Creativity & Development of concepts

[gus3049]

it is IMO not unlike the work or thoughts of Joey Richardson.

I just had a look.

GULP

A little way to go methinks :shock:

 

[boysie39]

it is IMO not unlike the work or thoughts of Joey Richardson.

I just had a look.

GULP

A little way to go methinks :shock:

I ment with the outer and inner structure of the piece :roll: :roll:

At least you are transferring some of your sketches into actual workpieces.
Something along the lines that PHIL and me had in mind when the Idea was consieved so to speak :lol:

 

[Jonzjob]

I have just had a look at his site and I must say that it doesn't do a lot for me. Very cleaver, but not my style.

 

[gus3049]

I have just had a look at his site and I must say that it doesn't do a lot for me. Very cleaver, but not my style.

Thats 'cos he is a she.

Without wishing to be sexist, it has a very feminine feel to it. But technically out of this world.

Puts any pretensions one might have right where they belong.

 

[gus3049]

Something along the lines that PHIL and me had in mind when the Idea was consieved so to speak :lol:

So sorry Eugene,

I wasn't aware that I had to thank you too. I truly, heartwarmingly, cringeingly grateful to you. May all your barrels be full for ever.

 

[Jonzjob]

I do believe that I'm going to be sick :ho2 :ho2

Both barrels?

 

[boysie39]

My barrells runeth over 8) 8)

 

[Wood spoiler]

My barrells runeth over 8) 8)

That will teach you not to invest in internal plumbing!

 

[Jonzjob]

I have just been looking at something else that decided that it is a 'form' on WOW. To me it looked a bit like an over fat vase with an aluminimuim bath plug stuck in the top. Very well made and probably with walls a bit thicker than yer normal tissue. BUT why?

Apart from being able to say that 'I can' it doesn't convey very much to me. You can't use it for anything and for me no point?

Sorry to be stoneage, but I do like good wine, especially as I live in the biggest vineyard in the world 8)

 

[gus3049]

I have just been looking at something else that decided that it is a 'form' on WOW. To me it looked a bit like an over fat vase with an aluminimuim bath plug stuck in the top. Very well made and probably with walls a bit thicker than yer normal tissue. BUT why?

Apart from being able to say that 'I can' it doesn't convey very much to me. You can't use it for anything and for me no point?

Sorry to be stoneage, but I do like good wine, especially as I live in the biggest vineyard in the world 8)

I see loads of stuff that is technically stunning and leaves me cold. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder but...... there have always been 'accepted' standards of what makes good art, people whose opinions are respected as they have 'good taste' etc etc. But I don't think any of it actually matters. The person that made it presumably thinks its worth showing and I guess there will be someone who agrees with the fact that a badly designed and useless teapot is a work of art.

People used to pay me a fortune to decorate their homes, pick the fabrics, dress their windows etc. But they got what 'I' considered good taste (or sometimes just as much as I could make it cost :twisted: ). I used to have them come back to me occasionally and say a friend of theirs thought it was rubbish and what was I going to do about it? Absolutely nothing was always the answer. You paid me because you presumably liked what you saw of my previous work and were unable to do it yourself. It just means that people have different taste. I have spent all my life in 'design' related jobs which means I guess, that I have been 'sensitised' to a degree. It doesn't make me right however - not all the time anyway, just most of it.

We make what WE like and hope there are others out there who appreciate it too. If not, its their loss init?

Why not try and make something so totally out of your normal zone that you surprise yourself. Some stoneage art was terrific. You might find it fun.

 

[Jonzjob]

I remember once saying to an IBM salesman, when I was an IBM mainframe hardware service engineer for 18 years (Jessus tha was a lifetime ago!) that now he had sold this systen to the customer that I was now going to have to make it work. I did, and the customer was satisfied, but if the bleedin clown who had sold the stuff had sold what the customer had really needed then both the customer and my job would have been a darn site easier.

I tend to be really logical and love a challenge to find a way to make something work, so when I see a painting/sculpture/etc. that I can't find a reason for, like an hospital bed wrapped in a 2" rope and displayed as 'art' (?) I baulk at it. That was an 'exibit' in an 'exibition' in Gloucester that we went to have a look at once.

So much 'art' is to me the proverbial 'Kings new clothes' and there is not a soul on this earth that will convince me differently. One of the things that really p!sses me off is that Picasso was a really fine artist, but it wasn't until he had gone off his box with Absenth that any of the later crap fetched any money.

Sorry, but my style of art is trad stuff and may the devil take the rest.

As for stuff that is outside my 'normal box', I don't normally do pierced pieces. I did a celtic knot bracelet for the Aug challenge and it was concidered 'not to work'? I love it and everyone here that has seen it and handled it has said how lovely it is, but in someone elses eyes it 'doesn't work'. That is life!

Long past my bed time!

 

[gus3049]

Sorry, but my style of art is trad stuff and may the devil take the rest.

Well then thats all right then. I happen to like Picasso's later stuff just as much as his early works, some more. We need the 'artist' just as much as the 'engineer'. One make it all work and the other makes it all worthwhile and makes us think of higher things :lol:

Maybe we should go back to one of my original comments and just accept that this thread is not for everybody. I have to say that I am enjoying it very much and I reckon it could open up quite a few peoples' view of what is possible.

