Cliche Series - First Installment

The Spinarettes got me turning small. And since they included tear dropped shapes I thought I'd use that shape and my newly re-acquired fine motor skills to start a Cliche Series - starting with A Drop In The Bucket. This pair of pieces, in addition to beginning my Cliche Series, is a homage to the Cubist painting Nude Descending The Stairs and the inventor of high speed photography (I'm still trying to add some dynamic movement, or an implication of movement, to other wise static turned pieces).

The "dropplets" are poplar and the "water" and bucket are fruitwood. There is NO finish on these pieces - just sanded to 1500 and burnished with brown paper bad paper. BTW - these are also turned lidded bozes and a significant departure from the ones I've been doing. The buckets were hollowed and shaped with a 1/2" curved edge skew and the dropplets were done with a plane old square end, single bevel bench chisel - Buck Bros. specifically.

The Buckets are 1 5/8" diameter and 1 3/4" tall in cse you're wondering about scale.

Turning small lead to this next one - poplar hammer, nail and top of head, black walnut with parts "ebonized" with vineger and rust solution - and a piece of 0.015" diameter "piano wire" so the hammer moves if you breath on the piece ( I CAN turn small - that small - but can't turn curved round at that scale). Used a Razer pyrography unit and pen to burn in the details on the pedestal - more as a quick and dirty "I wonder what it would look like if . . ." thing. Should've dusted the piece off before taking the pictures.

The (Head) squared is because the hammer strikes the nail on the head and the nail in turn is on the top of the head - or at least the top of the skull - a little artistic license.

This next one came to me around Chritmas 07. Was turning a bunch of Christmas ornaments for gifts - a top finial, ornament body and a bottom finial. I'd gotten into doing tear drop / droplette finials and this one came to mind - Trickle Down Economics - one of the Reagan Administration "misdirections". That "administration had two main objectives - to significantly reduced the size of the Federal Government and to cut taxes - mainly to the top 1 or 2%. The rational to giving "tax breaks" to the very rich went as follows:
A rich person spends more money than a poor person
A rich person also "invests" money in the economy - stocks, bonds - "derivatives" , . . while a poor person just buys necessities.
"Invested Money" creates new jobs. "Spent Money" merely supports existing jobs
SO
Return a bunch of Federal Income Tax money to the very rich and that money will trickle down to benefit EVERYONE.

Sounds good - a bit convoluted - but it sounds good.

BUT - if some of that "Returned To The VERY RICH People money" DOESN'T get invested in this country, but ends up in "Offshore Tax Sheltered Corporations" - less of it is available to "trickle down" to American citizens/families. And if some of that money is spent on second, thrid, fourth or fifth homes outside the USA - say the Bahamas, Paris, London - perhaps a little 10,000 sf place in the Alps . . . And if some of it goes to a yacht - conveniently registered in Panama, or maybe Liberia . . .

To try and represent what actually happened in the Trickle Down process - the large white drop at the top represents the initial tax dollars that goes into the Federal Government, represented by the body of the ornament. What comes out of the ornament is the "returned money" - given almost exlusively to the Very Rich. It, in turn, passes through the "investment community" represented by the first "constriction". Some goes out of the American Economy as "off shore"/foreign "investments - and second, third, fourth or fifth "overseas" residences, boats, planes, etc. So what comes out of the first constriction is less than what went in. What's left passes through the next constriction - profits made by "business" - much of which coincidently goes to the VERY RICH. What finally reaches the Average Joe Tax Payer is a very small droplet which may or may not keep him.her from dying of thirst.

This next little piece is a great example of chucking up some wood with no idea where I was going. Experimenting with undercutting in an attempt to turn a "splash" for the Drops pieces took me to this next idea which seemed to come out of nowhere - A Cocktails Cascade - turned from a 1/2" poplar dowel. This may be the 1/10th scale prototype for a full sized, or maybe half sized piece - liqueur glass, champagne glass, wine gobblet, brandy snifter and martini glass - shot glasses are for alcoholics and margarita glasses are too ethnic ; ). The liqeuer glass needs to be smaller with taller sides - but I didn't know where this thing was going when I turned the tail stock end of the blank. The wine glass should also have taller sides that neck in a bit more. I was going to turn all champagne glasses but that seemed too repetative and boring.