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Spring Driven
Kinetic Art

One-of-a-kind
Size:  61"h x 53"w x 8"d
Power Source:  negator spring
Approximate Run Time:  10 hours
Cumulus ©2010
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About Cumulus

This sculpture is called Cumulus because the final form reminds me of the large puffy clouds we see often in the summer.

I didn't start out with the idea of creating a cloud form sculpture. I wanted to create a sculpture with two independent but connected floating forms that would interact visually. I started working with the "bird" shapes I've used in previous floating motion pieces like Journey and Falcon but found I wanted more overlap events to happen so the simple horizontal bird curve evolved into a horizontal curve inside a large circle. This heavier "bird" form required a shape with considerably more mass to balance it. I played with lots of shapes before settling on the arc of rings. I liked what I was seeing in the interaction between the ring forms and how it complimented the more unpredictable motion of the circular birds. It wasn't until I had actually built the sculpture that I saw the cloud connection.

The lower left hand part of the sculpture is where the power is stored in a pair of constant force springs. All of the lower assembly wheels only move when the main motion part of the sculpture needs a push. The actual moment of the push comes when the entire motion assembly stops moving in a clockwise direction and starts to reverse. This triggers the mechanism to give it a push to restart the sequence.