New Table

Still needs staining a natural stain, most likely danish oil.   I also need to glue in the legs they are in and hold a goodly amount of weight but I doubt you could stand on it not that I want people to stand on my furniture but it deff could happen.  The wood is walnut and oak and the copper is 1/2 inch copper pipe with the lip folded over and flared it.  It might get a repousse texture or it might not

Real Person Job .

          So I started a new full time real person job, with a company called Artex... I am currently classified as temporary and hopefully that will change in a couple of months and will actually have a real person job.  My job right now is Art Handling at the Peabody Essexs Museum (one of my favorite museums if you have not been check it out its in Salem Ma) Mostly the job is white glove packing... IE take an object wrap it in plastic, or put it in a bag, wrap it in bubble wrap or foam or any number of things to make sure it will not... no matter what break in the box you put it into... plus keep a strict super accurate record of what you packed.  Sounds boring but it isn't because of the things we pack.  We are currently packing the nautical collection, highlights of stuff include, swords, cannons, boat models and cool nautical instruments.  The only down side is that including my commute, it is a 12 hour day 5 days a week which is a lot of hours.  Manageable but still a lot.  The other downside is being that I now work effectively 60 hours a week that means I have a lot less time to make things.  But after the first full week I still wrangled a little time for art making and rock climbing... not as much art making as I would of liked but I guess live for the foreseeable future will be 60 hours of work a bit of art making,  a day of rock climbing outside and maybe an evening of rock climbing inside.   So this blog post is a bit of a departure being that I am actually talking about my life and not just the things I make and my creative process but I figure thats ok.        
           I  still have work up at that show at Gallery 55 in Natick if your in the area check it out (better yet send your wealthy art buying friends to check it out) and I apply for a lot of shows and such but hopefully I will hear back in the positive from a show I applied to a couple months back as a curator at the New Art Center the end of this month.   My normal additude is quiet pessimism about anything I apply to but I am slightly hopeful for this one which means I think there is slightly more than a miniscule chance but hear is to hoping.


Cheers

Devon

Drawings and Finished Work

                                                                                            

Tidal Crop Circles
Finished Piece 

So for as long as I have been making sculptures I have been drawing tiny thumb nails, usually in a small  5" x 8" Sketch book, occasionally I will break down and do a big drawing but I never really liked it.  Usually I draw a series of differnt but similar thumb nails.  After I pin down what I like best I do a better slightly larger I.E.  filling a whole page of my small 5"x 8"sketch book drawing and then I move forward with making the peice.  However, at least with this current body of work my process has changed or at least grown.  I still do my small sketches, usually after the glass is cast and rough cold ground.   Then I take the best of the thumb nails sketches and render them in sketch up.  

Tidal Crop Circles
Sketchup Drawing

A most fortunate trip to the DMV

SO LONG STORY SHORT, I have two peices in a show at

Gallery 55 

55 s main st, Natick Ma

Opening this friday from 7-10

The show is up for a little over a month 

So if your in Natick for some reason please check it out.  

                    
               Now the longer story, and for those of you who dont read there are pictures at the bottom
      
       A most fortunate trip to the DMV, I know this sounds like a contradiction in terms and I assure you... it is.  However this is a story about how my being an IDIOT and trying to go the DMV helped me.  About a month ago I was trying to go to the DMV and I googled the nearest one, apparantly its in Framingham MA.  So I printed out directions and with trepidation in my heart I set out aware that I was in for a terrible day as the DMV is usually the manifestation of hell on earth.  However, I was foiled or saved depending on how you look at it I had neglected to pay attention to what directions google had printed for me and apparntly they sent me to 10 pearl st in Natick, not Framingham.
       So I am annoyed once I get there and realize my mistake, so I resolve to drive to framingham and get woefully lost and hope by black magic I can find the DMV.  But as I am turning around I see a gallery, and if I see a random gallery I like to stop in usually I expect the normal crappy small town gallery work.  But this Gallery... Gallery 55 in Natick has really cool work a bunch of funky large scale sculptures (http://www.gallery55.com/artists.html), they also have an inhouse jewler working at his bench all in all its a cool funky place.  Feeling either more couragous or more fool hardy than I usually do I approach the owner and ask how one shows in there space.  I show her a piece I have in the back of the car because I had forgotten to take it out and think nothing of it.  However, apparantly she remembers me and sends me a link to apply for a show.


Also I just updated my website with the new work I had in my last blog.  Check that out too
DevonMurphyArt.com
Below is a copy of my new homepage because this blogs word to picture ratio is quite off.

New work Lookie-Lookie

 This one as of right now is still untitled, and it will get a metal stand that allows it to spin I think, but when I get it made Ill photograph it myself.  If you have a title suggestion let me know.

 This one I think I will call "off level"

 A front and back veiw of "Tidal Crop Circles"

Also still untitled... Again title suggestions welcome

Asinine Art Expenses

Today I spent about a 100 bucks on copper nails, copper burrs, copper roves, and two male rod end barrings.   No I am not building a boat which is the most logical reason for buying copper nails and what not, mostly I want esteticly pleasing options for fasting the wood and glass peices I am making and surface decoration for a peice I am working on.  The bearings are for making a stand for a peice that wants to be able to spin.   The drawing below was the impetus for buying the copper.  

  

I wish I didn't have a weakness for fancy expensive materials,  but oh well.  I have an appointment to shoot photos this up comming tuesday so if all goes well I should have more images up pretty soon after that.
             The class I T.Aed at massart is over and so is the semesters except for the poor bastards finishing up there reviews and crits.  So no more new castings for a while but I have a large stock pill of cast parts and peices to work with over the summer.  Hopefully I will have finished 10ish peices this semester, all sand cast glass and wood peices and will finish more over the summer.  After I get this next batch of photos I need to concentrate on finding people to buy them or galleries to sell them.   If anyone is interested in a peice let me know.

