I have really enjoyed building this wheel. The concept of two figures interacting atop the wheel was a first and it could lead the way to similar applications in the future. I had the opportunity to fine tune the new mechanical improvements that were originally pioneered on Rudy the wolf wheel. I still love to see the frame before the wheels are mounted. For those who get one of these machines, you will just have to trust me that the innards are just as exciting as the outward appearance! Amy and I tried to find an appropriate place to photograph today and we chose North Beach with a view toward the San Juan Islands. seemed just right for a wheel with a theme like this. Boy, it was cold and windy though so we didn’t linger very long. Now on to testing and crating and the next project. (The theme will be angora goats!)
A lot of work has happened since the last post. All I had at that time was a raven carving and a plan. Give me a few more days and these guys will be making yarn! The photo is pretty weak because our weather is not very good for shooting these days, but you can see how the eagle has taken shape. I have never made a wheel with two figureheads before and this was fun! It opens doors to lots of possibilities on other wheels, too. I like the space between the wings and within them is where the orifice height adjustment knob is located. The painting on both of the large wheels is a raven and eagle design. You can probably recognize which bird is which by the beaks. The raven has a fairly straight beak while the eagle’s is hooked. The eagle has a clawed foot too because that is an important feature with eagles. Ravens – not so much. The unfinished footman rod in the photo is designed to remind a person of the shape of a Tlingit canoe paddle handle. Kind of a nice way to carry the theme a little farther. As usual, the holes in the hubs will be plugged with black wooden plugs to cover the screws. Tonight I have to take it all apart for finish and fitting and it should come back together prettier than ever and ready to test. Thanks for looking!
Now that Rudy is safely in Portland, I am beginning a new wheel with a different idea than any I’ve done before. I did a raven wheel a few months ago for Susan and we really liked how “Edgar” turned out. It is a handsome wheel with a pretty traditional approach to Northwest Coast design concepts. This new wheel will use a similar raven approach but with a twist. In Tlingit society the people belong to one of two moieties. You are an Eagle or a Raven depending on what your mother was. My wife is an Eagle because her mother belonged to that moiety. When I was adopted into the tribe after we were married, I needed to be adopted into the Raven side to keep things proper and balanced. I am very proud of this connection with the people of Kake, Alaska , and it is an honor to belong. Often times these days in artwork (such as silver rings) a raven and an eagle design will be worked in together. so this wheel will actually have two figureheads to demonstrate this idea. The raven carving in the photo is holding a abalone disc in its beak. The eagle will be carved with an open beak as if to accept the gift. The eagle will have wings below the head that will form the front leg of the wheel. I love to plan these things! I’ll keep you all posted.
After several weeks of seeing a little personality emerge from wood, paint, and shell, we finally had to pack Rudy up and take him down Hood Canal to Olympia to meet Laurie, his new mother. He behaved himself pretty well, all things considered. He did want to stick his head out the window, but his flyer got in the way. He kept a watchful eye out the window and if you think this grin is silly, you should have seen him when we passed a few cute dogs along the way. That sparkly tooth was really flashing! Rudy and Laurie were both hungry after our 100 mile trip down and Laurie’s trip up from Portland, so Red Robin was the place we met. The Laurie and Rudy show created quite a buzz with Laurie at the reins of her new (and might I say well-behaved) wheel and a number of people, mostly children wanted a closer look. I think these two were made for each other!
I’ve been working hard on Laurie’s new wheel as we are meeting her in Olympia tomorrow. We’ve had a big storm passing through today and the power kept threatening to go off. But all the power tool work got done and now we are waiting for varnish to dry. Our wood stove will help even if the power fails. And Amy can spin by candlelight (or even blindfolded if necessary) for the final testing. I really learned a lot from this wheel. The new mechanism for orifice height adjustment works well and is an elegant way to re-introduce a feature we thought we would have to leave out in the current model. It comes in handy when a spinner uses a different chair or lets a smaller person use the wheel. And the trickiness of combining abalone, silver, rhinestones, and paint worked out better than I had hoped. The real test comes tomorrow when Laurie meet her new buddy. I hope she is delighted!
