Matchbox Studio
(08/12/16)
Ok, it's been a month since the last post and the end of Art School has sunk in now that the summer break is over and the CCSF fall term started without me. I've been slacking off to ride the bike more and work on the podzine, studio planning and research, etc...
Anyway, after slogging through the usual piddly everyday stuff, the cube is gonna go back up more or less permanently. I still have one more tweak for the thing - thrift store blankets/comforters to serve as soundproofing for when I use power tools.. In the meantime, my latest tweak helps - a simple smartphone mount for use in documenting work inside the cube, AKA my studio holodeck...
During the week I finally got tired of looking like buckwheat and went to one of the few black barbershops left in the city, in the Tenderloin, for my first haircut in almost 20 years...
Meanwhile, the cube has a decent roof...
A 3-mil 9x12 ft. plastic drop cloth is draped over the frame, evened out then clipped to the outside corners...
Inside the ceiling is taut, and should make the cube largely airtight for dust. This is important if I wanna finish the current unfinished pieces anytime soon and make my six before year's end...
(08/25/16)
Ok, the big stone is taken back to stage 2; files & rifflers. This pic shows little to no contrast between the carved and raw elements, so the dremel will help shape new contours...
I first tried it old school with a hammer and flat chisel. This is an hour's work...
With the dremel and the rifflers, cleaning up the big side and doing the small side only took another 20 minutes...
The bottom parts that transition from finished to raw. I went around all sides defining the hard lines and seeing new elements to carve out...
I'm pretty much used to the cube now, and it keeps 80-90% of the dust inside. A second dollar-store tarp will cover my floor. And a doormat...
This raw bit stays covered as I carve around...
The top has alternating carved and raw elements. This part is more time consuming than fraught...
This area will take mostly hand riffling; a dremel up here will make a small slip costly...
(08/31/16)
Only part of the floor will be drop cloth - I decided to use grocery bag paper as a 'hard' surface for dry work and the plastic for wet. The bag size just worked out...
The plastic will be trimmed to 6x12 ft. I'd like to use 5 or 6 mil plastic, so maybe a few large heavy duty trash bags will work if I can't find a drop cloth...(yeah, wearing socks - it's nippy here)...
Neat, and within the margins...
The unit's floor space opened up after a day of rearranging, so now the cube floats when needed...
Today I just used rifflers, so more dirt than floaty dust, but cleanup was quick. The chair's feet didn't rip the paper either. And no dust tracked outside the cube or my unit. Cool.
A better solution will be a plastic mat with a smooth surface you can roll up...