It is hard to convey what it is I do in my work, particularly because it is so difficult to show the three dimensionality in a photo. Somehow, a photo of a statue seems more easily seen as a three dimensional structure. So I thought I would give a more step by step portrayal of my latest work, “Cornering the Gold Market”.
Obviously the beginnings come from the design which seems very simple at first look. It is a square with thirty seven equally spaced points on each side. The number was chosen so there was room for the heads of the screws, and so that the total number of screws of any two sides would be seventy three, a prime number.
Then that pattern is placed upon a half inch thick piece of Plexiglas and you spend several hours drilling the one hundred and forty four holes for the screws. After taping the back of the Plexiglas to protected it and hold in the screws, you then begin threading each corner.
Well, that is one layer, winding a thread around each of seventy three screws in a particular pattern once for each corner.
Then add a few more layers, Make sure all the wraps around all the screws for each layer are on pretty much the same thread of the screw.
Tie off, secure, and cut all 47 threads, pull of the blue tape and turn it over.
And just in case you think this is an easy process. This is the remains of all the times I finished a corner, tied it off, cut it, and then found a mistake. That does not count the twenty to twenty-five times I found a mistake and had to wind all the thread back onto the spool and start over.
From design to completion, this took me well over a month, including some of the most frustrating days of my adult years. But it is a work of which I am most proud.
You can imagine my concern when after being purchased and shipped I was informed by the new owner that it arrived with tire tracks over the box and the frame broken in several pieces.
However, though UPS did not hold true to their word and did not pay their insurance, the frame was built again and all is well in the highlands of California.
