On the Beauty of Spray Paint....

Now, this may not be the most socially or environmentally conscious stance to take, but I love spray paint.  I always have.  The way it can transform common objects into something new and beautiful inspires me.  Whether it is a chipped Foo Dog statue, saved from the trash, to whole buildings covered in beautiful graffiti murals, the trans-formative nature of spray paint is quite miraculous. 

You can hardly see the chips now!

Spray can wall art @ Failing and MLK
dylankaus.com

After months of ignoring my chandelier project, on one of our rare sunny spring days here in Portland, I finally pulled the work in progress out of the basement.  On a jury rigged contraption, made with two ladders and some bamboo, I hung the beginnings of my chandelier.  Three cans of paint later, and I am starting to like this project again.  For the metal frame work, I used an aged bronze.  I feel this adds a gravitas that is often lacking in found object assemblages.  The outer/undersides of the petals are now a shiny gold, while the inner sides are a crisp silver.  The paint transforms the mossy material into something shiny and glamorous! The way light is reflected off of this formerly dull material has re-inspired me.  In a fit of creative energy, once the piece had dried, I continued on, to disassemble the necklace and gently attach various lengths to each petal.  These pieces resemble multicolored seed pods, gentle dangling below the flower.

Golden Flower 

Dangly bits

Feeling beyond inspired at this point, I decided to tackle one of my big obstacles.... the rubber duckie!  Using a razor blade, I carefully dissected the poor little guy, turned him inside out and attached him to a bit of the amp cord.  This is the stamen of my flower.  With a little gold spray paint, the rubber ducky no longer represents anything but a gorgeous bit of my chandelier.

Devil Duck

Deconstructed

Golden Stamen

Once again, spray paint has transformed and re-inspired.  I am now realizing however, that in order to carry on, I need to deal with the hoarder heaven that is my current basement/work space.  Next week I will let you know how that is going....

How Life Gets Away With You.....

...or really spring has sprung and I'd much rather work in the yard!  Man, have I allowed myself to get distracted lately.  The sun comes out, and all I want to do is go play in it.  Not sit in the basement and work on a chandelier.  A chandelier that I have been struggling with.  This process has been much more difficult than I had originally thought it would be.  This spring, when I left off, I really did not like how things were coming together.  The frame itself came together pretty easily.  I disassembled another old chandelier and used a round metal piece hung with chains to form my base. The difficulty came with the mossy sheet.  My idea was to cut it up and use it as petals for the flower shape.  The sheet itself did not have even edges, so cutting even petals proved to be impossible.  I decided to allow for different shapes and sizes, hoping it wouldn't look too awkward.  The wide ends I stitched to my frame using fine copper wire.  At this point I could start seeing how it was coming together.

The chandelier is kinda looking cool at this point, with a funky organic sort of feel.  Sadly, this is the last time I'm going to like how it looks for months!  I sewed rings onto the tips of the petals, so I could curl them back and attach them to the frame.  At first I thought the petal tips would hang by chain, but that proved way to floppy.  So I attached the tips straight to the frame, but that was too tight.  Finally I settled on some attached and some hanging by chain.  The petals still didn't hold a nicely curled shape the way that I had been imagining.  So with my copper wire, I stitched up the sides, hoping that the introduction of metal would provide just enough stiffness.  

At this point, he chandelier is just looking messy to me and and I'm feeling pretty frustrated.  So I decide to take a bit of a break and get back to it later.  I had no idea that my break would last for months!