My current sculpture Phoenix was inspired by an earlier sculpture of mine called Dragon. I built a small edition of Dragon sculptures in 1989. This was long before I was doing digital video so I didn't have any record of the motion. Recently I had one come back for new strings. Other than the tangled strings it was in nearly perfect condition and ran great. I decided I could not pass up the opportunity to make a short video if it.
By my current standards Dragon didn't run very long and the stringing was a bit challenging but I loved the movement and pattern. If memory serves me correctly the patterning wheel design was the result of learning the Adobe drawing program Illustrator and inadvertintly turning the wheel inside out with a flubbed "scale" command!
I've been refining the design I put up in Part 12 with the idea of making a prototype. I like the general motion and pattern but I find the "flash" when the outside forms overlay each other distracting. I tried several different methods to get around this and finally found a very simple solution. I simply made the outside rings on the front wheel slightly larger than those on the back wheel. Now, rather than flashing, the two forms seem to flow into each other. I also gave the outer rings a little more form by thickening the center parts of each ring part.