I’ve had to tackle other projects lately but have managed to get in some quality time with this new wheel too. The most interesting addition is the sculpture of Holmes, and in front of him there is a removable plaque with his trusty pipe and magnifying glass. Originally I had planned to have Holmes holding and smoking the pipe but it seemed like things up there were getting pretty bulky. Also I needed to find a place for the magnifying glass and I felt it needed equal treatment with the pipe. This works pretty well. I think Holmes will need a bit of work yet but it always helps to put a preliminary finish over the raw sculpture to get a sense of what the final piece will look like. Now I’ll refer back to all my reference photos and make little adjustments where necessary. The next big step will be to paint the wheels with various scenes or characters from the books. Time to get the paint brushes out!
..
.
Right now this hardly looks like a spinning wheel! Perhaps a steam shovel or a phone booth. I hesitated to post anything at this point but the truth is only when all the various elements are complete will this piece make sense. I did a lot or research on Sherlock Holme’s residence and have used the photos of the museum in London for this part of the wheel. I had to simplify several elements because I am limited in space and the need for it to live on the floor. The hanging lamps that flank the door had to be permanently attached to the wall to avoid damage. there are three LED lights in the sculpture: the two in the lamps and one inside the room and visible through the arched glass above the door. I used microscope slides for the glass as it is the thinnest glass I have found. The walnut base is not finished but it does show the new shape with the scroll carving at each end. This is designed to echo the violin scroll on the front leg of the wheel. The lower photo shows the inset panel of highly figured maple in the middle of the walnut side. I wanted to add interest to this plain area. It is actually a lot prettier in person. I hope to use a bit more of this wood in other areas too just to add a flow to the design. I guess that’s it for this report. More pictures to come!
.
The Garden of Eden wheel is in Amy’s hands for testing and so I get to start another project. This one promises to be a lot of fun but also will present many challenges. It will be a tribute to Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, the genius behind Sherlock Holmes. Wherever possible there will be references to the cases and the characters of this series. The spinner who commissioned this (and who wishes to remain anonymous) loves the Granada series featuring Jeremy Brett as Holmes. So, since I have become a sculptor I will proceed to try to capture his likeness as a figurehead for this wheel. There will be four paintings on the big wheels but at this point they are still in the planning stage. Holmes loved to play the violin and my spinner’s daughter also plays. So one of the requirements was to use violin motifs in this wheel. I have almost finished the front leg as you can see and the little sketch in the foreground shows its placement on the coming wheel. It is left a little more rugged than a real violin for a couple good reasons. A real violin spend a lot of its life in a case and the rest tucked under the musician’s chin. This part of the wheel will live on the floor and be in constant danger from feet, pets, and vacuum cleaners! I was fortunate to get my hands on a fair amount of sapelle, which is in the mahogany family. It was left over ends from a re-planking of a hundred year old schooner named the Adventuress which calls Port Townsend her home port. I will probably be using some walnut and cherry in this construction too. Several other options being considered will be a revolver handle for the scotch tension handle and the door to the Baker street rooms. I’ll keep you posted!
This wheel is finally getting close to the finish line. I had to make some major design changes that took some time to solve. I originally patterned this lady’s head after an earlier wheel, the Lady of the Lake. When it was finished I noticed that because this newer design incorporates an orifice height changing system, Eve’s head follows right along with these changes. Unfortunately when it is at a normal setting for spinning, Eve looked like she was busy looking around for pretty rocks. I could have invented a story to justify this somewhat odd behavior but chose rather to turn her around to face the spinner and the heavens.
In this photo you can also see that I completely repainted the treadles. I like this design a lot better than the first attempt. The flyer is complete now too and has a larger orifice than any I’ve done before. It is 5/8″ in diameter. I have two sliders to send along too and they are jumbo size as well.
Here is a close-up of the lady. to me she looks like she is grateful and perhaps savoring the wonderful fragrance of the garden’s flowers. Still to finish are the caps on the footman rods and scotch tension but we should be able to test tomorrow!
I wanted to showcase what is new with the Garden of Eden wheel for those of you who are interested. It has a ways to go but I always like this moment when a person can begin to visualize what the finished wheel will look like. The head of Eve (or just a lady dreaming in her garden) is coming along. It is carved of seven layers of wood and then sculpted over with a layer of Apoxie, which is a wonderful two-part putty that allows me to work at a leisurely pace and have the product dry in about four hours. I can wet my fingers and use the water to smooth the putty so little sanding is necessary. Also I can paint over the freshly applied epoxy before it has cured. For someone eager to see what things will look like this is great. Most of her hair was applied this morning and it is curing now. Later if I see an area that isn’t right I can sand it off and re-apply more putty and paint. I love this stuff! By the way, this figurehead is removable just like Henry the dragon is removable.
The design on the treadle is meant to suggest the tree of life painted in a sort of Art Nouveau style. At this point I think it is a bit too simple so I will likely go back in and modify it. If Carolyn likes the bronze finish on the lady’s head, I might use this color and finish on the treadle design too. The key is to make all the parts and then re-work them to make the individual pieces harmonize with each other. So, that’s the latest. Now on to the speed changing assembly!
