I just put the finishing touches on my latest piece ” Hello Saul” and shot some rough video for your viewing enjoyment. I recently picked up a book  “Saul Steinberg at the New Yorker “. He’s one of my favorite artists of all time and I’ve been enjoying this collection of work. This image has become stuck in my head.

Starting September on a good track with a nice tight little ratchet piece. Each revolution of the crank indexes the ratchet 1/5 of a turn. On each turn of the small ratchet the large ratchet indexes 1/12 of a turn. Here’s some shots:

The small ratchet from a sewing machine bobbin

I’m still getting used to the new space and trying to figure out the best way to photograph work as it’s developed. One of the best things about the new studio,  it’s at home and I’m able to have long conversations with Frida and Buttercup, a SATO dog and Siamese cat.

Summer has been whizzing by, mostly devoted to some interesting  animation and interactive freelance work and moving my studio. As mentioned in earlier posts my goal was to trim things down for my current work which is much smaller and compact.

moving day

I’ve been getting rid of stuff for months and as a result the move went very smoothly. The new space is wonderful, it’s located under my “office” in my live work loft. The office section on top is where I do animation and design work, below is the new home for Mechanical Confections. I love the way everything creative fits into this roughly 240 square foot two level space. Thankfully I’m only 5′6″ tall and the ceilings here are almost 14 feet high!

The work cube

I’ve been brewing an interesting idea in my head over the past few weeks. This is an experiment and I’m going a bit out on a limb by trying to determine where it might go but here’s what’s on my mind.

I’ve been thinking of ways to combine my animation and kinetic sculpture interests. Reading up one of my favorite artists; animator and kinetic sculptor Len Lye, an idea popped into my head. Before I go on for those unfamiliar with Len Lye’s work, here’s a favorite:

And here’s a link to examples of his kinetic sculpture work, so wonderfully playful, fluid, inventive and inspiring! My favorite is the Ribbon Snake.

Over the weekend I cobbled together a portable device for drawing and painting on 16mm film. The whole thing folds up and I’m looking forward to taking this with me wherever I’d like, a portable animation studio.

My film device unfolded

folded up and ready to travel

Little Drawings, tiny!

Sometime while thinking about Len Lye and hand painted film I thought, perhaps I can create machines which create an immediate experience of sound layered over hand painted film which plays when a crank is turned?

The next item in this show and tell is a wonderful Moviscop viewer purchased on ebay from a gentleman in Colorado. He mentioned that it had been part of a TV studio. It’s lovely, very solid and made in Germany.

So solid!

I’m imagining a machine which plays direct animation, the film runs in a big loop through sprockets and pulleys generating the sounds for the film, wouldn’t that be cool? My next task is to dig up some 16mm film sprockets to run the film through the machine and into the viewer. Anyone have an old projector they’d like to donate?

Simple drawing on screen

The trailer for the Boston LGBT Film Festival is a wrap and was a nice change of pace for a few weeks. Now that the studio is organized I’m looking forward to some fresh new sculpture work starting next Monday. In the mean time, enjoy the trailer! I collaborated on this project with a super talented director, Peter Pizzi. When you have a chance check out his site; Magic Club Productions.

I’m almost done wrapping up the trailer for The Boston LGBT Film Festival which means I should be heading back to the sculpture studio later this week. While animating I’ve been building up a huge list in my noggin regarding things I’m planning to build so new Mechanical Confections should be a-popping here very soon!

In the meantime I have the pleasure of announcing “My Artist Statement” a piece I created for a show at the Fuller Craft Museum last year has been selected to be part of their permanent collection. I’m very honored to be in this wonderful museum. Part of the fun was being interviewed by Exhibitions Manager Jessie Schlosser about the piece. The recorded interview gets stored with the piece so people, many many years from now can understand why it was made and have a little information about the artist.

I created this piece as my Artist Statement for the show, it vends artist statements which I gathered by Googling “Artist Statement” and then printing these out and laminating to blocks which are dispensed when the lever is pulled.