Twin Barrels Burning Rolls!

I might have found my fight club.  Riding 'The Twins" down Mt Tabor was like shoving a whale into a VW and was easily the most terrifying 5 mph I have ever gone.  I laugh so hard when I see a video my friend made of us rolling by.  My body is as tense as a log jam and my head looks like it is in a vise.  I remember knowing where my family and friends were but fearing distraction too much to even move my thumb the 1/2" to acknowledge them with a scream from our siren.  My personal goal was to reach my health insurance deductible but like many other goals I have set, that one eluded me. If you knew my deductible, you would have said it was ambitious.  

We are a six person team and we were in three heats so it worked out that everyone got to take a ride.  We were the slowest car on the track that day but I think our intensity and our struggle vindicated our efforts.  I think I can speak for the whole team when I say that we certainly did not intend to be the slowest but we pulled it off.  In the second heat, Eric and Derrick caused a little drama when they engaged in a 2 mph fender bender with a Water Department Security Jeep that was parked 100 yards in front of the finish line. 

Twins-1 Security Jeep-0.

At the beginning of the third heat we had a troubled start and the Twins were in the gutter 30 feet off the line. We wrestled it back onto the road and aimed downhill again. It slowly began to descend and as it did, the crowd closed in behind and walked down with them cheering and clapping.  It was like a demented Coke commercial, David and Trevor gritting their teeth and having the full 3 mph Twin Barrels Battle while kids are passing them on scooters cheering.  It was very funny.

We ended up winning a trophy for best Engineering!  My friend Julius congratulated us for getting the smartest prize for the dumbest car.  For a while I didn't think we really deserved that particular prize until Derrick reminded me that we put disc brakes on wine barrels with a '57 Ford F100 drop axle for a frame and rode them down a mountain.  I saw several cars there that I thought should have our trophy, though.  I was secretly hoping that we would get crowd favorite but we lost out to a giant Lego car.  I was feeling the love in the pit and from the crowd but I guess the numbers didn't add up in our favor.   We should have gone with a more identifiable brand.

We have plans to do it again next year.  I can't wait.  We will make the Twins faster.  That is all I can say at this point.  Below is the rig as it looked race day.  We installed the siren that is powered by a motorcycle battery.  We also put in some machine guns in the yokes but the yolk was on us when we found out water was all we were allowed to shoot.  This photo was taken by Squid Vicious.

Twin Barrels Are Heating Up

The race is this Saturday.  We are taking the rig to the mountain tomorrow for a test run.  This thing is 10 feet long, probably 400 lbs, and hops like a bull in a rodeo stall.  It is a bone crusher. It will make you a cartoon.  It should have a poet in residence.  It scratches so many itches I can hardly focus.  

Here is how to make one:

First you get three wine barrels.  

Wrap two of them with bicycle tires and staple. 

Countersink and screw the banding to the staves. 

Shove an axle through them.  

On the front barrel you need to build a plates for each side to mount the rotors and the brake assembly

Mount the aforementioned technology

Build yolks

Cut hole in third barrel to accommodate an old truck axle

Bolt third barrel to old truck axle using angle iron

Attach yolks to an old truck axle and third barrel with kingpins

Style and attach gussets where needed 

Build handle bars off of front yoke

Add foot pegs on front yoke for leg steering

Let simmer 

My pal and team mate David Lewin made this image that will be on our race jerseys.  

The ladies love it!

Twin Barrels Burning Team:

Eric Black, Architect

Derrick Benson, Kaizen Leader

David Lewin, Industrial Designer

Sam Tannahill, Winemaker

Trevor McWilliams, Assistant to the Intern

and myself

Let's Redo The Bathroom!

Why? Why did I do it?  Redoing my second floor bathroom might be one of the worst decisions I have ever made.  It is more than a nightmare.  It is an open wound, a festering abscess but worse!  It is viral.  The extent to which the ill effects have infiltrated even the most remote and exclusive aspects of my life is mind boggling.  The venomous tentacles have saturated everything from my pocketbook to my sex life to my newly compromised DNA.  It is unbelievable.

