Shimmer is done and we get to celebrate!

It is celebration time again at Wood That Works. David has just completed the last of the Shimmer edition. All 95 have been made and 93 of those have been boxed, sold and shipped!

Shimmer is a well traveled design. We have shipped them to 25 different states and 7 other countries including France, Saudi Arabia, Australia, Germany, Switzerland, Canada, and New Zealand!

We have two Shimmers left. This post is directed to those of you that have noted Shimmer is your favorite and you are hoping it won't sell out soon. It will! We have learned that we get flooded with calls right after a design sells out.  This is to give you a little warning! Here is a link to the info page here and the order page here.

 And once they all sell, we get to go out to dinner and celebrate!

Kinetic Fidget Machine

I love a mechanical do-nothing machine. Check out this beautifully crafted wooden "Fidget Machine".

I found it on YouTube and it is uploaded by phreda2. His profile is lacking but here is a link to his YouTube channel. He has created other kinetic machines worth a visit. 

 Enjoy!

Todd Dunning • Kinetic Sculpture from Found Parts

I always enjoy finding new kinetic sculptors. One of the goals of this blog is to share them with my readers. Kinetic sculptors are a small group but with the help of the Internet we are finding each other.

Not sure where I first saw the work of Todd Dunning whether through the YouTube community or elsewhere. I have always worked in wood. I like how the wood softens the mechanical aspects of a kinetic sculpture. Todd works in metal, cold steel with a corroded patina. He goes in the other direction. He has created a beautiful video to view his work. Enjoy

Upgrading My Design Space

My tools for designing kinetic sculptures continue to evolve. For years I have been designing on a a 50 pound MacPro behemoth with a 30" display. I needed the horse power to render my animations quickly and to make videos. I thought I needed a big screen. With the evolution of more powerful laptops with beautiful displays like the Retina Macbook Pro I have changed my tool of choice.  I moved out of my office, sold my desktop setup and bought a laptop. I can now do my designing wherever I can take my laptop. My favorite locatio is sitting up in the gallery space at my studio, often sitting on the sofa enjoying a cup of tea or coffee with Silver Symphony ringing gently in the background. This is a wonderful solution except when I need to be working on two computers at once.

I have a physics program (Working Model) I use for center of mass calculations. It only runs on "ancient" Mac system 9, that in turn, only works on old Macs. . When I need to figure out a center of mass, I work between this program on a 10 year old iBook and Illustrator on new Macbook Pro. I can't balance the two laptops (and my tea) on the sofa. I asked Marji to think about designing a desk for the gallery. I had an old, beat-up press board folding table that just didn't fit in. 

This week, she finished my new desk and it is wonderful!

My "office space" is located in the kitchen area of the gallery space. It is open and visible to the gallery so I requested that the desk be artsy yet functional. Marji thought using a live-edge slab of wood would create a perfect desk. I can sit up high, gaze out the windows and dream.  It's a great place to work.

Marji has posted a couple of blog posts over on her blog, AshbeeDesign.com about this desk and how we made it. Take a look at these two posts: 

• DIY • Live-Edge Desk
• Live-Edge Desk Tutorial

Here are a few detail shots.

 It's perfect!

Buugeng • A Curved Kinetic Instrument

Learn something new everyday.

Today I learned about Buugeng. Buugeng are the curved pieces used in the following YouTube video. Watch how the two folding C-shaped blades are manipulated to create evolving patterns.

How many sculptures created by David can be seen in variations of the patterns created in this dance? I see many.... Impulse,  Serpentine, Crustacean, Jubilee, Sequences, Duet, Castaway, Quest

The word is a registered trademark of Dai Zaobab and it can be translated into the combination of three words - martial arts, infinity, and illusion. It is a cross between dance, motion, juggling, and kinetic sculpture. The first generation Buugeng was created in 2003 and gained widespread exposure in 2007. It evolved from the creator's memories of seeing the work of Michael Moschen.

We learned about it thanks to an email from follower Rick Bissel from The Mobile Factory.