So here’s some new pictures of recent machines….

This is Stabby Stan, my most recent creation…

-and hey! I finally got an online store together!!!

Most of my concept and some more images can be seen on the main page HERE

-but as promised, some machine porn…

In these two, you can clearly see the power and ground contacts on the back of the machine…

Here, you can see how the power contact molds into the bottom of the rear coil screw…

I’ll keep workin’ on ‘em, and get some pictures up soon of what I’m working on now…

I’ve been messing with some new finishes lately, and I’ve come up with some pretty cool stuff…

This is the new finish I’m trying on the U-Frames and Mini-U’s. It is a transparent metal dye, made specifically for coating bronze and other metals…

(By the way, you can buy this and other machines at my new online store HERE )

This “paint job” is produced using a chemical made by the geniuses over at Bryant Labs. Ron Young has been producing tricky patina chemicals for years, and when it comes to coloring bronzes, he’s pretty much the biggest name out there. I’ve resisted any finishes other than natural patinas up to this point, because for me, painting on bronze is asking for trouble. (especially when you’re essentially painting a tool) This stuff is designed specifically for this application, so I ran some durability and adhesion tests, and so far, I’m pleased.

The Dye I’ve used here has been thinned and applied over a polished-and-scotch-brite-treated frame, and then coated with a few layers of a scratch-resistant lacquer. The overall effect is lovely. It looks like the frame has been dipped in fire-truck-colored candy. The shine of the polished bronze comes right through the color, adding a ton of depth to the finish.

I’ve ordered up a few different colors of the new stuff, and I’m messing around with my application techniques, so hopefully I’ll get some really cool looking machines out soon…

]]> http://jonrobertsondesign.com/blog/?feed=rss2&p=201 http://jonrobertsondesign.com/blog/?p=178 http://jonrobertsondesign.com/blog/?p=178#comments Tue, 03 Feb 2009 10:13:30 +0000 jon http://jonrobertsondesign.com/blog/?p=178 So i’ve been slaving away (after the holidays and what-not) on a new batch of tattoo machines…

I’m calling this one Barnacle Bill….

UPDATED!! -with new photos of Bill…..

A quick primer on tattoo machines, and why mine are weird:

( by the way, there is more information on this subject at my other site: norcaltattoo.net )

(apologies to anyone familiar with the art: I intend this as a primer for those without experience in the field)

A tattoo machine (don’t call it a gun) is basically a metal frame with two electromagnets that convert DC power to AC through a simple mechanical oscillation. Tattooists use them everyday, and they are a vital tool for all tattoo studios. Therefore, they have to be reliable, sufficiently strong, and well-tuned. In use, the machine is connected to a (sterilized) tube with a long needle running through it. The needle has a little loop on the end which connects to a little nipple at the tip of the armature bar. Power is connected to the circuit, and when the artist steps on the pedal, the electromagnets yank the armature bar downward, driving the needle into your skin, and releasing the top spring from the contact screw, which breaks the circuit mid-stroke. The spring then bounces back, closing the circuit once more, and the whole cycle starts again. This happens anywhere from 80 to 150 times per second, depending on how an artist is using that particular machine.

Here’s a photo of your basic Tattoo machine. A chunk of steel (sometimes iron, brass, aluminum, etc.) has been cut, drilled, and bent into a shape that can accommodate two coils, the springs, contact points, and a tube vise. This particular model retails (allegedly) for $135. A really basic, no-frills machine. (I can’t vouch for its reliability or strength, but it looks like a halfway decent machine)

Now, on the other end of the spectrum are guys like Aaron Cain, Junebug,  John Clark, and a few others, who have elevated the creation of these tools to a true art form. Using just about every metal craft known to man, to create machines that are more like exquisite jewelry than cheap tools. One of my studio tenants in the foundry up here in Humboldt, has his own tattoo shop, and wanted to take a shot at making custom machines. After he saw some of my bronze work, we got to chatting, and he convinced me to take a shot at it. Tattoo machines are an interesting niche market. On one end, you’ve got poorly made mass-produced Chinese crap for $20, and on the other end, people are paying many thousands of dollars for unique works of art that just happen to be tools for an artist. There are fetishist collectors out there with hundreds of machines in their stable.

