsoever to grab and twist the knob that imparts action onto the long, pale blue screw lift for this portion of the sculpture.

2. The fact that such great care and attention to detail went into it. Bending the wire alone had to have taken much patience and forethought. Add to that the fact that certain moving elements of the sculpture required their own specific exacting calculations. In the picture above, for instance, you can see a green wire basket to the left. Notice the ball falling into it? Notice also that there is a metal pad at the lower middle of the frame. The ball has just finished leaving the track, bounced (with a fabulous *gong!* I might add) off of that square purple pad, and landed perfectly inside the wire basket. Who spent time figuring all that out?!?! To catch a moving ball?! Brilliant!

3. The creativity. Look below at the number of different elements the sculpture employs. This sculpture is not just about balls rolling here and there on some fancifully bent rails. Numerous different devices were created to manipulate the billiards in interesting ways.

A. Bell-ringing tipper arm: At the back of the sculpture you see the yellow bell. Swinging away from it is a mallet on an arm, and at the top of the mallet arm we see that there is a billiard being carried from an upper track to a lower track by the arm. Once it reaches the lower track it will fall free, the arm will swing back, and the bell will be rung. A serious bell-ringing apparatus!

B. Ball-collecting tipping arm: As the billiards come in on the track at the upper left they fill a catchrail that is balanced so that it points upward on its fulcrum. Once enough balls collect on the catchrail, however, the arm tips downward, emptying all five balls at once onto a lower track. The result is a delightful train effect of balls chasing each other down the track.

C. Corkscrew: The balls chase each other from the catchrail and race down this corkscrew in a visual and auditory flurry. Colors and noise! Bring it!

D1. Music and Motion, Chimes: Here a set of flat, tuned metal chimes are suspended so that they form the base of the track for the balls. If you look toward the right you can make out the blurred ball racing over them, and you’ll notice the chimes are hanging at angles as they are rung during its passage over them.

D2. Music and Motion, Wood Blocks: Here you can just make out a white billiard tripping the first of three forks that protrude up between the track rails into the path of the ball. As a fork is pushed down, the sounding arm rocks back, after which it most naturally swings back and gives the wood block a satisfying little *thock*! The mallet heads on the end of the sound arm? Golf balls. I love the use of so many different objects!

E. Interacivity: In both photos above you can see how portions of the sculpture can be manipulated by viewers. In the first one a girl raises a ball that is caged in a chute of stout metal bars. The billiards collect at the bottom, and they will not continue along that portion of the sculpture unless they are moved by hand. Children have a great time lifting them to the next level and sending them on their way.

In the second photo there is a tilting green lift that is operated by a knob turned by hand. As shown here the knob is being turned by a young boy and the lift has reached its full height and is realeasing a ball onto the track above it.

F. Displayed laws of physics: Newton’s law of motion is shown here. Three balls remain at rest on this particular dip in the track. When a new ball comes along at the left it smacks the other three, and the one to the right takes off, sending another ball along, but always leaving three behind.

F2. Motion and rest: This one is a harder to see, but in the rectangle there are no downward angles. All rolling surfaces are tracks, though the corners have angled pieces to encourage a rolling ball to continue its journey. The balls enter at the top and are forced to go either right or left by a wedge placed below the point of entry, and they zig-zag their way from the end to the middle where they drop down to the next level. They don’t have a lot of momentum, so sometimes they end up coming to rest as you see two of them doing in the lower right corner. Eventually one ball will come along that will have enough juice that it will smack a few around and send them down. It’s a little unnerving to watch, because you want them all to go RIGHT NOW! Doesn’t work that way, I’m afraid. It’s a bit of lazy motion on this one, and patience is required.

G. Active track splitters: There are a number of active splitters on the track, and this pendulum is a very simple one. One moving part. Balls come along often enough that they keep the pendulum swinging. It has a post at its top center point, seen just to the left of the arriving ball in this photo. This ball will be prevented from rolling to the left by the post, and when the pendulum swings back it will tilt over and roll the ball to the left.

H. Track splitters without moving parts: How can you possibly make a ball choose a right or left course without using some machinery to guide it? When the balls fall from the upper track, they aren’t forced to go one way or another. The landing area is basically flat. When the balls fall down they run into each other and are forced to go one direction or the other without employing any outside forces to direct them along a certain path. Here you can see the striped ball is being forced off to the right by the presence of the green one already sitting below it. I like this trick in particular, as it induces an action without adding any more machinery to the sculpture itself, simplicity of design in action.

I. Automation: I’m a gearhead for certain. Nothing like having a little electrical motor powering up a chain lift! The sculpture contains two separate runs, each with multiple tracks. This run is completely motor-driven, so it will continue with its operation even if no one is around. Its motion attracts people who can then activate the hand-powered run.