You don't have to tell me, I already know: Getting into an old house is looking for trouble. That is why I was prepared for twice as much as I thought it would be, but a BILLION times more?!? Things have spun out of control.

The clincher is that this whole catastrophe is all because we thought we didn't like the way our old bathroom looked.  I mean, it was nice enough.  It flushed, it soaked, the lights turned on and off.  The tub filled right up or if we were so inclined, we could take a nice shower.  There were even random tiles with animal scenes on them.  Come to think of it, it was one of the nicest bathrooms I have ever seen.

Why did I do it?  Where were my handlers?

Rather than showing you pictures of the battle zone I have made a montage of bruises, contuses and lacerations I have accumulated.  They tell the story better than I.

Update

Quick update on a few projects:

The Soapbox car has a pulse. 

The Plastiplums are not yielding very exciting results...yet.

Peeper chairs are done.  Kiddie Conference Table on deck.

$44.00 for a pair of Chuck T's, I think Not!

I don't know if you know this but Converse was bought by Nike a couple three years ago.  So my beloved Chuckie T's are now allowed on campus!  (ref: Nike campus in Beaverton, shoe regulation)  

I feel like I have been burning through my Chucks faster than usual.  At first I attributed it to the load I carry on my shoulders.  That would make sense.  I don't swing my arms anymore when I walk and my feet slap when they hit the ground.  Even in grass.  But I can't imagine that accounting for more than a small percentage of the overall deterioration of the sole.  

My point is that I am not going to sit in Nike's backyard and pay $44 and change for kicks that last a month and a half.  Not unless they hire me.

I am going to see how long I can keep this pair going.  I have a little more work to do but here is the breakdown of what has happened over the past few days.  I wore them around today, mowed the lawn, rode up Mt Tabor, they feel good.  Actually they feel friggin' awesome.

I put music to the slideshow and it is by Action Daddy. 

Put It On Casters! Passive Aggressive Furniture Fabrication

Of course architects can design furniture... they design whole friggin' buildings for crying out loud.   But seriously, I love architects.  I pick them out on the street.  As a matter of fact, last year at the ButtJoint I was working with the big door open and this dude walked by.  I asked him if he was an architect and low and behold!  I think it freaked him out.  He probably thought I had met him somewhere but I could actually just tell.  I can pick out bass players too.  

Anyway, I was having a conversation with a couple of architects I know the other day and one says, "I know, take a log and put it on casters!" He snapped his fingers and turned around triumphantly as if all problems were solved and it was that easy.

I was instantly reminded of this log with a few different chair back styles poking out of it at the Hudson Hotel in NYC. 

"That sounds like an architect thing to do." I said.

My friend, an architect, designed the bench at the Hudson.  I never loved it.  I thought it wreaked of what it was: An undeveloped, smartypants whim.  It is like a joke from the movie "Airplane".  With the budget he had... he should have put wheels on it, at least.  I mean, why stop there?  let's put some USB ports in it.  Ohhh, if I ran the Zoo!

Of course, it isn't just architects who do such things.  To my horror and surprise I found this image from something that came out of the Droog studio in Holland.  Same wacky idea but this time they made the chair backs out of metal (maybe gilded).  Holy Irony!  I am guessing an architect who works at Droog did it.  Prove me wrong and I will send you a free t shirt.

So I decided to call my architect friend's bluff and put some casters on a log.  Bring on the awards!  Notify MOMA! Get ID Magazine on the phone! I have to say that it makes moving the log around a whole lot easier and Passive Aggressive Furniture Making is a relatively healthy way to deal with my design demons.   Working it out...

Soapbox Derby Update

If you close your eyes, you can feel the rumble. No, Dave Lombardo didn't move into your basement.  It's not the world coming to an end! 

It is the sound of Twin Barrels Burning.  

The race is 5 weeks away and The Solution is crystalizing.

