60

Another Month

Well I made it another month with making a ring a day. It's getting a little easier to make a ring a day now that it's ingrained into my psyche. I've managed to find time each day to make at least one ring, I usually make more then one ring a day though. This month I've managed to make exactly 50 rings which is better then my 42 for last month. I also sold 23 rings this month on Etsy, which is 9 more then last month. So I'd say things are going pretty good, hopefully both my ring production and my sales will continue to rise with each month. All the hard work is starting to pay off.

Here are all of my Ring A Day rings, just 29 of the 50 I made in February.

On another note, I don't think I will ever miss-spell  February again, I always seemed to write Feburary before but now that I've written it a few times a day for my Etsy listings I think I have February down now.

59

The Artist

Here is a great video with the writer and director of The Artist telling why he made the movie and just why it is so successful. I've always appreciated silent movies. You fill in a lot of the story your self and the actors are there to give little hints to what you should be feeling. The director of a silent film has a much harder job getting a point across, everything matters. It is up to the audience to do most of the job putting everything together. Having to create most of the connections yourself can have a much more direct impact on you, you are not simply watching something play out on the screen, you mind is directly involved in the story playing out. I guess this is why I appreciate silent movies and also movies with subtitles, as you get a lot of the same things. With subtitles you tent to tell the story in your own head at your own pace and the movie is playing in the background acting out what you are thinking. This all seems like I'm rambling, and kind of bumbling along. Anyway, I haven't seen The Artist yet but i definitely intend to.

The Artist - Michel Hazanavicius from Joe LaMattina on Vimeo.
Director / Producer: Joe LaMattina
DP: Michael Lockridge
Editor: Joe LaMattina
Sound: Mike Baum
GRFX: Justin Altman
Camera Assist: Chris Phelps
Special Thanks to Carson Daly, Stewart Bailey, Cinefamily.org, Omar & Uggie

58

Bonnie Bear

Here is a great video to go along with this equally amazing song, also check out more music videos by him on his Vimeo page here.

Bon Iver - Holocene (Official Music Video) from Bon Iver on Vimeo.
Director: NABIL (www.NABIL.com)
Producer: Jill Hammer
Production Company: NE Direction
Editor: Isaac Hagy
DOP: Larkin Sieple

www.boniver.org
www.jagjaguwar.com

57

Old Polaroid Ad

Here is a great old advertisement from the 70's for the Polaroid SX-70. Watching this really makes me think just what a marvel the polaroid was. People still love the look of polaroids too and try to match the styles with various apps. I have to wonder how soon someone will come out with a digital camera like the old polaroid where you instantly print your pictures. I guess that doesn't really make much sense, I would just be easier to start making polaroid film again.

Here is the video, the music reminds me of all the old educational videos I watched in school.

56

Boring Job

Here are some photos of one of the things I've been up to at work. If you look closely at the pictures I posted earlier you can see that the center of each hole is lined with a wooden dowel. This is done to give strength to the fluted form. We thought about all the ways we could go about getting these hollow dowels and finally settled on just making them ourselves. I put together this jig to do just that. The Wawona sculpture will have more then a thousand of those fluted forms, so we are going to need a lot of these bored out dowels.

It's just made from glued together stacks of plywood, There are two holes drilled to hold each size of the dowels we are working with. There is a toggle clamp that quickly holds and releases the other brace. The brace holds the dowels in place through tension but the larger dowels still liked to spin in there when being drilled so I added some screws so the tips barely poke out the other side and that is enough to hold it in place.

 The longest dowels I'm drilling are 6" long. This speed bore bit will actually take out the material super fast but you need to control your speed and not go to fast. If you go to fast it is really easy to split this wood and going to fast causes the bit to travel off the center and you end up off center by the time you reach the bottom.

 I found that if you try to drill all the way through with the whole bit that it causes the wood to split on occasion, so rather then drilling all the way through I just go until the tip pokes out and then trim off about half an inch to finish it.

 Then you have one bored out dowel.

 One down, a thousand more to go.

I'm not sure how many are in that bag, but it better be close to what we need. I'm starting to get a little bored with boring.

55

Snow

A year a go today I woke up to this.

Snow on  the beach always makes for a cool landscape but the light of this morning made it super dream like. This was taken down in Seaside where I stayed for a few days at a house my Sister and other family were renting. I made a video of my stay.

Seaside from Ian Gill on Vimeo.
Seaside Oregon according to my camera from 2/22/2011 to 2/24/2011. Video was put together using 875 photos and a few minutes of video all captured along the beach in Seaside.

Anyway, I was just reflecting on the snow after watching this amazing video of the snow.

Snow Circles from Beauregard, Steamboat Aerials on Vimeo.
Sonja Hinrichsen Snow Drawing

Here is a link to the stills from that same day..

http://www.flickr.com/photos/steamboataerials/sets/72157629090418253/

One week later Sonja coordinated another drawing.. See it here..

http://vimeo.com/37266730

54

Studio Crazy

I've been working a lot this week, doing a lot of the same thing. It starts to build up on you and before you know it you start to go a little crazy. Mostly I've been drilling out the insides of dowels. It's a slow meticulous, repetitive process. I've listened to around 10 audio books, countless playlists and even managed to slip in a nap or two while still pulling the arm of the press down. This process is just one of the countless that will go into the final Wawona project. I just hope I don't snap before the end.