How I Make Some of the Things I Make

Wednesday night Hot Pour.   Hot Pour is a type of glass casting where you dip a metal ladle into a 2200 to 2300 hundred degree glass furnace scoop up the glass much like pulling really really hot soup out of a big square cauldron.  

Almost all hot glass working is a team sport.   In this photo I pulled the ladle and Evan uses a pair of garden shears to snip the excess glass off the ladle. 

After the glass is removed from the furnace and is in the ladle the pourer walks over to the mold in this particular case a graphite mold and pours the molten glass into the mold the other person waits until the right amount of glass is in the mold then the trail gets snipped again with the same garden shears.

Most of my work has been sand cast up until recently right now I am working on a couple graphite cast pieces some with clear glass, but this particular one is poured clear and lots of different glass frits, and powders are sifted onto the mold.

Sometimes I just sprinkle the color on with my hand

I have about somewhere between 20 and 30 different glass colors currently.... The current body of work tends to use three color groups, blues and greens and other cool colors, reds, oranges, yellows and warm colors or this week I tried white, blacks, browns and earth tones.

The first batch I cast this way I left the surface alone creating a flat but textured surface of not completely melted glass colors.  This second batch I used a series of leather punches to give the surface even more texture.

If you want to see a drawing from this series of work you can look at the previous blog hopefully I will have more finished work up and photographed soon.   I may also put up a post featuring the work my friend Evan Voelbel cast that week as he cast sand and I did but I figure I should ask permission first.  In the mean time feel free to check out his website http://evanvoelbel.com.  I should also say thank you to my lovely and talented photographer Kat Ely who came in to shoot photos of our pour.   You can check out her website at KatElyArt.com

A couple more drawings

I've finished a couple of the peices from the previous set of drawings.  Some need a bit more work, but should be finishing them up soon here are a couple new drawing of other peices in the works.   I am still surfering from a bit of which peice to work on ADD.  But as long as there is forward process I am happy.   Hopefully the next post will be new professionally shot images but being that I haven't gotten ahold of my photographer yet I imagine I will just shoot some pictures on my own first.  Which will give us yet another example of why Mark (my photographer) is more awesome than me.  

Digital Drawings or Work in Progress

So I have been teaching myself SketchUp its a google digital drawing tool and while I dont do much the correct or fast way yet it is a new an exciting way to draw and be be able to look at the work in a more three dimensional way.  For instance the piece below is actually done, well the middle part is obviously it looks a quite a bit differnt I didn't end up useing the purpleheart (purple color) but either way sketch up allowed me to rotate the piece digitally which is helping me figure out how the stand should look and work.

The wood and glass is finished for this peice I have a little bit more to do to set the copper on the wood but this one should be done soon as well 

 I actually just glued up the wood for this yesterday and hopefully will glue the glass on this weekend typically I have been glueing the glass in with a silcon glue but since only one face I will mostly glue the peice useing the fancy ubber clear epoxy from epitec (spelling?)

 This peice I am trying a new technique for the wood ... its purple heart and burnt white oak ... I belive the technique is called Suji and the wood looks really nice.  I just need to get the shape of the curves a 100 percent right and then make the copper peices and backing and it will be good to go.

Lastly I figured I would put a digital drawing followed by the finished peice so obviously my drawings are only getting there but ive been enjoying a new way to draw.  

                                   

Hopefully the above peices will be finished and photographed within the next month.  However, I have a lot of other things I am working on as well and been having a small case of project ADD and bouncing back and forth betweeen stuff a lot.  Plus the weather this past week has been glorious and being outside is always nice fortunately for me that means I can do almost all my wood working outside.

Quick Updates and the resolve to post more blogs

So I got my Website updated, I am still debating doing a new Home page.  I have a layout that just features the new work... and maybe I will just put that up for a while or come up with third option.   If I put this up I may make it a wee bit less tounge and cheek ... Also the peices from the last blog got titles ... given all titles are subject to change at least for a little bit, unless the work goes into a show or sells.  Hopefully I will get some more work shot in a month less

New Pictures

 So I got some peices shot today and am working on getting them up on the website... Ironically enough the part that is slowing me down is not the web design but the lack of titles for some of the work.   Hopefully I will figure the names for all the new work and get all the web design done.  But I will put up some new pictures here first.

                                            no title yet,  glass, bloodwood, walnut and oak

                                       
                                       Lines in the Sand,  Mahogany, Bloodwood and Glass

                               

Mahogany Circuit Board,  glass, purple heart and mahogany 

Squeeze Box(tentative title) glass, walnut, and bloodwood 

                    
                                      no title yet, glass, walnut and oak

So if you have thoughts on the works or want to help give me some titles that would be sweet...  hopefully soon ill have a follow up blog when the new web pages go up.

Quid pro Quo

So I have been casting again which is super exciting and I have been blowing glass also amazing.  I had forgotten how much I missed it.  So I will have new pictures and new works comming out.. not that I am not in the the middle of a bunch of peices already, i have been having a wee bit of notfinishing itis.   But hopefully I will get back on track and finish a bunch of things in no time.  But it has been frustrating I deffinately can not work in the way I used to, my wrist wont allow it.  So while getting to cast and blow again at least a bit is exciting its also scary the price my wrist pays to do way less work than I used to take forgranted doing in a week.