Last update: 6/3/01; 11:59:16.
Thoughts and ideas as they occur to me.
Tuesday, March 6, 2001
Exploring new directions. (03/06/2001 08:43 EST) This year, I'm going to explore combining wrought iron, carved wood, and etched or engraved glass in some larger projects. I'll continue making as many roses as you kind folks might want, so this is an expansion in my efforts, not a substitution.
For the last three or four weeks, I've been searching the Internet, buying magazines, and ordering catalogs concerning woodcarving, woodworking, sculpting, woodburning, glass etching, glass engraving, engraving, inlaying, gold-plating, vermeil, silversmithing, pewtersmithing, and more. I'm looking forward to trying my hand at combining traditional iron-working methods with traditional designs in wood, glass, and other metals. Time will tell how well I express my visions in our shared reality.
About a month ago, or so, Arch Avary and I were talking about ways to design new products and he mentioned that George Kelischek had purchased a new laser cutter. So, we scheduled some time to see what it would do, and I'm greatly impressed. I've been researching what I can do with such a machine, and while it will never replace my hand-made items as my first love, it will be a great help to creating patterns and other items that will be sold as fabricated, rather than hand-made, items.
To that end, I've been researching stencil and silhouette patterns that will be suitable for inlays and intarsia-type products. I've been re-learning CorelDRAW and working on generating some drawings on my computer that I can then cut into wood for products and plastic for stencils and long-lasting patterns I can use in my metalsmithing.
It'll take a few weeks or months before I'm really ready to show what I'm learning, but I'm very enthusiastic and hope the reality lives up to the potential.
This is one of the main reasons I haven't updated my web site in a few weeks, and the other is that I'm developing a couple of other domains for friends that should be debutting in the next few weeks.
More as it develops...
** JD ** 8:59:15 AM
© Copyright 2001 John L. Dilbeck, jd@johndilbeck.com.