 

[boysie39]

I reckon that if that Irish bloke what was his name Mick somebody or other that painted the celing in that chapel in Rome or somewhere was around now, He'd be blacklisted for taking too long, And if he put it on here for critque,he'd be torn to shreds. Thats if H&S would let him begin. :roll:

Any person who offers his work for critque has to have masachoistic tendencies. Either that or on a forum such as this where people put a name to a post, he is looking to start a hit list :twisted:

I am not an expert #-o I know thats hard t believe but when someone offers a piece for our apprasial I dont always comment, especially if the wood is coloured and the grain is not visable. I know that lots of turners are using paints and dye's to enhance their work but to me natures beauty is best. If someone wants to have colours in their turnings then why not use Acryllics ,they come in all sorts of colours and mixtures and I believe can be made to your own Spec.

Sorry for rambling on I suppose if Phil. see's this he will dump me but I know I leave you in good hands but I will always rally to the call

 

[Wood spoiler]

Sorry for rambling on I suppose if Phil. see's this he will dump me but I know I leave you in good hands but I will always rally to the call

Don't worry Deputy - you're still on the team!

 

[gasmansteve]

but to me natures beauty is best

Hi all
Interesting thread. I fully understand turners like Eugene who prefer natures beauty to rule the day and I too like to see a lovely grained, nicely turned piece of wood but what I would add to the discussion is that I can also look on a high gloss mirror finished bowl the same as some others would look at a coloured or pyro`d piece in that it is not `natural` whatever that may be?. When did you ever see a tree with a mirror finish on it, again `beauty is in the eye etc....` but hey what do I know?
Regards
Steve

 

[Wood spoiler]

but to me natures beauty is best

Hi all
Interesting thread. I fully understand turners like Eugene who prefer natures beauty to rule the day and I too like to see a lovely grained, nicely turned piece of wood but what I would add to the discussion is that I can also look on a high gloss mirror finished bowl the same as some others would look at a coloured or pyro`d piece in that it is not `natural` whatever that may be?. When did you ever see a tree with a mirror finish on it, again `beauty is in the eye etc....` but hey what do I know?
Regards
Steve

Steve. You are right. But we all by the same token have had bits of wood too boring to be left as is and to the other extreme where the natural beauty of the wood is such that it is crying out to be left in all it's glory.

However, this thread is all about moving along from that and helping to evolve the skill set to be able to see, understand and develop the skills to do "other" things, like for example your own development of skills with the air brush.

Gordon is right when he says this thread won't be for everybody. John is right when he does not like/understand stuff called art, when to his mind it is tosh.

I have never had an arty background but I feel that I wanted to be able to explore some of the creative side.

My bottom line is - Just because I can doesn't mean I have too, but nice to have the full toolkit to choose from.

 

[gnu]

Very intersting discussion but and a lot of it is down to time. I used to say to the hobby turners that you have the luxury of time and can spend a week week or a month on an object but we professional craftmen have to always be looking at the clock and have to take a very pragmatic view about the craft.
What I am looking for are people who have the vision to take turning way beyond its narrow confines. At the moment I am looking at instalation work that may use several dozen turners to produce massive work that will be assembled and will use recyled scrap timber such as forestry waste and will have an underlying messge as a lot of installation work does.
Finally I say have fun, don't take your craft too seriously as life life is too short and don't knock people who love the natural beauty of wood and who just want to make simple, practical and popular objects.

 

[Philip Streeting]

Hi Gnu,

I haven't yet seen anyone here knocking those who love natural wood or those who wish to make simple things. To suggest this is undermining intention of the thread. The thread is and should continue to be about personal development, the aquisition of new skills and techniques for some and shared knowledge for others. It not,as far as I am aware, about the development of a particular way of working, methodology or viewpoint on wood or its potential for structural, material, creative or self-expressive exploitation. Wood is a substrate that can be manipulated or used in any way that the craftsperson, maker, architect, builder, designer or artist has the imagination or skill to visualise - always has been, hopefully always will be.

Phil

 

[gus3049]

NOT QUITE A FAIL.... but certainly not a success either.

After my excesses of yesterday afternoon (great curry though I says it meself wot shouldn't) I snuck into the workshop in the evening and attacked the wotsit with the burrs. I had a play with a few colour combinations on some scrap box and decided i rather liked white ground with gold highlights. Didn't like it once it was on though so took the tools to it again and cut through the surface to the wood again though not in the same holes! So there was a sort of combination of white and wood. Then popped on some gilt cream but it still didn't do much for me.

Went to bed.

Saturday morning chores over - shopping, rubbish dump, lay another yard...oops, metre of kitchen concrete - all good for my back, but Veronica acts a labourer and barrows all the sand in for the 'artiste' to turn into a floor - and after the curry leftovers for lunch (small, greedy pigs), slapped some blue on with a dry brush. If I can get the graduation right it might feel better. It is though, still very much experimental. Clearly making colouring effective is an artform all of its own. I would like to think that if I keep trying things, I will reach a technique and appearance that I will be happy to call one of my standard things. Who knows, even 'trademark' 8)

As Phil has said to Gnu, I can't see any form of criticism or elitism about this thread. Its clearly for people who want to discover if there is something more in themselves than they have explored so far.

I showed our guests my latest stuff and they oohed and ahhed over the decorative stuff but you could see that what they really wanted was one of the elm platters. Of course there is room for both.

I think I will now leave it though and stare at it occasionally and see what passes across my tired old brain by way of "wot the hell do I do next?"

 

[gus3049]

As its bucketing down outside, I can't mow the grass - shame

Did a little more colouring and I reckon this one is going to stop here. As it was the first thing like this I have done, there is a lot of refining to do, especially in the care about shape and the finishing of course. There is one very obvious flat spot on the 'egg' which screams a bit but yesterdays guests didn't spot it so who knows its future?

The idea can be applied to all sorts of stuff so I will try and fit in some more around the financially necessary practical stuff. It would be nice to think, that in the long run, the 'art' objects would be worth more. Must practice!! Then move on.