J. Track Variety: Not all of the track is made up of steel rail. This portion incorporates pieces of metal U-channel down which the ball drops. Not only is it fun to watch it change direction at sharp angles, there’s also plenty of thunking going on as it drops from one section to the next.

Here is a final end view of the sculpture. It’s fully encased by plexiglass, which is a good thing, because kids pretty much just want to bang on it when they see it, which you gotta take as a good sign. If they gave it the once over and walked away? Not so good. It’s nice to see people want to be a part of what they are seeing, even if it’s along the lines of “Hey! Move! Go!” There was plenty of laughing, giggling, ogling and grabbing going on at the Rhoads sculpture.

I just basically stared at it for over an hour. I’m very grateful that such a source of inspiration is so readily available to me. Even though some of the mystery was gone compared to the first time I saw it (now I know how some of the designs are accomplished), that doesn’t mean I enjoyed it any less. I took away another completely new set of experiences that will surely provide inspiration and motivation for my future sculpting efforts. I so can’t wait to get another one completed!

There was still some time left before the museum closed, so I headed over to the comics exhibit. Along the way I swung by the merry-go-round and snapped some pics using a slow shutter speed.

I used to love to ride on this thing when I was a kid. It used to be outside at a park that is not far from my house. For many years there was a ring of concrete still in place at the park marking where it had been years ago. I’m amazed that it survived and could be restored years later. It makes me a little wistful for times past. My dad has told me on a number of occasions about various amusment parks that used to be around the city. We had roller coasters, boat rides, carousels. He even has a few old photographs of some of the rides before they were torn down. Kind of sad that we don’t have them anymore. My city has obviously gone through many changes in its lifetime.

I had to stop off at the comics exhibit, seeing as how I spent a short period of time collecting them in grade school. I was an X-Men fan, but you cannot deny the allure of a superhero of any stripe. Since I’ve started fooling around with drawing again, I’m also interested in the art aspect of things.

Batman’s Batmobile has changed markedly over the years. Personally, I’ve always been fond of the original, seeing as how it was a Barris custom creating, and I believe morphed from what was originally a Ford Thunderbird. If memory serves, it was put on the dragstrip once, and it had so much metal in it from the customizing procedures, it managed a rather miserable elapsed time. Guess that’s why the rocket was added in back. My favorite feature on this latest edition is the set of Hoosier front tires. That’s right, the Caped Crusader rides on tires straight outta the Heartland.

It’s the real cape! The real one from the TV show!!! Sweet! If I put this thing on, I’d have to try and scale a wall or right some sort of wrongdoing. Maybe I’d just hang out in the Batcave and let the Boy Wonder handle the tough stuff.

Unforunately, I arrived late, and they were shutting off the light tables for the Draw a Superhero activity. No way! I wanted to draw! Oh well, maybe next time.

The Artist’s Way talks about the need to “refill the well” of creativity by experiencing new things to spark your imagination. Thanks to this trip, I certainly have a store of things to draw from the next time I sit down to create.

Masterpeace in a Day(s) – Complete!

Posted on October 20, 2008 by Tom Harold

Well, my friends, my companions, my lovely readers, it has happened. At long last, after a rough start at Masterpiece in a Day, after subsequent hours of slaving away over my dining room table, after several burned fingers, noticeable neck pain, some frustration, occasional doubt, moments of elation, quite a few ounces of burnt propane, who knows how much solder, much vacuuming of the floor and table, a bowl of spilled water, and the stripping of sixty feet of house wire, it’s done. Done!

I took several in-progress photos along the way, and though I though of posting them, I was really much more concerned with finishing the darn thing, so they haven’t made it up until now. Here we go!

Previously, I believe all I’d shown you was the spiral itself, the largest element of the sculpture. At the time, however, the poor thing just lay there on the table and looked a little forlorn, if not kinda neat. The evening of September 30th was huge, because the project finally grew legs! I remember being particularly excited about this stage, because I was finally able to place a marble on the thing and have it function in a manner somewhat resembling its form. I was very pleased to find that the marbles did in fact roll on it as I wanted. (This stuff is never a certainty, as I’ve learned from reading about others’ efforts on the interwebz.) Oh, and see that little coil? Remember that one. It shows up later – kinda.

Following “Leg Day,” as I like to think of it, there seemed to be only one way to go, and that way was indeed up. I needed to be able to test the rest of it as I went, and I couldn’t do that so well until I had a starting ramp. The ramp would determine the speed of the marbles, and upon that I would be basing the rest of the design. I kind of freaked out at this point. There were moments of deliberation and procrastination. I tweaked the spiral some more. I looked at the legs to see if they were really properly affixed. I goofed with the exit point below the spiral to make sure it would hypothetically actually really work – and then I had to look at it all again and go, “Aw, crap. I’ve done well! I have to do the ramp now!”

