LEDs and epoxy!

 (Above:  The unbelievable state of the work table in my 3D studio.  Click on any image in this blog post for an enlargement.)

Since returning from the ACC (American Craft Council) Atlanta show, I've been busy!  I've finished another Grave Rubbing Art Quilt but haven't photographed it.  I've caught up with the custom-picture framing needs for clients.  I've also spent a lot of time in my 3D studio ... combining random found objects, screwing things together, sorting through boxes of trinkets, and getting several items ready for EPOXY DAY!

 (Above:  Steve with the makeshift table on which the items would be poured.)

Today was the day ... Epoxy Day. We picked Sunday because our business, Mouse House is closed. It is also a day during which Steve rarely cuts and builds frames.  In the past, we've always poured epoxy outside but today we used the inside of the garage, our frame building workshop.  Pouring epoxy is a messing process.  It also has a very limited amount of "open working time" before it starts to harden.  The instructions suggested a temperature at or over sixty-degrees.  Thus, Steve and I had plenty to do in order to set up "the pour". The heater warmed the space.  We erected a makeshift table for the actual pouring.  We also covered the floor with thick, brown paper and covered Steve's work table with scrap foam-centered board.

Next, I got in my tyvek suit.  We both also wore plastic gloves.  Two buckets are used for mixing.  First in one, then the other, and finally back into the first bucket.  I transferred small amounts of the epoxy into a small, plastic ice cream container in order to control the substance as it poured into my objects.  Steve carefully carried each piece to the covered work table.

 (Above:  Curiosities in the making ... with epoxy poured into or over each one.)

Within twenty minutes all the objects were on the covered table.  I lit the propane torch.  The flame emits carbon dioxide which causes any air bubbles (even very, very tiny ones) to rise to the surface of the epoxy and "pop".  These (and several others that didn't need any epoxy) will be my final "curiosities" for The Cabinet of Curiosities.  The Cabinet of Curiosities will be displayed at ArtFields, a nine day art competition in Lake City, South Carolina.  I'm delivering the piece in a rental pick-up truck on April Fools Day.

 (Above:  Steve pouring the excess epoxy on the stump of a tree in our backyard.)

Steve hates wasting anything ... even excess epoxy.  While I was cleaning up and throwing away all the paper we put on the workshop floor, he decided to pour the excess over the stump of a dead tree.

I guess this is Steve's art! LOL!  Doing strange things in the name of art must be a characteristic that I have that is rubbing off on him.

 
 (Above:  Painting a pegboard.)

Steve actually helps with most of my projects ... including another one on which I worked this week.  Steve helped stabilize the rather flimsy pegboard be building an frame for the edges from two-by-fours.   I honestly don't understand the mathematics involved.  I don't have to know.  I'm just the "fabricator".  I'm working with Jordan Young, a young man who creates multi-media/video events through his company Fort Psych.  The peg board will be suspended with the white-painted surface facing the floor.  It is part of an art installation and called Flooded that is part of the upcoming Indie Grits Film Festival.  Their website lists this art event and includes the following:

Flooded, a multi-media installation by Jordan Young
There is perhaps no greater means of observing the first-hand experiences of individuals impacted by the flooding than social media. Aggregating these moments offers a glimpse of the collective experience. In partnership with fiber sculptor Susan Lenz and USC Professor of Mathematics Dr. Jerry Griggs, Jordan Young represents data from the Waterlines Flood Archive sculpturally, discovering hidden patterns underlying the collective experience. Visitors will be able to interactively navigate among first-hand video accounts of the events while exploring the macro perspective of the social media maelstrom in three-dimensional space.

Then Steve helped get the pegboard into our living room ... where I've been working on it all week.  Jordan provided a strip with 170 LED connections, miles of mono-filament, and pages of data.  The data let me know exactly how long each of the 800 strands needed to be and through which hole it needed to go.  I haven't thought about a grid with an X axis and a Y axis for year (decades) ... until this week.

(Above:  Detail of the peg board with 800 strands of mono-filament connected to 170 LEDs.) 

Jordan is coming on Tuesday to "plug it in" (or do whatever is next).  The installation is on the same day as the Cabinet of Curiosities is going to Lake City ... using the same rental pick-up truck.  I hope this works out.  I hope I learn what it is! 

I am linking this post to Nina-Marie's "Off the Walk Fridays", a site for sharing fiber arts.