Mom used to do painting and sculpture, and always had art and craft projects for us kids to do. And Dad was always building things. I thank both my parents for fostering the creative instinct in us. Here are a few of the things I have made, frivolous and useful....
See also art by my siblings, Crista (driftwood handrails and sculptures) and Scott (metal lamps and other creations).
I think these glow-in-the-dark animals were another JerryCo special, and came in pairs as if from a galactic Noah's Ark.
My old desk was left out in the rain and sun, so the top was no good. I peeled off the veneer to find a beautiful redwood surface, but too soft to write on. So I finished it with several quarts of embedding resin (for decoupage), trapping many flat artifacts from my house that somehow represent me and my interests. Mom helped with the layout, including the galaxy of colored disks I made made when I was a kid by taping paper to a motor and writing on it with pens while it was spinning. Click here for a high-res (1440x994) version of this photo.
I made this tape rack in wood shop in high school. It is mahogany and alder, laminated and cut with a dado blade. I couldn't explain to the shop teacher why it had to be diagonally laminated. But it did. At that time, 51 tapes seemed like a HUGE number, that I would never fill up. I now have 4 racks full! My mix tapes go here.
To help me get out of bed on gloomy mornings, I made an Artificial Sun. It is as bright and warm as the real thing, when it is going full blast. I have a timer that turns on a synchronous motor, that turns on a Variac slowly over 45 minutes, to bring up the lights like a real sunrise. This works great! I tried standard dimmers, but they make the lights buzz, hence the huge (20A) Variac (which was kindly supplied by Jerry Pine, who also likes building gadgets.) I have since seen a very wimpy (50W) version of this idea in mail-order catalogs. I don't think that would reset my circadian rhythm. Mine is 1750W, but never operates at full blast for long--I usually wake up when I start dreaming of hot tubs, the beach, or other warm places.
On a whim, I did this drawing just to see if I could draw. It took a long time and lots of erasing. I gained a new respect for people (like my mom) who can just draw with ease, whose lines just come out right the first time. I love drawing on computers, where you can erase as much as you want without the paper wearing through!
My most ambitious art project was a time-lapse movie of my teeth straightening across 3 years. I had a blog about it, before there were such things as blogs (1997)... and that was how my wife found me! I had to take it down because it was too popular and was big time sink :(