My Process
(The Hard Way)
The process I use to make my work is nearly as important to me as the finished pieces. I purposely use antique, mechanical equipment and keep much of my work hands on.
I work mostly with cold rolled sheet metal and the point has always been to manipulate it by hand or with hand tools. I get tactile feedback from the material throughout the process. Sending any of the parts out to have someone else make them with a CNC or a laser cutter would totally defeat the purpose for me.
I make a lot of my own tools. They're usually specific to one piece of my process. Even though they can be pretty simple it saves me a lot of time and enables me to make more accurate and finished parts.
A few of my most valuable (to me) machines are 60 or 70 years old. In general, I get a lot of satisfaction from using equipment who's service life should've ended before I was born. I like to imagine factory workers in the 1940's or 50's sitting at my machine making parts.
The objects that I create can rarely match the image that I start with in my head, but as my abilities and techniques improve, I get closer to that ideal. I keep meticulous notes so I can build on what I've learned as I go.
In the end I've made a work of art that is very personal to me, because of the lengthy, hands on process that we have gone through together.