Much of the custom tattoo machine world is about getting a basic frame, and carving on it with various high-speed tools, to achieve a bio-mechanical look, which is all the rage nowadays (think H.R. Geiger). I came at it from a bronze sculptor’s perspective, and wanted to figure a way to get rid of the blocky, square-and-flat quality that seemed to pervade a lot of the more common carved machines.

Essentially, If you can find a way (any way) to get metal in the right place for all the contact points (some of which are negotiable, geographically) you can do whatever the hell you want to do with the rest of the frame. The first one I designed is now called the U-Frame, and we’ve shipped quite a few of them off by now. Here’s a few shots of the U-Frame:

-lots more images of the U-Frame here

With the original U-Frame, I wanted a really simple elegant shape, with zero flat spots. (other than the mechanical contact points, which had to be milled in.) There are 21 different machining operations involved in each piece, and they are extremely labor intensive to produce. As a result, for the last month or so, I’ve been refining my process for creating the machines, using a few different techniques.

In order to get the little intricate details, and to maintain precision, I’ve rebuilt a piece of equipment more commonly used for casting jewelry, called a centrifugal casting machine. It is designed to spin the metal into a mold sideways, instead of pouring it in using gravity. (this amplifies the speed and pressure of the molten metal, making castings more reliable on a small scale.  I’m working with a much bigger centrifuge flask than normal, and it gets a little hairy when the mold flashes (or cracks), and molten bronze goes flying across the room (working out the kinks, here..)

Any how, it has allowed me to get a little crazier with my designs, and will hopefully speed up my production process, by saving the mill work on each unit. (from here on out, I’m hoping to use a machined prototype, some high-resolution prototype molds, and the centrifuge, to cut out that step on each one.)

A few more shots of Bill:

Alongside barnacle bill, I’ve been working on a few other pieces, and the scorpion is on the way.

stay tuned…..

UPDATED PHOTOS OF BILL WITH THE PRODUCTION HARDWARE:

Thanks for looking!!

This one matches the big spider, and the last one I made into a jewelry box.

I sharpened the tips of the legs, to make it a little more menacing than the big version. I suppose if I have to name them, this one is Gertrude.

Here’s the jewelry box version, with the lid off. (Its just a box, so no name for her…) You can see the green patina on the inside of the cavity…

I was a little nervous about how to get a handle on the lid for the jewelry box version, but this weird little Doctor Seuss-style node works well, i think. You can see the seam where the lid meets the body. I’m quite happy with the way it turned out,,,,

I can imagine some lucky lady out there wants a safe place to stash her wedding ring at night. What makes a better guard dog than a two-foot-long metal black widow?

Tell your friends….

they’re all for sale.

UPDATE…..

It looks like I sold Gertrude….

-but the buyer wanted her polished, so here are a few post-polish shots…

I have to admit, even though polishing is a bitch, i really wanted to see at least one of ‘em shiny.

Just for clarification, these are comparative photos of one sculpture (I did not make a whole bunch of identical copies…

I liked the first one so much, I had to re-do the same patina…

I like this one too….. It hangs nicely, and comes off quite menacing. the thread she is hanging from is a 1/16th stainless steel cable, and is securely looped inside her cephalothorax. 

I’ll keep working on ‘em…

stay tuned….

Its also your typical love story: boy meets shark….

When I completed First Kiss, I ran into a certain amount of criticism, because there exists a whole side-industry within the art world that is centered around marine life, and especially humpback whales as subject matter. The primary culprits behind this trend are this fella and this guy. Whatever your opinion of Wyland and Nelson, you have to admire their dedication, business sense, and prolific portfolios. However, if you get caught doing a representational sculpture of a humpback whale while still in art school, be prepared for the long knives. Many of my fellow art students saw First Kiss as an attempt to capitalize on an existing trend, and found it conspicuously absent a prerequisite political, cynical or abstract message. (or lack of message) First Kiss was, for me, the end result of quite a few years of study, and carried with it a deeper meaning that went far beyond economic opportunism, but in art school, sincere (and somewhat naive) narrative work is often frowned upon. After some pretty nasty critiques, I decided to tackle some similar content, but use a little bit more edge and nastiness, partially in an effort to convince my critics that I was in fact very sincere about this body of work.