Here is a good example of one of my many previous studio crazy spells.

53

How To Pronounce Things

I often find myself trying to figure out how to pronounce certain words, or I keep pronouncing them wrong. It never really bothers me too much, but people seem to always correct me. If I am having a really hard time trying to figure out how to pronounce a certain word I've always found that the internets is a good place to go. Youtube especially, If i can hear someone say something then I'll be able to pronounce it just fine.

Here are some good short clips on how to pronounce some fairly common miss-pronounces words.

52

I Wish This Was My Home

This would be like living in the vintage mall in Fremont.

This Is My Home from Mark on Vimeo.
On an unseasonably warm November night in Manhattan on our way to get ice cream, we stumbled upon what appeared to be a vintage shop, brightly lit display window and all. As we began to walk in, a man sitting out front warned us that we were welcome to explore, but nothing inside was for sale. Our interests piqued, we began to browse through the collections the man out front had built throughout his life. This is a story of a man and his home.

To see bonus clips, visit http://departurearrivalfilms.com

51

Preview

Here is a quick little preview of one of the small sculptures I'm working on for John. I'll have more pictures later but this is just one that I took to send off to John as he is out of town this week.

50

Earth

Seems like a nice place.

We have a great welcoming committee.

Welcome To Planet Earth from Mikey Livingston on Vimeo.
Welcome to Planet Earth is the story of the extremely unique Jody Pendarvis and his 30 foot UFO he built in his front yard in the small town of Bowman, SC. After a sighting of alien life forms, Jody built the giant UFO as a place to welcome aliens when they return. All though visitors are welcomed to check out this unique and slightly odd landmark, Jody hopes that he will one day see the return of his friends from the sky. This is his story.

Filmed at the UFO Welcome Center in Bowman, SC

A Livingston Bros. / Pioneers Production
Director / DP / Editor: Michael Livingston
B-Cam Operator & Audio: Morgan Livingston

**Tech Info**
Canon 7D
85mm 1.2 L
24-70mm 2.8 L
10-22mm
VariND Filter
Zoom H2n

Filmed with the new technicolor cinestyle

www.pioneerdocs.com for more documentaries

49

Winter Dream

This is what I'll be dreaming about tonight, exploring this landscape with Carmel. Cutting up that ship and building a house on the beach. I'll be there soon enough. One thing I realize though is I'm going to need a lot of sun screen.

Deadvlei's Winter Dream from ivan vania on Vimeo.
Pictures: Ivan Vania (Italy)



www.facebook.com/ivan.vania1



A creative collaboration born on VIMEO



Filmed in Namibia & South Africa

editing,sound design, music made in Italy & Colombia.

Sound Design, Music and Soundscapes by Amniótica

(Colombia)

Alejandro Jaramillo & Robert Perez

Executive Producer: Manuela Restrepo

Year: 2011

www.amniotica.tv

contacto@amniotica.tv



Shot on Canon 5D Mark II, zeiss lenses

edited with FCP graded in Color by

IvanVania & Roberto Brudaglio

www.robertobrudaglio.com



Thanks to Alessandro Briscoli

for the support in Namibia.

www.gardareisen.it

48

Sap

Today I was sorting through some of the Wawona wood that I planed a short time back. I came across on piece that was weeping sap out of it. If I remember right this piece was cut from one of the keel sections we got. Just imagine how long that sap has been sitting in this wood and it still leaks out like this.

47

Press

I read an interesting article about the machines that were built after WWII that helped to build the world that we pretty much know it today. It took some pretty impressive machines to build all the impressive stuff around us. It's an aspect of modern life that is often looked over. You should read the article to get a better sense of just what it took to put these machines together, and what is still being done to keep them running today. Here is the article: http://boingboing.net/2012/02/13/machines.html and another one here: http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2012/03/iron-giant/8886/

Here is one of the presses.

46

Sign Artist

Here is a great video about an artist keeping the style and tradition of had made high quality signs alive. It's great to see that someone is till making signs like this. Every where you look these days signs are all the same boring thing one after another. The signs he makes are all amazing and one of a kind. Check out the video.

David A Smith is a name that has become synonymous in Sign-Writing and Glass gilding circles, with high quality, hand crafted reverse glass signs and decorative silvered and gilded mirrors.

In this short documentary, we reveal behind the scenes work, techniques and visions that Dave uses when carrying out his passion as a glass embosser - One of the few remaining traditional UK glass artists.

See David's Elaborate Victorian Style Mirror completed here: http://www.vimeo.com/25587369

Many thanks to Ada Cole for subtitling the film, Subtitles available here: http://goo.gl/9sORF

David A Smith
www.davidadriansmith.com

A Film by Danny Cooke
www.dannycooke.co.uk

Soundtrack by Tony Higgins (Junior85)
http://freemusicarchive.org/music/junior85/

45

Valentines

For valentines day I sent Carmel a big package filled with amazing things, unfortunately it hasn't gotten to her yet because it takes forever to get anything there. So I've decided to give her a little preview of what she has to look forward too.