I really had no idea how high to make it or how steep I could bank it. I was afraid that, either the marbles would be too slow, and wind up just stopping on the spiral, or that they’d be too fast, and I’d get to watch as they repeatedly launched, one after the other, onto the floor. In the end I could do only one thing: build it and trust it would work out. This is the part where I quite literally said, “I will take care of the quantity while some Higher Power takes care of the quality.” I really did feel it was out of my hands, though mine were the ones doing the work. I kind of went slowly with it and just did a few tests here and there, but I think I got really lucky and nailed about 80% of the design right off the bat. Still, it took a lot of work. That little ten-inch rise of copper? That took me at least one evening, maybe two by the time it was completely finished with the big swoopy support on it. Glorious it was when the marbles rolled off the end of the ramp and spun around without flying off into space or dragging to a halt!

You can also see in this photo the beginnings of the lower track going together. I was working on a series of S curves at this point. I had the initial design completed, and was clamping them in place and checking what areas needed to be tweaked. Much tweaking was involved. I remember that bending one wire of the S took about two hours, and I thought I was cooking along. The second one I figured would go faster. It didn’t.

Here is a shot from above, and you can see that some of the track below is not complete enough in form that I was able to solder connecting joints to it.

Here’s a side view during the same period of progress. You get a better idea of the swoopiness of the lower curves. Those were pretty fun to design. I had to get them banked right, because the marbles were reacting to changes in direction in such a small space, that making them flat would have just thrown them all over the floor. I really do enjoy that part of these sculptures, the graceful curves that kind of sail out there and make the marbles seem to effortlessly follow the track. Not such an easy trick, kids, but so rewarding when it works.

And now, the moment every one of us has been waiting for:

Ta-da! CHECK IT OUT! Isn’t that cool?!?!?!?!?! I can’t believe I actually finished the darn thing! Remember that little coil I pointed out earlier? I’d planned to use it as it was originally formed, but since the marbles weren’t really ever going fast enough to be held inside it by inertia, I reformed it, took out a couple of loops, and made it into the small spiral that runs around the leg of the tripod. That part took some doing, as I had to reform it several times so that the marbles would just barely clear the leg when they spun around the inside of it. The final straightaway ended up with a rise in it to slow the marbles a bit, and then I threw in the J-turn, because I had enough extra wire already cut, and it seemed kind of a shame to just have them speed out of the little spiral and then just smack to a halt at the end of a straightaway. The track was all done on Sunday, October 13th, (and there was much rejoicing – “Yay!”). I even showed it to my sister’s family Monday night, but the final bits of bracing took some hours to complete. It was very wobbly before that. You can see them at the curves of the S, and then there’s a very small one that’s hidden from view at the base of the small spiral.

The sculpture, which should probably be called Masterpeace, has now made a whirlwind tour of southern Indianapolis, downtown, one bar at 96th and Meridian, Carmel, Indiana, and Avon, Indiana. Overall it’s been a pretty big hit. I figure if a kid keeps staring at it like it’s television, I’ve done something right! Happily, adults seem to be about as entranced, making me feel like not so much of an idiot for repeatedly rolling marbles down it and grinning like a tot.

I feel pretty good about sticking with this whole thing. The rewards of persuing it to completion after my disappointment at Masterpiece in a Day are hard to put into words.

Ah, now there’s that other unfinished one that I started before this one. Time to get back to work!

Masterpeace in a Day

Posted on October 1, 2008 by Tom Harold

I’m sorry I’ve not blogged about this earlier, but it’s been difficult to get back to the computer this week, partly because I’m not allowed to read anything this week, as mentioned earlier. I don’t want to let this news sit and get cold, though, so I’m getting it out there this evening, even if I can’t re-read what I wrote!

Masterpiece in a Day was an excellent experience, though not for the reasons you, or I, might have expected. The day was set to be a challenge right from the start, as I’d been up playing with the band late the night before, and while the event rules on the web site stipulated work hours between 9am and 3:30pm, I was not able to arrive until about 10:30 that morning. I felt fortunate to have my brother attending the event, as he was a veteran. He had some been-there-done-that advice for me, plus the fact that I had a bunch of crap to unload from my van, and his location made for a convenient dumping ground. Thanks, Ben!

When I arrived at my brother and his friend’s site, I was met with this:

Ben had laughingly told me before that they were going for the largest work, if not the best. To that end, they’d spent over 200 bucks on several sets of canvas totalling a 6-foot by 20-foot area. That’s right: twenty feet long! I told folks later that they had “about thirty cans of paint laying around,” figuring I was overestimating. I was not. They had a lot of space to cover!

Here Ryan applies some blue to the lettering for the graffiti words. He was nice enough to help me move some of my crap over near a wall outlet. I’d hoped to set up near them, but I needed power, so I ended up around the corner.