Second Kiss was a very similar piece to First Kiss, with a similar narrative, but came on the heels of a trip I took to South Africa, during which I got to hop in a cage, and go swimming with a few great white Sharks in Mossel Bai. I’m sure it’s fairly apparent that I have a great deal of interest in marine life, and almost all boys like sharks, but great whites are doubtlessly the ultimate apex predator. If I can say I’ve ever had anything like a religious experience in my life, that was it. Being in the water with a giant, powerful predator that is superior to you in every significant context except an SAT score is truly humbling. No animal on earth can trigger the same visceral, raw fear that a great white can. For me, the awe of seeing a massive humpback whale gliding along in its own element is only matched (and surpassed) by witnessing the sheer power and purpose of a great white in the open water.

A great deal of my work is also about fear, and facing our fears. Second Kiss is definitely a part of this meme. Sharks have existed, unchanged, for millions of years, and with good reason: they are perfectly built for what they do. Great whites are built for killing. The thought of being struck by an attacking great white is one of my darkest fantasies. I used to have recurring nightmares of being attacked by a massive great white, and I always woke up immediately after feeling my body ripped and torn apart, with my heart slamming adrenaline through my body, relishing the thrill that came with realizing I was still alive. The piece juxtaposes a human boy at his most vulnerable, naked and alone, touching the nose of a young great white. There is more going on in the piece than is immediately apparent, however. When I was in South Africa, I learned some things that they don’t teach you on the Discovery Channel. (First of all, the white sharks behave somewhat differently in Mossel Bai, and nobody knows for sure if the differences are environmental or behavioral, so the following observations may not hold true for all great whites. -fair warning if you find yourself in this situation.) 

Young great whites are incredibly skittish, compared with the bigger adults. They move faster, jerkier, and can be downright shy. In south Africa, they call the young great whites “brownies”, because their coloring has not developed completely. Instead of a dark gray, they have brownish mottling on their backs. If you observe the way they swim, you can start to interpret their body language. The shark in the sculpture has it’s back arched upward, and it’s pectoral fins out flat, which is a very submissive posture. If a shark is preparing to attack, It will arch it’s back downward, and swing it’s pectorals down to an almost vertical position. (That’s how you end up seeing a single fin cutting the surface of the water, and not two, as the caudal fin is as tall as the dorsal fin.) Sharks are curious creatures, however, and an animal with no hands has only one way to investigate the many different objects it may encounter. If a shark is confronted with an unknown object, and cannot determine if it is prey, it will give it a “gentle” bite, as a method of investigation. Many experts believe that when a human survives a shark attack, it is because the shark was not attacking at all, but investigating a strange new presence in it’s environment, only to discover that the awkward fish was stringy, wiry, and had far to little fat content to qualify as food. Our young Brownie is in an extremely docile, almost submissive posture, and shows no signs of attacking the baby. It is in an investigative mood, and is simply trying to determine who this little invader might be.

One other little trick I tossed in involves the shark’s nervous system. Almost all sharks have special jelly-filled nerve cells on their bodies called the Ampullae of Lorenzini. These are used to sense electrical impulses through the water, and are heavily concentrated at the tip of the nose. With these extremely sensitive receptors, sharks can actually feel your heartbeat long before they are within visible range. They are also a weak point in a shark’s nervous system. If a shark is approaching you, to investigate who or what you are, and you firmly place your hand on the tip of it’s nose, It sometimes has the effect of “shorting out” these electrical receptors, and can stun the shark into an immobile, almost trancelike state. A young man that worked on the boat I was on in South Africa told me that he had personally tested this little trick on massive great whites, and had stopped them in their tracks. The sharks would simply go limp, sink back into the water, float aimlessly for a while, and finally regain their composure and swim away languidly. Our little infant in Second Kiss is performing this maneuver admirably, controlling the instincts of the shark, and fearlessly participating in an impossible little moment of mutual curiosity.  