Since the Narnia wheel is out of my hands and into Amy’s for testing, I have been busy on my next project . Laurie asked for light weight and lots of art and I think it is coming out pretty well. Nothing in these photos is finished but they show enough to be worth posting. The first picture is an overview showing how the wolf sits on the frame. You might notice the open areas in the frame which makes it quite light. The wolf wanted to be a dark wood, like it was an old artifact that somehow found itself part of a new wheel. I enhanced the aged look by hinting at red paint on the lips and eyebrows, where a more vibrant color might have been in earlier times. The eye sockets are painted a blue color but you have to look to see it. On a lot of the old carvings, just traces of paint remain.
The second photo gives a view of the space between the big wheels. On all my previous wheels this has been left open. On this wheel it contains a new mechanism to adjust both speed and orifice height. I am very anxious to get this up and running and see how it works. So far the results are very promising.
The third photo is a close up of the wolf head. It is stylized using Northwest coast motifs. The eyes are inlaid with abalone shell. I had intended to inlay antler for teeth, but the space is so small I chose to create dust from sanding the antler and mixing this with epoxy. Using a toothpick I carefully put a dollop on each tooth space which creates a translucent dome shape. I still need to do some clean up work on this area but the results look pretty much as I’d hoped. I am considering one VERY unconventional addition to this and am open to input from anyone looking. Laurie likes rhinestones and I used them for the bubble rings on the large wheels. How about a tiny rhinestone inlaid into one of the wolf’s teeth? Kind of a reckless and wild thought but I’ll let Laurie make this call. Amy is not keen on this idea but we are, after all, talking about a wolf!
As we finish up the Narnia wheel and get it ready to ship, I have begun a couple new projects. I needed a new lathe to make the large wheels and one with the capacity to do what I wanted would have cost several thousand dollars at least. Besides the price, the space it would take in my little shop would have been too costly. All I need is a machine to do one job so I felt I could make a lathe that would be adequate. Plus it is a fun challenge to actually beat the system and make instead of buy. I had a motor and a lot of scraps around, so this is the result. Not pretty but by golly it works! And it cost me about $50 in parts. I have used it already and here is the first fruit from the machine:
Laurie Weinsoft, our good friend and great fiber artist and teacher, commissioned me to make her another wheel. The new one will be a lot lighter than her first wheel and she should be able to take it with her easier than she can Cecil. She asked me to use a wolf for a figurehead/handle, and also requested humpback whales. And then she asked for sparkles! If you know Laurie, you’d know she is a pretty outgoing lady without many fears. So, rather than being very traditional with the design, I opted to paint the whales using northwest coast design ideas but get a little playful as well. These animals create something called a bubble ring when they gather food and it seemed like a great way to add Laurie’s sparkles. I was able to buy some Swarovski rhinestones and epoxied them onto the wheels. The eyes of the whales are abalone, which is a traditional embellishment in coastal native art. These wheels are not quite finished, but I like the result so far. The frame is coming along too and will incorporate some weight saving cut-outs as well as a new method of varying the orifice height. I’ll put up more photos as things progress. Thanks for looking!
After what seems like a very long time all the various elements of the Narnia wheel are coming together. I borrowed the flyer, bobbin, and hub caps from the swan wheel just for today and scrounged some spacers from spare parts. But here are some photos that will give you a glimpse of where this project has been headed all these weeks. The first photo is an overview showing where all the parts fit. A lot has changed lately. A main adjustment was elevating little reepicheep to the handle. He is such an interesting personality it seemed wrong to relegate him to an obscure place, and there was more of a chance for damage down between the treadles and the spinner’s legs. He is secured by a magnet so he can pe positioned to look in any direction. Below the flyer and bobbin and above the lamppost you can see a brass ring. This actually is an old key that has become the handle for an orifice hook. It’s a perfect little addition to this story and a perfect place to put it in its own little holder.