Here I gamely try to whip some wire into a reasonable facsimile of artistic expression. I had people stopping by pretty often to ask, “What are you making?” I told them it was a little rolling marble sculpture, or a kinetic sculpture, or a number of other variations. The guy who took this picture for me, Todd, was particularly interested in my work, him being a sculptor of found metal objects. His full name is Todd Bracik, and you can find his work here.

This photo could have been taken either hours or minutes later. I think my workspace looked like this for 80% of the time I sat there. One young boy of about twelve kept walking by and offering me encouraging words. Around this point he passed again, and I said, “It doesn’t look like I’ve done much, does it?” and he said very matter-of-factly, “Oh well – good art takes time!” and walked off. Thanks for the boost, kid!

I seriously spent forever making that spiral you see me holding. For. Ev. Er. I had no idea so much time had passed, when some guy came by and asked what I was doing. He said, “You better hurry! You only have forty minutes!” I looked at my watch after he left. What was he talking about? It wasn’t even 2:30 yet. I had over an hour!

After a while a string of folks began going by me to the registration/turn-in table set up nearby. “I guess people are getting their stuff done a little early,” I thought nervously. I kept working. I wasn’t anywhere near done, but I didn’t know what else to do. I didn’t expect to win, but I really had wanted to finish the piece in the allotted time.

My brother walked by carrying one of the panels for his canvas. “You better hurry!” he smiled.

What the hell? Maybe I had really better get a move on. Better to finish with some time to spare. It suddenly hit me how I could tie up the whole thing in about twenty minutes. It wouldn’t be what I’d wanted, but I would be able to finish!

Now, about this entry form…I picked it up and read: All artwork is to be turned in by 3pm. I looked at my watch. 3:05pm.

I sat there and stared at the paper. I didn’t know what to do. I had read the web site the night before, and it definitely said 3:30pm, yet I’d not read the registration form the whole time I’d had it. I was crushed. I felt defeated. I was suddenly very angry with myself for even showing up. Why had I bothered? I mean, sure I didn’t think I’d win, but I could have finished at least! I hadn’t even bothered to read the rules! How stupid was I?!

A woman came by with her little girl. She asked if I’d done a sculpture inside. I shook my head. She asked if I was going to turn in what I had. I said quietly, “I didn’t finish.” She left with her daughter.

I wanted to throw everything in my box and leave. Now. I didn’t want to be there anymore. I felt like I’d wasted my time, expected too much from myself. All these other people had finished and I had not. The one thing I’d wanted to do, finish, and I couldn’t even do that. What an idiot!

I sat there and thought about what I could do. I could leave. I could go get my car and just leave, but my brother was there. He had artwork that he’d completed, and I wanted to see the finished product. As bad as I felt, I was more certain that I wanted to see what he’d done. For that matter, I was certain I wanted to see what other people had done. My purpose was bigger than simply completing my sculpture. Even as angry as I was that thought got through. I came to have a good time, and leaving angry was not going to accomplish that. It was going to make it worse.

I got hold of Ben on cell and he watched my stuff while I got my van. I threw all of my crap in there, still rather angry, but maybe not quite so much. I asked him about his piece. He said, “It takes up one whole wall in there!” Better.

I parked again, and went back to look at the artwork. I wish I had some photos for you, but they chased me out while they were doing judging. It’s too bad, because I saw the most detailed Etch-A-Sketch I’ve ever seen in my life. There were sculptures, at least one video piece, paintings, pencil sketches, mixed media wall art. All these people had shown up that morning and just created these things on the spot. Before we all arrived that morning none of it had existed, and now it lined the walls and covered the floors of two different rooms.

I split for pizza afterward while Ben and Ryan cleaned up. We got separated for a while, and I didn’t see him the rest of the time I was there. As I was leaving after the award ceremony (Ben and Ryan, unfortunately, did not take home an award, but were odds-on favorites for the “Most Obnoxious,” apparently!), I phoned Ben. I still had all those thoughts in my head about not finishing. I hadn’t forgotten any of that, not that quickly, anyway. Still, when he answered the phone I said, “Hey, man, I just wanted to say thanks for letting me know about all this. It was awesome, and I had an excellent time.”

I’m still surprised I said that. When I was younger, and even up until just a few years ago, I would have gone with my first inclination. I would have left and written the whole thing off as a miserable failure, and maybe never tried it ever again. Apparently, I can have a pretty excellent time even if I don’t meet every expectation I have for myself. Achieving that sort of peace with my own abilities and expectations is worth more than anything I can imagine, and I’ll be calling on this experience when similar challenges will surely present themselves, likely at next year’s Masterpiece in a Day. See you there.

Tom Harold

Writing on creativity and rolling ball sculpture

Tag Archives: Rolling Ball Sculpture