
As some of you know, I am working on the subject of "Suspicion". This particular piece has several pieces, one standing atop another. The fun I'm having now concerns the second rectangular tube which will be placed atop the first rectangle.
The idea is to give this piece a twist. This I learned is not as easy as it sounds. I did mull this over for a while and came up with a solution which, as you can see in the photo, did not quite pan out the way I had expected. You see, this is one of the continual aspects of art I've spoken of before. The continual challenge of dealing with new problems to achieve the results one envisions in the piece. It is one thing to see it in one's mind but quite another executing it and making it reality!
I have goggled this of course, but it seems this is such a deep dark secret that I have to actually pay membership fees to organizations and engineering companies for this bit of mysterious and apparently very valuable information! Lovely, I think I will figure this out on my own.
I have read somewhere that "learning" is to be human. Boy am I human!
My first effort was to dry the four side panels of clay to the leather hard state piled on one another with the one end angled at about 30%. Each of the four sides of the rectangle then being the same angle. This did not work out well. For they were much to bent all the way up along the edges. Also my top piece of the rectangle did not work with that angle at all.
When it came time to put this twisted material together, to my surprise, nothing fit. Nothing at all! I could not believe I was so "all thumbs" all of a sudden. No matter how a tried and struggled it just would not work. My mind refusing to accept the fact that the pieces just would not fit. After-all, in my little mind it had all seemed so reasonable!
It is hard to see in the photo but I finally used only two of the twisted panels, one on each of the opposite sides and made the other two flat. I had to make adjustments cutting parts away from the top panel and making triangular additions to fill out the gaps on the two straight sides. Also, since the edges were not straight, more cutting needed to be done on the flat side panels to make them match all the way up. All in all, I got the affect I could for now except, but it was not quite the "wholesale twist" I had expected and really wanted. Let's say I got a "distortion" going on, but not really a twist!
and one of the twisted sides.
This is my idea for the next time I try the twist. I have the two end pieces of the rectangular (or square) tube, one for the top, the other for the bottom. I begin with one above the other, squared up with each another, imagine them 15 inches apart, one above the other. Then I draw straight lines from each corner to the corner above it. It would now be a straight rectangular tube. Then I turn the top of this tube whatever degree I want, lets say 45 degrees. The connecting corner lines from the bottom base follow the turn and you can see the twist of straight edges from the top to the bottom, each corner edge straight and sharp all the way down. Now it's easy to see that each side panel becomes a twisted template that would now fit together, making up the twisted rectangular tube. This simple visual mental image tells me that my initial attempt went wrong because the edges were not straight from corner to corner.
So what do you think? Will this actually work if I try it this way this time?
Anyway, had a few good laughs going through the process.
You will what you imagine,
And at last,
You create what you will."
George Bernard Shaw