Blue eyes

New work on an old design Jeremiah Houck and I collaborated together for some work exhibited at the "Carbon & Clay: Conflicting Connections" show in 2008. Originally I had two copies cut, and one piece was finished for the show, the other remained stored in the Studio until last week. Work started with forming and welding, organizing some ideas around this new version of the original work.

The one piece skull was designed with no top, here it is taking shape with basic forming, the lower jaw has been placed in location below the upper teeth section. 

I decided to design the overlapping steel for the top of the head, to resemble the hairstyles of the 1920's. The copper colored pins are Clecos  (temporary fasteners) which are used in sheet metal fabrication to hold sections to be riveted together as all the remaining holes are made or additional pieces are added to the correct location. These are spring loaded pins which pull the lower piece of metal together, in this case through a .125" hole. As the pieces are riveted together a Cleco is removed and rivet installed, then the next Cleco is taken out etc. 

I was planning on using solid steel rivets to connect the layers, though after having the Clecos in for part of a day I decided to machine Cleco like pins to replace the solid steel rivets. I then TIG welded the bottom of the pins in place instead of making deform-able rivet ends. AS pictured above the lower jaw has been fabricated wrong, cutting the welded edges top and bottom to be reshaped then re-welded.

After, reworking the lower jaw to have a straight line and follow the upper curve, then welded the jaw to the upper skull. Prior to Sealing the layers of 20 gauge steel sheet metal, and painting, additional 3/8" steel bar stock has been machined and added to mount the head to a future panel.  

After work on the panel, and other refinements to the head.

Gallery select images below