Wiggly Thing #1, hammer-formed brass

by admin on May 17, 2010

This is the first in a series of one of a kind pieces I plan to do. It was fun because I had no specific end in mind; I had no idea when I started how it would end up. The cutout I started with (first picture) was a leftover scrap of brass that I reshaped a little to make it work. The next picture shows the first stage of forming, and then using the bending jig I made for the base of “Emergence”. I made a different clamping device for this one, shown in the close-up.

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The next two pictures show successive stages of forming. It took several stages of annealing, bending in the jig, hammering on stakes, to get a shape I was happy with. The next picture shows it after the seam was mostly silver-soldered.

05 06 07

Then the finished piece. The wood base was a scrap of 2″ ash left over from a die I made for my “Man in the Moon” project. I had planned to use just a square piece of wood, but then I saw that arched piece and decided that was perfect. The piece swivels in the base, so it can be positioned any way you like. The finished sculpture is 14″ long.

wiggly1 wiggly3 wiggly4

The last picture shows that the head part is not closed up on the bottom. I chose to leave it like that for a couple reasons: it didn’t want to close up; I liked the shape that the head had at that point, and closing it up would have made it look like another tail (Which might be OK, and I might do on future ones). I also like the idea that it shows that the piece was made from sheet and not cast, and it gives it sort of a sinister look, like some depictions I’ve seen of the grim reaper.
The next ones I do I hope to make curvier, and maybe make so they don’t require a base. I have to make a different bending jig, one capable of 360 degree bends.

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