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New Sculpture, Vigeland Park
Mar 14, 2009 — 11 comments
This is an extreme closeup of my new sculpture.
Ok, the actual sculpture isnt going to look anything like this when it’s done, and to be honest, it’s already been completely changed. But this picture is pretty cool, and I now sort of regret the change. Well maybe not. Not really sure I know anymore.
These sculptures are from Vigeland Park, in Oslo, Norway. The park’s sculptures, 212 of them, were all conceived and modeled in clay by Gustav Vigeland. After he had them all worked out, he and a few other stone carvers went to work, carving all these figures larger than life size in granite. The most ridiculously awesome part of the park is the centerpiece, the gigantic granite monolith of human figures. It’s feet 46 tall, made of 121 life-sized figures, and took Vigeland and 3 other guys 14 years to carve. Unreal.
Autonomy, Jefferson Wheel Cipher
Mar 04, 2009
Here is the third study for the soon to be decided on and completed large-scale gypsum sculpture. This one is called Autonomy. Click here to see it from different angles.
The other day I saw a show on the mathematics of code-breaking. They went through a bunch of message-coding devices and techniques, the math and mechanics of each, and then the methods the enemy forces’ mathematicians used to figure out the coding systems. Mindboggling really, and the most interesting thing about the show, for me, was the Jefferson Cipher. Thomas Jefferson was a freak genius, and this is an overlooked, brilliant piece of design. Basically, as you can see in the picture, it consisted of a wooden rod, and 26 wooden wheels with random letters printed around the edge. Align the wheels to spell out your message on one row, then turn the wheel and write down one of the other gibberish rows. Send that gibberish (along with the numbered order of the wheels along the rod), to whomever you want to see the message. They align their own cipher to the gibberish message, then spin the wheel until they see the non-gibberish line. Genius.
The simplicity of the design, and the effectiveness (it’s almost truly random, you can reorder the wheels every time you use it as well) are amazing. It’s one of those things that makes total sense once you see it, but to come up with it yourself, and to design it in an effective and simple way is just ridiculous. Especially in 1795. Consider my mind boggled.
Your Hand Drawing Your Hero, pt. III
Mar 03, 2009
Here is another installment of the Your Hand Drawing Your Hero series. This one was commissioned as an anniversary gift. See, didn’t I tell you that this was a perfect gift idea? As I said before, you need a drawing of your hand drawing your hero. For a more detailed description of this series, click here.
Left: Harvey Cushing. Right: Michelangelo