Inspiration

There's inspiration all around us everyday when we open our minds to what's around us. It can be nature, buildings, a rusted sign, a song, or a movie. For me, I like to have the tv on in the shop. This month, I'm watching old black and white mystery movies. Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall in the Maltese Falcon is  one of my all time favorites.

Black and white offers such a romantic feel to these treasures that's easy for one to get caught up in. There's the crisp clean lines of the buildings for the back drop in the photo above. Next, the rounded style 1950's automobile that appears to hover over the large white walled tires. Infinite shadows bring everything together.

Above is a heart that I created for this Texas home that was inspired from these shows. The bold red shape re-imagined from that simpler time. A crisp candy apple red outlined in black featuring three white racing strips. It looks fabulous in it's new adopted home.

Take a look around you and see what can inspire you.

First Shop Day of March

It's the beginning of another cold month in the Pacific Northwest, and I'm crack-a-lackin' in the shop. It's all over the board how I get my ideas. Sometimes I doodle on whatever piece of scratch paper is lying around, or I scratch on some steel with some chalk, or I just start welding some steel together.



This is one project I started, or rather continued today. The photo below started out as four squares that I had something in mind that didn't work out...about a year ago. They started out as four squares and i just didn't feel it.So, there they set under one of the work benches until the spirit hits me.

Then I came up with the idea today to cut the square corners and add the rounded corners to each piece. My next plan is to paint each square a different color and then add a letter to each one; I'll figure that part out one of these days. Actually, I'm planning on having these finished by next weekend and having them for the Best of the Northwest show in Seattle on March 29-30.

New Work This Year

It's been a great winter with a lot of great new work that I've been creating. I've been spending a lot of hours in the shop, and I'm just getting started. There's going to be some new shows that we're going to do and new work is making up 60-70% of everything that I'm working on.

The peace sign is just one example of what I've been creating. This and a lot of new work is inspired by the things I grew up with. The 1960's and 1970's especially had a lot of great things that still inspire me.Think the space race in the early 1960's; the hippie movement during the 1970's, and the googie architecture all around California.

I've just started working on a new video project that I'll be posting three-to-five minute YouTube videos on over the coming weeks. Here's the link to my YouTube channel; there's three videos of some old school work and watch for new creations in the coming weeks.