I am calling it The Solution because it is not a car, it is an answer.  

Beautiful Glossy Plastiplums: As Green't As It Gets.

Like eating all of the food on my plate, I always feel like I should use all of the two part epoxy I mix for a project.  Today, in a panic, I plasticoated a few plums, on a tree, in a client's back yard.  

My Personal Epoxy System (PES) requires me to mix a portion dictated by the epoxy pump designers, so usually I have a little extra.  Worst case scenario is that I get a jolly, cracking out the paintbrush epoxicle from the yogurt container I used to mix the polymeric elixir.  Wet epoxy is as nasty as it is cool, so I a strive to waste not a single, engineered drop.

I coated a few plums and I am very excited to see what will happen. It may have been the most important thing I did all day.  I am flooded with epoxy integrated plant ideas.  No, good ones... really good ones.  Maybe I will cast some clear cubes around some saplings and grow a fauxrest. How green't is that? Send me some epoxy and I'll freakin' do it.  

Leave it to Hallmark

I know what color my parachute is but I have yet to see it deploy.  It would be nice to see soon, as I barrel into a career crisis.  Come on little chute... inflate already.  Pappa is a worried man.  For over ten years I have been indulging in a career choice that has been my passion but I have not been able to make it work financially.  If you saw my bank book you would think I was an artist!    Although Fathers' day does not carry too much weight on my calendar, I can't help but reflect upon what I have accomplished in the context of fatherhood on this Hallmark holiday.  

I wish everything was as good as my kids.

  

Confounded Compucurves

For a curve to work, it has to be right.  For a curve to be right, it has to feel natural.  For a curve to feel natural, it has to be messaged and caressed and considered.  The aesthetic impact of an incorrect curve is hard to quantify but I will say that it is one of the most important things facing us in these troubled times.  Take the human form for example.  The difference between the shape of a nice looking leg and a leg that really makes you go "Waka Waka", is subtle. You need mad verbal skills to describe exactly what it is that you like more about one leg than the other but there is a significant difference.  In design, you want to be the master of such subtleties, even if you sound like a nut trying to explain why a joke is funny in your pursuit. 

So I have this issue:  I use computers in my design process for a lot but I believe that the real sensuality of an object is easier to obtain through fine art/kung fu/ hands on manipulation. Designing on a computer takes some of the subtle control away from the artist.  The computer offers a spline and a tendency is to accept it. I tend to form a curve using a billion strokes of a pen with variations of line weight until the thing feels right and natural. Then I will trace what I want and poof!  there is a sexy, natural curve... on a piece of paper.  

Now, in the case of Peeper, I have to get that curve onto the computer and translated through a cad program, into a cnc router and onto the profile of a piece of wood without losing any of the grace I have worked so hard to achieve.  And lemme tell ya, it ain't easy.

The picture posted is of a shape that I drew at full scale, transfered onto then cut out of card board, scanned in 4 separate shots, pieced back together, and then traced in Illustrator.  Then that line drawing goes to the cad program and gets finessed (assaulted) again before it goes to the cnc driver software where my beautiful shapes get chopped up into a trillion little 90 degree steps to form the illusion of a smooth curve.  I am looking forward to seeing how different the final product is from my original drawing.  Hopefully the Waka Waka factor will elude dilution.  

  

Peeper

I have been working on a big brother to the Peep furniture line I made for hip toddlers and their cool parents.  The first time I tried it, a few years ago, I simply scaled up the Peep chair and it looked silly.  

Some things just don't scale up.

That made me think about how goofy we would look if we were scaled up babies.  I would be a six foot baby.  Here is where I found my direction for the new larger Peep line.  I might call it Peeper.  My plan is to figure out a profile shape that looks like the Peep chair, only three years older.  I am studying the metamorphosis of my own kid and am trying to apply that growth to the new chair.  

As a baby he was comfortable in his chubbitude.  Now he is a little awkward and is starting to show signs of humility as his body blurts out in different directions.  Parts of his body seem to grow at different rates.  I want to capture that sweet gawkiness  in the form of Peeper.  I think I can.  It will be tough to prove me wrong.

