Projects

Here are a few personal projects of mine in order of no importance.

Houseboat Installation

This is an art installation that I made years ago that was shown in a local college near Tarrytown, NY.

Mixed media
Cut on CNC
Not functional (I'd like to make a new one that floats).
Easily disassembled by one person
House Dims: 12'Lx6'Wx7'H
Overall Dims: 16'Lx10'Wx10'H

Kitchen Island

Ok, full disclosure: I am a total trash-panda who can’t pass up quality discarded lumber. I have no idea why.

A friend of mine texted me one day to alert me about some maple shelving that was sitting outside in the rain next to a dumpster at a local elementary school, so I grabbed my stretch wrap and a cart and went to investigate. The shelves were ruined from the rain, but the 1″ vertical sides were still fine, so I grabbed them and brought them home.

My wife and I were going to be moving to a smaller apartment that didn’t have enough room for our kitchen table and storage for trash receptacles and small washing machine, so I designed an island for the space that would seat 4 and included a cabinet underneath for the washing machine, trash and recycling.

I don’t have a shop, so I made this on sawhorses in our mosquito infested back yard, using a circular saw and chop saw. The boards on the top were joined using a biscuit joiner. The entire thing was made so that it could be disassembled and stored flat for moving and storage.

Tower Refuge

This is an old project from my undergrad years, but I kind of love it. I had zero carpentry or structural knowledge, so I figured things out as I went along.

I had zero money for materials as an undergrad, so I scavenged all of my material for my projects.

I had access t a 1-ton dump truck through my job at the time, which enabled me to assemble the tower on its site at the site and stand it up using the truck and a tow rope.

So, back in art school, our professors really wanted us to try and infuse depth and meaning into things, rather than just hone our skills at a craft, so some of us found ourselves running in circles trying to create meaning when we should have just focused on making cool things and being satisfied with that.

This piece had a ladder that enabled a person to crawl up into the tower through a hole in the underside. On the inside (not pictured), there was a wraparound bench that the person could possibly sit on in order to take refuge from their daily concerns. But that relief wouldn’t last for long, since the bench was sloped downward towards the entry hole at a relatively steep angle that would dump the person out if they became too relaxed.

Coaster

Another undergrad project. This was not a kinetic sculpture. The only actual moving part on this piece is the cart door, which would lock from the outside when pulled shut (I never went in).

This was also made out of found lumber, which I recovered from a pile of large, hardwood pallets. I may have actually purchased the steel for the cart.

The cart itself was bolted to the track, as were the wheel chocks, so that it wouldn’t roll or fall and injure anyone. The cart itself was made of oak landscape beams that I had ripped lengthwise with a circular saw. It was so heavy that I had to assemble it in place, piece by piece, on top of the rail-trestle structure.

This piece was kind of about making difficult decisions. I have learned over the years that I’m not an incredibly profound individual, and I don’t try to infuse too much meaning in my creations, but it’s fun to make things that look cool.

The basic explanation here is that the theoretical user – after climbing into the cart and becoming locked inside – had two choices: They could pull the chock on the ramp side and risk the unknown in order to either gain freedom by smashing the cart upon impact and crawling from the wreckage, or die trying. Alternatively, the user could pull the other wheel chock and take the safe path, but ultimately remain stuck or imprisoned forever on the trestle. Super deep, dude.

CNC Bass

Several years ago I was working at a place and operating the CNC router. I was really interested in having a full size stand-up bass at the time, so in my down time I drew this thing up in AutoCad and cut it out of some scrap birch plywood that we had laying around. The fingerboard is made from hard maple.

If I were to do it again, the entire thing would have fewer parts and be constructed entirely of maple, due to the intense string tension. It was a great project for attempting to learn how to play bass.