But It's a Dry Heat

Archive for the ‘Metal art’ Category

Fun with Fire

And I didn’t set myself on fire once.

Not even my shoelaces.

Not-so-spontaneous combustion being an occupational hazard of being an artist who works in metal. Welder, plasma torch, grinders, all spiting sparks and fiery bits of metal. Combine that with my spectacular propensity for stupidity, and you’ve got a recipe for flaming artist. And not in a homosexual way, not that there’s anything wrong with that. We at Casa de Kirby being supporters of marriage equality and all that.

 

 

This weekend is the first Art in the Park. Corrales, NM at the lovely La Entrada Park. It runs from 10 am to 4 pm. Entrance is free and there will be activities for the kids, food, music and loads of great artists. Please stop by if you are in the Albuquerque area. I’ll have a few copies of The Music of Chaos on hand as well.

See ya there!

Beware of the Guinea Hen

Because I never posted the finished version of this, here.

The guinea hen crossing sign.

For anyone bored enough to wonder, the basic process to create it is as follows:

Again, sketch a design.  Transfer the design to plate steel with a projector.  (Sometimes I draw designs right on the steel, but it usually works better to project it onto the steel.)

Next, I cut out the design with a plasma torch. I do this by hand, although it can be done with a computerized plasma torch.  (Which is like the offspring of a printer and a plasma torch.) I enjoy this part and so I’m no hurry to go with the high-tech approach.

Once the design is cut out, I use an angle grinder to remove the rough edges and industrial scale (black stuff on the surface of steel).  I hate this part. It takes forever. It’s messy and I always end up snorking up black boogers afterward.

Then, I do any welding and assembly. For this design, that means bending the steel rod that makes up the base and stake. Then welding on the letters and guinea hen.

More grinding–ugh!–to clean up welds.

Finally, I do finishes.  My favorite finish is polished steel with heat alteration.  But it’s a pain in the ass (requires loads of grinding).  Paint is actually easiest.  Apply a primer coat. Then color.  I did this design with spray paint, and dabbed the white dots on with a brush. I then finish with a clear coat. And it’s ready to go.

Like a Dinosaur, But Stupider

When I grow up, I want to be a paleoartist.  The “when” in that equation being rather nebulous.  My mom and my husband have both been waiting years for any hint of maturity. But, if I were a betting person, I’d won’t lay much money on “soon.”

In the meantime, I get to exercise my artistic talents on guinea hens.  Yeah.  Guinea hens.  During this weekend’s art show, I got a request for a guinea hen crossing sign.  The requester wants the sign as a gift for a friend.

Guinea hens are a small miracle.  As in, it’s a miracle they haven’t gone extinct.

My exposure to guineas has been limited mostly to road encounters.  It’s not unusual to round a corner on our little country road and find your car fender deep in a flock of guineas.

In our little slice of rural semi-suburbia, there’s usually some misguided soul who’s decided that having a flock of mentally retarded birds is just the ticket for dealing with insect pests.   A friend of mine acquire a flock hoping they’d eat all the insects plaguing her garden.

They did just that.  And then they ate her garden and promptly took to roaming around the neighborhood, annoying the neighbors, becoming coyote Happy Meals, and occasionally, road kill.

When I was a kid, we had horses.  Since we lived in the city, we boarded our horses in a pasture on the outskirts of town.  At some point, the owners of the land must have had the usual delusions of pest control and purchased a few guinea hens.  I don’t think the flock lasted more than a few months, quickly becoming the meat du jour for local predators.  But in the meantime, one particular hen loved to sit in the fence.

My horse loved to sneak up on this hen and, with a casual flip of his nose, send the stupid bird flying in the air.  Either this bird loved being turned into a projectile, or,  more likely, was dumber than a bag of hammers, but it returned for more abuse, day after day.

I wonder if guinea hens make good eatin’?

What’s That Smell?

Ah, Fall in New Mexico. When the air is filled with the tantalizing smell of roasting chile.

*Sniffs*

Oh, wait. That’s not chile.

Crap. I set myself on fire again.

Occupational hazard of working with welders and plasma torches.

Coming up, we’ve got two Art in the Park shows and a holiday show over the Thanksgiving weekend. If my motto wasn’t “Why do today what you can procrastinate tomorrow,” I’d already have a vast inventory of metal objects d’art.

But this is me. As of the last show, I was coasting along on the fumes of last year’s unsold art. But it had to go and get itself sold last month. Now I’ve got a scant two months to make all kinds of lovely metal tchochkes for the holiday show.

What’s that smell? Panic.

(Pictured: Mountain goats. Media: Steel.)