Here are some of the shapes I have been playing with.  I am honing in on it.  

It is amazing how subtle changes in shape can effect the personality of a blob.  Why is one funnier than another and why is one aggressive and one is slovenly.   The third one down and two over looks like it would be a tennis pro if it were human. I actually dated a girl who had an annoying friend always wore shoes that looked like the one to the right of the sad clown one.

Brief History

I wish did and am glad I didn't, start this blog a few years ago.   If I did, you would know the painful history of the Peep kiddie furniture line.  It is a story packed with design and manufacturing action including a dream ICFF moment, international nightmares, glossy accolades and an insider's theory on why all those American furniture manufacturers are reduced to an office with a guy who orders components from China and a giant warehouse full of cob web covered machines.  

In a simple sentence:  I could not find a manufacturer.  

It drove me batty.  Below is a short video I made to make a point to these guys in Jamestown, NY when they sent me a revised production model of the little Peep desk.  When the chair practically fell apart in my hands I set up the camera for this demonstration.  

Needless to say, we weren't a match.  I should have known when I saw their company hat was camo with green lettering and logo. I am wearing it in the video.  Don't get me wrong, I painted black and gray flames on my black designmobile and they are invisibly cool as hell but in the wrong application it's just plain dupid.  

Aesthetic Enhancement Devices On Display!

Bridging the gap between art and design with the launch of the Aesthetic Enhancement Device System next Thursday, here in Portland.

When I moved out of the Buttjoint Studio last July,  I took a look at my work surfaces as I dismantled the werkshop.  I have always loved the look and feel of a really worked surface. Layers of deliberate marks, gouges and spills create an Uberpatina.  It is a caricature of natural distress. Rich.  

So I chopped them up into 1' squares, framed them in mod bamboo, shellaced and waxed them, and boom, they are ready to hang.  Of course, I could make a dead cat look good with that scrumptious shellac and wax.  I freakin' love it.  There have been many occasions where my mouth starts to water as I gaze upon a waxy wood surface.  I have not yet actually taken a bite but I would not write that out as a potential future furniture faux pas on my part.  I almost chomped a WWI rifle stock I saw at the Evergreen Aviation and Space Museum last week.  My restraint is weakening but my resolve remains unscathed.

They are not art.  They are product. Actually they are a by-product.  They are ironically hectic remains from the fabrication process of all that clean lined, scandinavian inspired furniture. Each mark is explainable and has a reason.  As chaotic as it looks, each blemish is because of something and that justifies it for me.  

I think it would make a great architectural feature.  Sell it by the square foot.  Fake it.  Write a random program for the cnc router and start crankin'  sheets.  Word to your mother.  (ref: The New Old School Design Collective, 2002) 

Portland Adult Soapbox Derby

One of the 39 coveted spots is MINE!!! The Adult Soapbox Derby is one of the best events I have ever been involved with.  This will be the second entry for me.  In '06 we were 11th on the waiting list and got the call a couple of weeks before the race, notifying us that we were in.  We managed to fabricate a rickety rig that ended up looking like a pile of dead pelicans on the side of the course 3/4 of the way down our first run.  

This year is going to be different.  Inspired by both the tenacity and the visual impact of an unflushable flake, Team Floater is poised to make soapbox history with the new concept vehicle.  I can't say I have seen one of these before.  It is basically a giant two wheeled skateboard made with a couple of wine barrels.  (UPDATE!  As inspiring as the unflushable flake is, we have changed the team name to the more appropriate "Twin Barrels Burning")

First order of business is to drink 120 gallons of wine.  

Here is the doomed pelican.

Padulo Bench

Here are some images from a bench table thing I just completed.  The wood is some crazy African spalted something.  I couldn't tell you.  I also have a video of one of my interns at the Kapow Design Extreme Furniture Fabrication Facility applying some shellac.  It is an old school method and I love the results.  A few million coats of shellac and some clear, not-so-hard wax and you have to be concerned that someone will come by and try to take a bite out of your furniture.  It looks that good.  It really makes my mouth water.