One of the things I decided to make Carmel involved the lathe that she got me for Christmas. It all started out with a rough blank of Redheart.

I then roughly carved it into a round dowel

Marked some cut off points

And started shaping

Trying my best to match both sides.

After I finished the shaping I started to sand before cutting the pieces loose

At this point I just kept cutting closer and closer until finally the piece just fell apart

I then just off the excess and gave it a quick sand and some oil and I came out with these

I saved one for myself and sent the other to Carmel. Now we have something that we can spin together even though we are both spinning on the opposite sides of the earth. Eventually they will spin together again.

44

Wood

I have a lot of different types of wood I make my rings out of, 16 different kinds to be exact. There are some woods that I like to work with more then others. By far my favorite wood is Guayacan for many reasons.

Guayacan is quite possibly the most amazing wood in the world. It has been used for centuries to cure illnesses and is prized for it's self lubricating properties. It has been used heavily in maritime application. The shaft bearings for the USS Nautilus were actually made of Guayacan. Which means because of the woods natural self lubricating properties that you could wear a guayacan ring in the shower, or anywhere for that matter. If someone asks me to make them a wood ring that will last them forever I would make them a guayacan ring. I love it both for it's strength a the amazing colors your get out of the wood. The color also varies widely between each piece of wood that I get. I've had pieces that are solid dark brown and others that are light brown and everything in between. It also has an amazing smell when you work with it. When I work with it it feels more like a plastic then it does a wood. If I could only work with one type of wood I would definitely pick Guayacan.

Other woods that I love to work with are Pink Ivory, Ebony, Mopani, Osage Orange, Chakte Viga, and Redheart. Even though Redheart smells like burning rubber when you sand it.

Some of my least favorite woods to work with are Ziricote and Purpleheart. Both woods are just terrible to saw and sand. They are tough which is good for a ring but the wood is just too stubborn to be sawed and sanded into shape to make it worth it. These too are some of my least selling wood rings thankfully, because I would hate to have to make a bunch of them.

43

Cricket

Cricket has always been a sport that I've never really understood. This video helps to clear up a few questions, but also creates a whole new set of them. What is the point of the green pegs, I get the red and yellow, but why green. Also this referee is terrible, how could he call that a truffles equal when it clearly passed over the hips of the grass.

42

The Moth

One of my favorite podcasts to listen to is The Moth. Each one is of someone telling a great, for the most part true, story. The stories have a wide range of topics, some are funny some are sad but they are all amazing. I just discovered that they have a youtube channel which you can see here. You should also check out their podcast or listen to more stores on their web site TheMoth.org

One of my favorite stores is one told by Wanda Bullard. Check it out.

41

Jesus' Son

One of my favorite authors is Denis Johnson, I especially like his collection of short stories called Jesus' Son. It's a collection of stories about the same drifting drug addict which kind of reads like a novel. You read along as he goes over the low point in his life and also as he attempts to recover. I think I like it so much because it is kind of like the story you would hear from some random person you meet in a bar that opens up their whole life to you. It's just one crazy encounter after another. I have the audio book for this too and it's read by Will Patton who does a great job. I also discovered that there was a movie made in 1999 adapted from the book so I just watched that and it does a pretty good job of depicting the feel of the book. I recommend you read the book and watch the movie, they are both good.

40

Lamp Shade

Have you ever been like me and stared at a lamp wondering just how they make lamp shades, well wonder no longer.

Soren Berger makes one of his unique wooden lampshades.

Filmed Rikki Berger
Edited Rikki Berger

Music Waldeck - Get up Carmen

I am a woodturner/inventor/teacher with 35 years at the lathe, I hope you enjoy a small glimpse into making one of my shades.

find out more at www.facebook.com/woodturning

39

Ring Order

This week I received my largest ring order yet for 8 rings. Which is good because my apartment is starting to overflow with rings. I'm thinking of grouping some of my older rings together into a multiple ring post and offer them at a discount to start moving some of my older stock. I've been having steady sales for the most part this year so far and it's nice when I get a big spike like this. Here are all the rings packaged up.

38

Christmas Gifts

I realized that I never posted photos of the christmas gifts that I made this year. Here are a few of what I made.

For my mom and sister I made each a wooden box out of padauk. I then filled the boxes with chocolate.

For Jay I made him a tap handle out of marble wood. I carved the simple design using a die grinder with some wood bits. It looks complicated but it's actually pretty easy.

I drew out the design on to the wood blank, for this design having a square blank actually worked to my benefit to accurately draw out the cork screw pattern.

 Then you just follow your lines.

I then forgot to take pictures of the rest of the process so through the power of magic I came out with this.

Here it is finished with some oil on it and a threaded collar inserted into the bottom to screw it onto the tap.

Well those are a few of the things I made, I have pictures of the box I made for Carmel but I can't find them at the moment so that will have to wait for another post.