Tonight my hands are sore, I've poked holes in my fingers and my neck and shoulders hurt. Ah, the progress of art is never easy. Sigh…you might intuit that I'm near the back end of the lovely ceramic jars, bottles and salt shakers that have become adorable ornmanets. I am now starting up the hill on the metallic ornaments for the Tree that Ate Cleveland.
A little back story here: The tree is more innocently referred to as "Green Green Christmas" and it will make its first appearance on Thanksgiving day in the Providence Saint Peter Foundation Christmas Forest, The Colors of Joy. Mind you, I haven't seen the thing yet myself, I am creating in the dark as it were. I didn't even know the theme was Colors of Joy. Hey, did I pick the right name or what? Green as in repurposing ornaments, going green, and on a green tree.
I do occaisonally regret my total devotion to recycling, repurposing and reusing at times like this. Especially when I think of the in excess of 300 ornaments for this six foot tree that I am creating. Not buying from WalMart and plopping on a nice tree. Nope, making. From almost scratch. Yep. What was I thinking?
I was thinking today I love my husband a lot because he will help me cut out all this scary metal and then I can make it into something beautiful. I came by these tin ceiling strips several years ago when Saint Martin's College (yes, its University now but it wasn't then) ripped out the ceiling of the cafeteria and threw it into huge blue dumpsters. Several of us who worked there at the time, me included, swarmed the dumptsters and carried off the beautiful and occaisonally twisted old tin.
My husband was sure I was crazy because everytime he tried to toss it I growled, loudly. This past year the tin has sure enough made its comeback in the form of an installation at a restaurant in Seattle, Hunger up in Fremont and in the shape of garden art and now whimsical metal animal cut outs for Christmas.
Whimsical and safe when they are done but man, what a lot of work to get there!
Here's what the pieces look like when I start.
This piece has been thumped with a ten pound hammer. The pieces start out curved because they were the edges of the ceiling. They have to be flattened to be used.
Here's a bird shape traced from a paper pattern and ready to cut out.
Tools of the trade, gloves and eye protection and a really good pair of snips that will cut curves. Even with gloves and good snips I wore a blister on my hand today from the pressure of cutting.
Once the pieces are cut out they have to be hammered again with the 10 pound hammer and flattened more.
These pieces are ready for the next steps. Sanding all the edges and drilling a top hole.
These razor sharp edges are why I sand carefully wearing gloves before I finish up these pieces.
Tomorrow–sanding and the next steps!