Here is some cool leopard looking spalted African Whackywood.  

Here are a couple of slabs under clamps at the South Facitlity

This vid is 3 about minutes long.  It shows one of our star interns applying shellac using the same technique used by Thomas Chippendale back in '54.  That would be 1754.

Can You Hear Me Now?

When my cell phone rings I look to see who is calling then I answer, "hello?" like I don't know who it is.  Sometimes I will even go another step and follow with a "Oh, hey!" adding the notion of surprise to my misleading greeting when I fake find out who it is.  Why?

The reason is that I was brought up on phones that rang and you answered them with sincerity.  It is a lingering habit formed before ATMs existed, and I have not been able to shake it.  I have taken note, however and was inspired to think about how we initiate phone conversations.  As an experiment, my friend and I are attempting to dispose of salutations and get right to the point of the call.  RING RING.  We are shaving ten, even fifteen seconds off the front end of each conversation.  So if you do some simple math:  2 billion cell phones on earth, averaging 6.5 calls per day times 10 seconds of vaporous hellotalk is about 4122 years per day!  Check it.  Go ahead.

The big idea actually hit as a result of this line of thinking.  Too big, really. I am going to bury it for a few years.  Let things mature.

Oh No! A Grad School Story!

I had a teacher at Pratt who was as inspiring as he was detestable.  (I actually had a few of those) That doesn't have a lot to do with the story but it was the case.  One class he announced that we were going to take ten minutes and make paper airplanes and whoever made the plane that flew the farthest wins.  So we all set about folding up the best planes we could remember how to make.  I think I just went with a dart style plane with a folded over nose.  Ultra creased and absolutely symmetric.  Not too inspired but it was the best I could come up with.  Everyone else did a version of the one I did with the exception of this one guy who crumpled up his paper into a tight ball.  When it was his turn he just chucked this thing and beat everyone soundly.  It was great.  

As ironic as it sounds, it takes a lot of discipline to think freely.  To control your mind and not allow yourself to drift over to the gutter that is the way things have been done before, is a real talent.  Of course, when someone says "plane" you think of some wings and a fuselage because that is what the Wright brothers made them.    

So when Leo (our 4 yr old) called me over to see the paper planes he made, I felt like the The April Fool for spending all that money on grad school when I could have just observed a bunch of kids and learned the most important thing Pratt taught me: how to think.

I have to say, those tissue planes fly wonderfully.  They fly like the bag in the film the kid made in the movie, American Beauty. You know, the movie where that guy does that thing?

Cartoon't

Do I have a problem?  Let me know.  I am in the middle of a hectic time right now.  My wife has a brutal cold and it is spring break so I have the kids to keep happy during this particularly rainy week here in Portland.  Suffice it to say, I am on my toes keeping things in order.  I'm no Nadya Suleman, that's for sure.

There were a few minutes when my angelic neighbor took both of my kids for a play date (Hate that term) to give me a chance to take care of some of the things on my long long list.  There are dishes to do, laundry in every stage, food to cook, stuff to put away, a HUGE yard mess, etc...(not to mention paying work) with about an hour to do it.  I had to choose my task with my poor, sick wife's needs in mind.  To instill confidence in her that the house is in order, is to expediate her healing process by giving her peace of mind.  What is the first thing I do?  I slither like an eel through a keg of oysters down to my basement and draw this picture.  

Is that really the best way to use my time?  I mean, what is that?  It isn't even a real cartoon, it is a plan for a cartoon.   As if someday I am going to go back and do the real cartoon of the guy walking out of the store with the toilet paper.  I am not even sure if anyone thinks it is funny seeing someone walk out of a store with just toilet paper.   Can I garnish this indulgent act with some valuable verbal vegetable?  Is justification attainable?  

some people have crazy noses

I was in a grocery store with my kids yesterday and Leo said to me:  "Did you see that guy's nose? It went up at the end!"

