{"id":543,"date":"2020-06-30T00:22:55","date_gmt":"2020-06-30T00:22:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.jenuinelyjeni.com\/blog\/?p=543"},"modified":"2020-06-30T01:58:05","modified_gmt":"2020-06-30T01:58:05","slug":"expanding-horizons","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.jenuinelyjeni.com\/blog\/expanding-horizons\/","title":{"rendered":"Expanding Horizons"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

The late Stephen Hawking dedicated much of his life to the potential discovery of a unifying theory of everything, attempting to find consistency in the universal laws that define existence on both micro and macro levels. \u00a0As an artist when much of your world is measured in millimeters and fractions thereof, a project spanning several feet can certainly feel like an entirely different dimension! \u00a0A four-foot-tall sculpture would be considered small by some sculptors. \u00a0However, after years of fastidiously crafting jewelry to tolerances sometimes within a few hundredths of a millimeter it certainly expanded the horizons of my creative processes. \u00a0

Although this is not the first large metal sculpture I have crafted it is by far the biggest and reached proportions that required additional changes to familiar processes. \u00a0Over several years I have occasionally created floral sculptures out of spent brass artillery shells from WWI and WWII. \u00a0Each piece has presented its own challenges as they have progressively grown in size. \u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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A new “toy” from Woodcraft Supply proved to be essential to creating the leaves of my tropically inspired flora. <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

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The leaves of this creation were inspired by tropical leafy\u00a0philodendrons. \u00a0In my array of air tools for larger projects I did not have anything that could handle the tight turns and open details of my envisioned greenery. \u00a0A trip to Woodcraft Supply for a scroll saw soon followed; a favorite toy store for any craftsperson! \u00a0The staff at their Roanoke location is just wonderful and full of valuable advice and even have a few floor models designated as demo units. \u00a0Scroll saws are not normally used for large metal projects and I cannot endorse or recommend using them for such. \u00a0However, I found that inserting a jewelers saw blade in place of a standard scroll saw blade worked well enough to achieve the arching contours I had conceptualized. \u00a0 <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Adept at working on projects measured in fractions of millimeters, this endeavor which spanned several feet presented many new challenges.
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This rather ambitious 52\u201d endeavor involved a 105mm artillery shell casing. \u00a0The 105mm is used in the mobile artillery cannons known as Howitzers. This cartridge casing stood unloaded at about two feet tall. \u00a0Once cut and curled into a blossom it was naturally a bit shorter, though still sizable. \u00a0Together with substantial brass leaves, stems and other components the colossal metal flora required a considerable base. \u00a0The river provided a lovely yet immensely heavy foundation in a large sandstone polished smooth by currents and time. \u00a0Now moving such a wonderful find was another matter. \u00a0Some basics in driving a Caterpillar first to move the stone and later driving a trailer to transport the finished piece soon followed. \u00a0

One of the greatest challenges in the process was the assembly. \u00a0An extraordinary\u00a0amount of time in fabrication is dedicated to positioning components on a solder pad. \u00a0For small metal projects this involves various magnesium or charcoal blocks, tweezers, third arms and anything and everything heat resistant that can be used to prop parts into a proper and secure position for brazing. \u00a0Aligning large, heavy, meticulously formed shapes requires quite a bit of additional thought as some of my small \u201cgo to\u201d props were now obsolete. \u00a0On several occasions my mind explored the countless ways I could easily manage these parts if they were all just a few feet smaller. \u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Photograph of the finished leaves upon completion of the sculpture.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Ultimately joining each large stemmed leaf to the stock was best executed with free access to the base that the flower would be set into when finished. \u00a0This meant taking one of my torches, \u201cthe big torch\u201d, to a friend\u2019s property by the river and assembling it near the sandstone. \u00a0I brought an army of magnesium blocks and every soldering pad in my arsenal of brazing supplies both in tact and in broken bits. \u00a0These did not actually get me very far and I quickly resorted to stacking stones into careful piles to brace each part in preparation for brazing. \u00a0Due to the nature of the design once I began affixing each component there was no turning back until all the brazing was complete. \u00a0The last leaf was by far the most arduous to position. \u00a0By this time the entire structure was perched atop a precarious pile of stones and fire bricks and previously arranged parts could not be disturbed. \u00a0Even with two filler materials of different melting points, five attached parts in the same area can be challenging. \u00a0A shift in the position of the design could have easily caused parts already connected with brazing wire to melt and fall off or result in a complete collapse if proper structural support was not present and completely independent of brazed connections. \u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Metalworking encompasses a tremendous variety of techniques and processes and very few if any master them all. \u00a0Even when focusing solely on nonferrous metals there is always more to discover. \u00a0This project was certainly enlightening and gradually blossomed into a truly unique art piece over the months I toiled away creating it. \u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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\"Artillery<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

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The late Stephen Hawking dedicated much of his life to the potential discovery of a unifying theory of everything, attempting to find consistency in the universal laws that define existence on both micro and macro levels. \u00a0As an artist when much of your world is measured in millimeters and fractions thereof, a project spanning several […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":537,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jenuinelyjeni.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/543"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jenuinelyjeni.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jenuinelyjeni.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jenuinelyjeni.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jenuinelyjeni.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=543"}],"version-history":[{"count":18,"href":"https:\/\/www.jenuinelyjeni.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/543\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":565,"href":"https:\/\/www.jenuinelyjeni.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/543\/revisions\/565"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jenuinelyjeni.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/537"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jenuinelyjeni.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=543"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jenuinelyjeni.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=543"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jenuinelyjeni.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=543"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}