Second Kiss is not a piece about sharks eating babies. It is a metaphorical encounter between two youngsters, who happen to be of different species, meeting each other in an improbable scenario that requires us to confront our suppositions and fears. It is a portrayal of an absurd moment that (hopefully) demonstrates the idea that some of our worst fears are often simple misunderstandings, and that sometimes the best way to confront an unknown perceived threat is to throw out our assumptions, and approach with the amazing fearlessness of a child.

I think I’m gonna name these smaller spiders after the real Latrodectus Mactans models that I used for the original. Therefore, this one shall be called Edna. 

Welding on some legs…..

The two back legs are going to be cradling the thread the spider hangs from, so I’ve got to get all the other legs done first, to establish the balance. 

I’ll probably git ‘er done tomorrow.

-more shpiders on the way……

-for the first one, I’m just going with a simple black patina, and I polished and masked the little hourglass on her tummy.

More photos below the fold…..

A shot of the cephalothorax, where the legs are attached. -This is basically the reason I chose to do a dead one, because I think the leg attachment details are really cool looking.

here are the chelicera, and the fangs, emerging from under her little shell…

I don’t often turn my sculptures upside down to photograph them, but this one is kind-of a free floating thing. Eventually, I’m sure she’ll get unsightly scratches where her abdomen touches the ground, but for now….

Just look at those sweet baby blues….

I’m off to visit my family for thanksgiving, but I’ll crank on the rest of ‘em when I get back….

-One down, Three to go!!!

Still got a long way to go, but…..

-Check out them buns -SHINY!!!

I finally got some time to pour bronze this weekend. (To see a video of my a bronze pour, go here, and click on the “click to play” section) I had four of these little guys, and the mold for blowing glass abdomens. Everything came out smooth, and Beside a few heat contraction tears in the legs, everything poured fine. Here’s a few photos of the process….

First thing, is to grind the bottoms of the shell off, exposing the wax interior. (The wax is about to get melted out in the kiln.)

Here’s a before and after shot of the shells in the kiln. The right side is before lighting the kiln, and left is after firing. You can see that the organic dye that turns them yellow-orange is gone after firing. After firing, I check the shell’s integrity by tapping them. If they have a harmonic “ting” sound, you know the shells are properly vitrified, structurally sound, and ready to pour…

I was too busy during the pour to take any photos, but once the dangerous part is over… viola! Here you can see two spider bronzes and the abdomen mold, with most of the shell cracked off.

Here’s the raw bronze, with all the shell removed. It always looks ugly right out of the shell. (kinda like a newborn, all wrinkly and nasty) The bronze here is oxidized from the rapid cooling, and the parts need to be cut apart, sanded, polished, etc…

Here’s all the parts for one spider, cut up and rough-sanded. From here, I need to start weldin’ stuff together, and then more sandin’ and polishin’…. The photo at the top of this post is of this same spider, after welding the abdomen together, and doing a rough polish. Stay tuned…. I should have some finished photos soon!!!

]]> http://jonrobertsondesign.com/blog/?feed=rss2&p=103 http://jonrobertsondesign.com/blog/?p=99 http://jonrobertsondesign.com/blog/?p=99#comments Sat, 22 Nov 2008 23:30:49 +0000 jon http://jonrobertsondesign.com/blog/?p=99 First Kiss was one of my earliest large-scale bronzes.