I was immediately taken by the opportunity to teach a lesson to my 4 year old.  I said, "yes, everybody's nose is different."  trying to downplay any exceptional characteristics this guy's nose might have boasted.  I guess it has been drilled into me by a culture that seems to strive towards becoming a land of grey hermaphrodites, denying any acknowledgement of uniqueness for fear of offending a single individual.  It would make the designer's job a lot easier.  

Anyways, Leo said, "yeah but some people have really crazy noses."

I can't agree more. There are indeed some very crazy noses out there.

Brian Paul Beidelman R.I.P

I found out that a childhood friend died today.  He didn't die today, I found out he died, today. He actually died in July.  That is me and he on Santa's lap in NYC Circa 1976.  I am on the right. Our moms were buddies back in '69 in Boulder, Colorado.  That was back when there was only one street light in Boulder at Baseline and Broadway.  At least, that is what I think.  We were kids at the time.  We thought Flagstaff was our mountain and as much as it mattered, it was.

My mom decided to move to NYC in about '75 and her friend from Boulder, Margaret decided to move too.  They were both single moms with a boy each.  Brian and me.  We lived on the same block in Boulder, 6th and Marine.  Anyway, my mom and I moved to the West Village into a little one bedroom rent controlled apartment on w12th and w4th st.  My mom's sister snuck out and we snuck in.  Brian and Margaret moved somewhere  like... East 10th and 1st ave or something like that.  Brian and I were best, if not only, friends.  We got into all kinds of innocent trouble together and I want to let you know that the Violent Femmes and the Talking Heads weren't the only ones tearing up the east Village under Ed Koch's nose.

Brian was diabetic.  I think that is what eventually killed him.  Being diabetic, he was always flush with hypodermics.  I used to get syringes from him to play with.  I know, it sounds weird, but don't let the stigma of the syringe dilute the joys of squirting.   Anyway, I enjoyed playing with the syringes.  Shooting lighter fluid and setting it on fire, squirting invisible streams of water at kids across the classroom...regular stuff.  But I have to say that one of the craziest jokes I have ever played was with my old dead pal Brian Paul Beidelman.  We filled up a few syringes with Tobasco sauce and  injected oranges that were outside the Korean deli. We thought it would be so funny when someone took a big slice of orange and burned their face off with Tobasco sauce.  We prolly injected 20 oranges and went home and laughed.  

I remember one time when I was coming home from his apartment in my Grace Church School uniform (blue Oxford, blue and red striped tie, Penny loafers or maybe Wallabees)).  I got on the 14th st bus heading west from 1st Ave.  I was trying to pull my bus pass out of my pocket when all of the sudden 3 or 4 syringes fell on the floor right in front of these little old ladies in the front few seats.  They were horrified.  I remember picking them up and thinking to myself, "if they only knew that I was only using them to inject Tobasco into oranges and not to do heroin..."

And the fire crackers we used to be able to get!  Holy Shite!  Brian and I managed to find our twelve year old,  green-down-vest wearing ways into these funky mafia back rooms in Little Italy around the 4th of July, where we could buy Pineapples (1/2 stick of dynamite) for $4.00! One thing we did was to take a cigarette, break off the butt, stick the fuse of a M80 or a blockbuster into it and light it.  We would put it in a garbage can or something and sit across the street on a stoop and wait.  I remember shitting bricks one time when a little old lady came crawling by.  I was so scared that it was going to blow and she would have a heart attack.  Fortunately she made it down the block before the top of the garbage can blew 15 ft up in the air and crashed down on the sidewalk.

Memories of my relationship with Brian Paul are perfect Jim Carol and Mark Twain.  We were a real team.  Two 11 year olds fresh from Boulder, both with single moms, living in NYC feeling it out, getting in trouble, having fun.  