The second photo shows where a lot of new ideas have developed. When I started working on the wheel, the lion head was as far as I could think. But I realized that from the back side this was not an interesting section of the wheel. I did some brain surgery, removed the entire back of the head and created a flat area for a little book. I felt that this was a place for me to let Marcia have some very important input. She was assigned the project of selecting four of her favorite quotes from the books and I would put them on the open pages for her to see every time she spins. Then after the little wooden book was made I realized that a map of Narnia could be painted on the available flat area. I am very happy with this entire space now as there is so much to consider and enjoy.
The third photo is presented just for fun. I like all views of the mouse in his coracle and you can see the little book and its pages too.
The fourth picture is a view of the wardrobe door area. The top knob can be unscrewed to remove the door if the lamp post batteries wear down. The button at the bottom is the way to illuminate the lamp. The other buttons are hole covers. What is fun for me is that I didn’t realize Marcia loved, collected, and used vintage buttons in her own creations. So she relates to these very happily. In this photo you can see the orifice hook well too.
The fifth picture is from a very low point of view and shows off Aslan pretty well. At first I was a little disappointed with the position of his head but now I actually prefer it this way. The looking down over all the wheel and being the lead part of the wheel gives a sense of being king of his world. I like that very much. The head is carved of wood and epoxy putty makes up the outer shell. Various coats of finish using metallic powders in varnish create a look almost exactly like bronze. I like this a lot too. So now its time to refine and test and make the remaining few parts. Even though this wheel is so complex, it is not as heavy as some I have made. And even at this early stage of finish it treadles very smoothly!
The Narnia wheel is still a big part of my life. I have been working on the Aslan handle but the early stages would certainly scare people who think I can sculpt! It is built up of a number of materials and only I know what course I am taking. Actually I think only Aslan knows! Photos of that will have to wait until he is a bit farther along. While various things are curing, I have had great fun with this little mouse. According to Lewis, Reepicheep paddled away in his little coracle (boat) in hopes of reaching Aslan’s country. I looked up coracles and found that they varied with the specific needs of the fishermen who used them. And variations were built and used in a number of places in the world. So that gave me freedom to make a coracle special for a talking mouse. It even has a little mouse figurehead which you can see on the left side of the photo. It is peering down into the water. Reep has a gold ring around one ear but I have to find a red feather to put there too. If anyone can suggest a source, I would be grateful. The coracle is about 3.5″ long and Reep is about the size of one of the mice in our world. Having never sculpted a mouse, sitting or otherwise, I am very happy with this little addition to the wheel. It will be removable to lessen the chance of damage in transit. Enjoy!
When I make a wheel like this one, I’ve got to switch hats quite a bit. I started out as an engineer and spent a lot of time figuring out the lamp post and how to incorporate it into the frame. Next I became a woodworker and spent days building the frame, turning the wheels, and making treadles. The last several days I have been a painter and it sort of startled me. I knew I wanted to put two scenes on each wheel and the woodworker in me said, “Let’s make some wooden dividers to separate the scenes.” So I did, and after spending the better part of a day on them I realized it was not a good solution. The painter, who had been trying to make some art, finally realized the problem and got a bit assertive. He said, “Hey, I know what to do. Let me paint the transition between the scenes.” Since both the woodworker and the engineer were out of ideas, they gave in and the painter took over. What fun to paint again! Nothing you see in these photos is finished but folks have been wanting to see some pictures. And of course these photos are kind of harsh and don’t match the real things. To be expected. Here’s a breakdown of what you are looking at:
Cair Paravel, the castle in Narnia at the edge of the sea.
The home of Mr. and Mrs. Beaver. Described by Lewis as inviting with the smoke coming from the chimney. Green ice above the dam and of course always snow around.
The marshy home of Puddleglum the marshwiggle. He lived in a sort of wigwam and fished for eels. You can see him at sunrise getting ready to go catch some. Even with the beautiful sunrise, he knows it will probably rain or hail soon.
Aslan the Lion wherever he wants to be. His land is noted for bright colors, especially the bright blue sky.
I need to put on another hat here pretty quick and that will be the one of a sculptor. Need to carve a lion and a mouse. Will keep you posted!
Olympic Spinning Wheels 