It is based on a story I heard a few years ago…

A friend of my family was vacationing in Baja California, where the humpback whales go every year to calve their young. As more and more people flocked to resorts in the area, whale watching became increasingly popular. As a result, interactions between humans and whales became more frequent. Some people began noticing some new behavior by the whales. Mother whales (called cows, believe it or not) would intentionally coax their young calves up to the boats full of human observers. It was as if they were trying to introduce the people to their young, sometime newborn calves

A word on humbpack whales:

I have always been interested in whales, especially the humpbacks. Aesthetically, they should be incredibly ugly. They break all the conventional rules of aesthetic beauty. They are top-heavy, and their flukes and tails are over-sized, asymmetrical, and anything but streamlined. They are covered in fleshy lumps, and sporadic, thick hairs like wire. They constantly collect barnacles that grow on their skin. Their mouths are essentially located above their eyes, which, with humans, is incredibly visually jarring.

Somehow, despite all these perceived flaws, they can be incredibly beautiful creatures. They are one of the very few large cetacean species that “breach”, or jump out of the water. (A pretty athletic feat, for a sixty-thousand pound animal.) They have the grace and smooth movement of a creature that is perfectly adapted to its environment. In my sculptures of whales, this movement is always the tough part to capture. In first Kiss, I used a twisting coral-like shape as the base, to try to lend a visual movement to the top end of the piece, and visually lead to the focal point of contact between the two species.

This was my first attempt at the original concept behind first kiss. I made it out of polymer clay, looong before I started working in bronze. (I’ve got a whole trunk of these things, dating back to when I was twelve years old. -some of them are really embarrassing)

Whales intrigue me for reasons other than aesthetics, also. The longer story of whales, and the story of our human relationship with them, is pretty amazing. Our planet is mostly ocean, yet we are still on the land. Whales originally evolved from land-based mammals. Over millions of years, they tried out a life in our dry environment, but eventually ended up choosing a life in the vast ecosystem that dominates our planet. The evolutionary track that our two species followed diverged on the seashore. While humans have solved our many existential problems with big brains, critical thinking, grasping forelimbs and adaptability, the whales simply found a way to live seamlessly in their environment, without any need for environmental manipulation on a human scale. We sought to change our environment to suit our needs, while the whales sought to find a way to exist perfectly in the environment in which they found themselves.

In examining these two different narratives, it is important to understand that the whales are not demonstrably inferior to us, in a physiological sense: They have massive brains (often much larger than ours), complex societal structures, intricate languages and dialects, and extremely intricate cooperative behaviors. Humans evolved in a crucible of adversity on land, faced with challenges from climate, weather, predators, famine, and an extremely fragile body. We overcame these challenges by evolving an incredible brain, capable of symbolic thought structure, language, critical thinking skills, problem solving ability, and spooky-fast and accurate pattern recognition abilities. Armed with this amazing brain, and a few grasping forelimbs, we developed complex tribes and societies, tool creation skills, and harnessed nature, re-creating our environment to suit our needs. As we diverged from the simpler primates, evolution favored these traits, creating a runaway feedback loop that has drastically changed the face of this planet. (mostly the dry parts)

The whales went another direction. Though they are extremely similar to us (there are massive finger-like bones embedded in those flukes) they evolved in a way that allowed them to change themselves to suit their environment, rather than evolving an ability to re-shape their environment. (many have postulated that the decisive factors here were grasping forelimbs and binocular vision, neither of which the whales have.) I often wonder if they have stories to tell us about their existence. We know of, but do not yet understand, their complex language. We hear them talking to each other whenever we take the time to listen. We know that they share complex familial bonds, and organize their pods into a complicated and dynamic hierarchies. We know that their brains are massive, and as we understand more and more the structures that exist within mammalian brains, we grow more certain that they are capable of real thought. I wonder what we can learn, if we ever develop an ability to truly communicate with them.

First Kiss is an intended to honor the spirit of that endeavor, our attempt to understand and eventually communicate with these creatures. In our long relationship with the whales, we are starting to finally put down the harpoons, and are trying to learn something from a species that shares so many commonalities with us, yet diverged from our path millions of years ago. As we try to understand our relationship with our planet, and our role in maintaining it, I wonder if the whales would have an insight, a perspective, that we simply haven’t thought of yet.