Not that anyone reads this but the Boulder paper's obituary said any donations to the American Diabetes Association would be nice.  (I paraphrase) 

Pneumo, the table

Here are a few sketches of a table I am working on.  The client lives in a little apartment and wants a round coffee table that can be raised up to the height of a dining table.  I am working with the idea of going from 18"-30" or so.  I thought of a few ways to actuate the movement but the winner is the gas hinge hidden inside a telescoping pedestal.  Like a task chair.  

I think I am going to buy an existing base and build it out.  I'm going with a carbonized bamboo plywood countertop material for the top.  Maybe powder coat the base white.  I need to have a really sexy solution for the action.  The act of raising and lowering the table is kind of intimate.  I need a mechanism that engages and disengages with sufficient tactile sensitivity... if you know what I mean.  What do I mean?  I mean it is an opportunity to make an impression.  The feel and the ease of the motion and the sound and the whole experience should be in tune with the other  design elements.  

That reminds me of a table I spent some quality time with back in '97 when I worked at Carlton House Restoration.  I actually drew it with the hopes of someday making one with a Lexan top and leaves.  I wanted to show the awesome gears that opened the table up when you spun the top.  I always thought that it was a shame that the coolest aspect of the whole table was only enjoyed by the maid  or whomever is the fortunate one with the task of changing the table diameter.  I have posted a drawing of the table top with and without it's leaves.  I hope I can find the ones I made.  Shite.  Where are they?

Peas 'n Carrots 'n subversive activities

Being 41 with a family and a lawn to mow, my rebellious acts are not as obvious as they were back in the day. Besides the infrequent Vesuvian outbursts, I have to mine my daily activities for acts that might be explained as rebellious.  The raised beds idea got me a few emails but nobody actually went for it. I did manage to put in some beds in our back yard. I am looking forward to stickin' it to the man by growing my own beans. 

It may well appear to the passer by that I am a balding dad raking some soil but what is really happening is much different.  I am pioneering a movement towards off the grid urban existence.  There will be networks of urban CSA gardens providing greens to the neighborhood, pulling the rug out from under the system  that brings our garlic from China and our apples from New Zealand.  Crazy.

We had some lavender in a big planter that died so I dumper it out.  I figured out why it died.  The root ball took on the exact shape of the inside of the planter.  There was no soil, just a serious  spaghetti of roots.  

Meanwhile, my daughter has discovered her favorite place to sit in the morning when the heat comes on.

Urban Hoes: An Agricultural Movement

You can call me "Raised Beds" Charley.

As the apartments I have been working on are winding up, I am thinking about what to do next.  I scheme all day long as I caulk baseboard and fill holes.  I came up with a plan that has legs.  Jessie and I are planing to devote our back yard to some raised beds for some serious urban agriculture. They call our neighborhood urban.  

Why don't I offer to build raised beds for people?  That explains the poster up above.  I put one up at a coffee shop. It occurred to me, however that this was a much bigger idea than me running around dropping boxes in people's yards.  It is a movement!  Urban agriculture is something that makes so much sense and it is timely.  This economy is a perfect setting for flat packed urban farming products!  Think of all the roof top square footage that could be producing yummy healthy local grub.  Sell them through the dreaded Home Depot or some massive box store.  It could be the new fondu set or exercise bike.

***I am going to post a few ideas on this blog.  If you want to poach one, please consider hiring me as a consultant, at least***

I thought Urban Hoes could be a good name.  It is very dynamic.  It reminds me of the ButtJoint Studio.  My old place on SE 26th and Division.  That is Scott, the guy I shared the ButtJoint Studio with, his mother and his sister.  I bet his mother was proud of him, standing under that logo.  

Fewer But Cooler Things

I caught myself doing something that I think I have been doing subconsciously since I was a little boy.  When I rinse my mouth after brushing my teeth, I made a sound like a ricochet.  As if my spit were a bullet that is bouncing off the porcelain.  Ptweeing!  I am not sure but I think I have been doing it forever and have just not noticed.  I have no recollection of when it started. It feels very natural to me.  I would have to try not to do it and I have other fish to fry.