Carolyn and I have been enjoying quite a conversation these past days on the theme for her new wheel. After many ideas were passed back and forth, we settled on a Garden of Eden theme. We discussed how the art could carry this theme and decided I would carve a head of Eve to put near the handle – similar to the one I did for the Lady of the Lake wheel last year. Rather than try to paint the Garden of Eden on the wheels with Eve peeking out from behind a bush somewhere, I requested that I suggest a garden and use an Art Nouveau style for the entire wheel. Carolyn wants a wheel with feminine imagery and the graceful curves and flowing lines. This style of art can really help set the tone for the wheel. In the photo you can see my original drawing and above it you can see a couple of days worth of experimenting and changing, hair-pulling, and exasperation. All these things are just part of the process – after all artists need to suffer for their art, right? Behind the wheels you can see some small bottles of metallic powders. They range from simple gold and silver to exotic interference and iridescent colors. I used quite a bit of these in this wheel for several reasons. One is that they are very delicate and sensitive and mysterious, not unlike some women I know. Look at them one way and you see one thing. Look from another direction and something entirely different appears. Look at these wheels one way and the design almost vanishes beneath a film of gold. I felt since none of us has visited the actual Garden of Eden, this suggestive and elusive approach might just work. Buried under many translucent layers in the outer ring are some flowing lines that vaguely are reminiscent of tree branches or something else organic. There also flowers all across the ring. Carolyn loves turquoise, green, and red and so I have worked with those colors as much as this wheel would let me. Just a note: trying to paint with interference colors with any kind of control is tricky – trying to photograph the result is even trickier! What you see is only one on many moods!
In the center will go the usual wood hub. My wife found a wonderful vintage brass medallion on Etsy and we ordered it. Since there is only one of them, I will make a mold and cast two replicas to go in the center of each hub. The subject is a lady reaching her hand out to a peacock. Quite pretty.
Usually when someone requests a certain art theme for a wheel and asks if I can do it, my automatic response is “yes.” Then I have to figure out how I can actually do what I so casually promised to do. Many times in the past months panic has been lurking at the edges of my mind when I realize, “Man, I don’t know what the heck I’m doing!”Art Nouveau is about the same. I now know from experience what a master Mucha was with his art. My goal is not to copy him, but rather to follow in the path he pioneered and perhaps venture into some new territory of my own. That is what he did and to be honest some of what he created I don’t think turned out as well as other pieces. But he learned a lot from the process, I’m sure. So, I am on my way… now if I can just remember how to spell Art Neauvou – or is it art nouveau…?
After a few weeks waiting for the wheel to get finished, Henry finally has his official perch ready for testing. Since it was so nice and sunny we loaded Henry into the truck for his outing. That little rascal is such a bookworm that even though we pointed out the flowers and birds and such, he hardly looked up. On the way back home we stopped at the store for a few minutes and while Amy went to make her purchases I sat out in the truck with Henry. A car pulled up near us and the elderly couple let a crazy old dog out for a brief time. I hollered “Henry, look! A dragon!” His hat fell off his head as he whirled around to see. But even though he was peering through those coke bottle glasses , I couldn’t fool him. He promptly went back to reading.
The only things left to do on the wheel is to add hooks to the flyer and the scotch tension line and its spring. Then a coat or two of varnish to smooth everything out. Then we get to testing. I’m anxious to see how it fares compared to the double treadle model. I think it will pass with flying colors.
This cherry wheel look quite handsome against the bright green grass and dandelions. By the way, Victoria has graciously allowed us to keep Henry to show at the Whidbey Island Spin-In that is coming up on the first weekend of April. Any of you able to come?
This wheel has a ways to go but at least we know that it is possible to modify our regular design and produce a single treadle machine that has all the smoothness of the other style. Victoria wanted most of the art concentrated on the dragon and his little setting with just a bit of color elsewhere. I put four patches of dragon scales on each wheel and also in the center of the hubs. It is possible that the holes in the treadles will be filled with wood and given the same treatment. I’ll see what Victoria wants. Now I need to tear everything apart and do the final finish and other internal parts. We’ll post pictures of the completed wheel in a few days. Thanks for looking!
Victoria, the spinner who ordered the new dragon wheel, doesn’t have much use for the way I regularly make my treadles. Nothing personal – it’s just that treadling this way reminds her of using exercise equipment! She asked if I could modify my wheel design to use a single treadle. I have taken that challenge seriously and think I’ve come up with several options. The first (and most likely to work) is to make the two treadles much wider and totally remove the frame section that intrudes between the treadles in the regular machine. This way the spinner could actually use two feet on either treadle and the other treadle could just go along for the ride. But Victoria then made a wonderful suggestion that I had not thought of. It is possible to join the two treadles together and rotate the two big wheels so that everything lines up and moves in synch. In other words both treadles would be up or down and the same time rather than working opposite of each other. This would turn it into a true single treadle machine and yet be reversible if need be in the future. Quite a nice idea, I think. I will be ready to test both versions pretty soon. My goal was not to allow the treadles just to look like big old planks, so I made them by gluing up smaller curved pieces that actually add a refined and artistic touch. The top photo shows how the new machine looks next to my regular one. You might notice too what a difference the finish makes over raw cherry which is what you see on the new wheel. The second and third photos are just for detail people who want to get a close look at this progress. Any thoughts?
It’s getting close to the time to ship this wheel back east to its new owner and we try to catch a nice day for a final photo shoot. I can, for the first time, detach myself as the wheelmaker and simply enjoy a nice machine for what it has become. Chetzemoka Park is one of our favorite local places to shoot. There is an interesting mix of sunny and shady places and often beautiful flowers to enjoy too. Since the last posted photos I have added a small plaque on the frame between the two treadles. It is a quote some of you might know: “All things bright and beautiful, All creatures great and small, All things wise and wonderful, The Lord God made them all.”
Olympic Spinning Wheels 