I just sent a box down to a new client in LA.  It contains a little Parsons table and bench for a kid's keyboard.  I made one for my kids because we got them a keyboard and we had nothing to put it on.  It is a challenge to have a kid and keep your place looking good.  The tidal wave of crap that flows through the doors opened by the arrival of a new baby is something they don't tell you about.  We shoot for fewer but cooler things.  

This thing took me longer to pack than to make! Another reason why you have to make k.d. furniture.  I hope it makes it down there with no problems.  I have posted a pictu

re of my packing and shipping department facility in action.   It doubles as our dining room.

That is Madeleine making some heart shaped Valentines cookies.

Be Warned! Posting exposes a dark underbelly.

I mentioned earlier that I am and have been interested in the concept of palimpsest.  I like the idea of manipulating something to create a history.  Seeing the history in an object lends dimension to it.  It begs questions and causes subliminal assumptions. Take a scratch  or a dent on a table leg, for example.  It got there somehow.  It was probably a careless maid wielding a vacuum, or some reckless kid crashing his scooter.  Not that every blemish is considered so thoroughly, of course, but the accumulative effect of these micro stories carry undeniable aesthetic weight.  

In NYC, I loved checking out old apartments and seeing these weird things like a truncated door jamb or a seemingly random piece of trim disappearing into a wall.  Walls that have been painted and patched and repainted and repatched for a hundred years get richer and more interesting the wonkier they become.  The corners of the rooms are actually rounded, having been filled with multiple layers of paint.  Imagine the interior square footage lost to coats of paint on Manhattan Island alone!  At $700/month for a parking space, all that paint could be significant.  And how much does it weigh?? Gads.

I want to try to reproduce that 100 year old tenement look with new construction.  I call it Tenement Chique.I did it with furniture and it looks and feels great.  It would be a lot of work but one could do it.  The tough part is to make the layers of history seem appropriate and natural rather than contrived and forced.  I find inspiration for this stuff everywhere.  As a matter of fact, I took a picture

 of something that I will probably not use but it tells a crazy story.  The picture is of a bathroom door in a house I am helping fix up.  Those two gray spots on the door tell a dark and sordid tale of distilled crapsmanship and laziness.  What I think happened was that the last guy who painted this door just painted around the towels that were hanging there rather than taking them down.  I wish there was another answer but the forensic study I made revealed the cold hard facts.  My homage to history shall be temporarily sidelined, for this palimpsestic aberration should not be preserved and celebrated, nor should it be studied and discussed. As a matter of fact, I am going to deny it ever happened.  I almost fear posting such information.  People don't need to know about these things.  

Humbler

It is not an infrequent occurrence.  I love getting my eyes opened by my kids.  I spent a long time this weekend making a bunch of blocks.  They are pretty basic shapes.  My thought was to just make all the dimensions double starting from 0.75".  That way all the blocks would stack up nicely and walls will be nice and straight.  Lemme tell ya, making blocks is not a lot of fun.  It is all milling.  Loud, dusty and boring.  But with thoughts of my kids creating long beautiful Bauhaus block buildings in my mind, I forged on.  

I fashion myself to be a lateral thinker but leave it to the kids to really tear preconceptions down without a hint of concern or remorse.  Leo, my 4 year old, built this structure first.  

I don't actually have a shop right now.  I had a fun furniture studio around the corner from my house in se Portland but I had to give it up in July for a variety of reasons.  It was called the ButtJoint Studio.  Since then, I have been surfing my friends shops, jumping on their table saws or dulling their jointer blades.  It is pretty pathetic.  It ends up taking me about a year to make a cut.  Below are a couple of pictures of my home workshop.  The clamps are on a little keyboard stand and bench I am making for a client down in LA.  The router is my set up to take down the 300 miles of sharp edges on the blocks I made.  These pics are from today and yesterday.   I am shopless and I am saying "yes" to all kinds of projects right now.