http://www.missmooseart.com/products-page/wood/

Check it out!

There’s a little bit of everything for everybody. Magnets, wall art, hanging things, Christmas decorations…

btw the Christmas wreath is probably my favourite item right now.

I’m also putting a bunch of stuff up on clearance.

http://www.missmooseart.com/products-page/sale/

It’s items leftover from the 2010 run that I would like to clear so I can keep my inventory fresh. Some of them are pieces that simply did not sell; others are prototypes that I eventually used as a starting point for other projects.

If you are looking for a woodworking item for your home, let me know. I’d love to work with you.

I present, “Earth”.

The table is 4×8 feet and is just the right height to be used as a dining room table or a conference table.

It is currently on display at Holiday Inn, 310 Pearl St NW, Grand Rapids MI. Everybody who can is encouraged to come check it out in person any time during the day!

ArtPrize starts pretty soon, so I hope you all vote for it! You can vote via your phone- Text 47731 to #808080 or you can vote via the ArtPrize website. They have all the information you need to sort through the voting process on the website.

The table is a representation of Earth, if we were to entirely drain it of water and lay it flat. I spend dozens of hours working on the map to base this off of, which was based off of data from USGS, NASA and a few other sources. Nobody had all of the data, on the scale that I wanted, so I combined them to make my own. I then turned this into a single image which was used as the base for the design.

It is manufactured almost entirely out of recycled wood. The plywood Earth is old subfloor from The Geek Group‘s lab, back from when the Main Demonstration Hall was a basketball court. The rock maple used on the sides and the legs was the actual basketball floor. The walnut used in the trim was pulled out from the bottom of Lake Superior, leftover from a ship capsizing almost 150 years ago. The oak used in the legs came from a tree that was hit by lightning in Michigan last year. Lastly, there are small pieces of exotic wood from all over the world- including Ebony, Rosewood, Bocote, Bloodwood, Purpleheart, Yellowheart, Redwood, Mohogany and Olivewood.

This table took over 300 hours to make- and over 150 hours just to machine out the Earth’s surface! Wow! It is by far the most ambitious project I’ve attempted.

I am so thankful to all of the help and support I have received for this project!

A huge, huge, HUGE thanks goes out to Haas. At the Geek Group Labs, we are fortunate to have three machines from Haas- a SR100 Sheet Router, a TM-1 Mill and a TL-1 Lathe. I used all three of these to make this project, although of course the Sheet Router is the machine that threw up the most sawdust on this. It allowed me to make this project in a few months rather than something that would take years otherwise, and be exactly as accurate as I wanted. Thanks to these machines, I’ve truly been allowed to realise some of my biggest dreams- making furniture and artwork on a scale that surpassed even my imagination. (And we all know that takes work! )

I’d also like to thank Henderson Glass for being patient enough to help me install the table at the Holiday Inn and ensure that the glass top fit properly and did not shatter. A big shout-out to Woodcraft of Grand Rapids as well, for offering input on some technical questions and helping out immensely in finding the right tools and finishes for the job. And of course, to The Geek Group for their un-ending patience and assistance in building this project, especially by allowing me to use the machinery required to make this table.

Every vote towards the table goes a huge way towards winning- and winning would go a huge way towards ensuring that we can keep the machinery I love so much and make even more awesome furniture and artwork!

Please share this with everybody you know and love! Let’s rock ArtPrize!

1.

I was not surprised to see this photo was #1. It may be, in my opinion, one of the best self portraits I’ve ever taken.

2.

I was surprised to see this one was #2. But I quite like it. It was really tricky to shoot, since I was using a super-shallow f/1.7 and a remote. I think it took over 20 shots to get one that I liked.

3.

I have no idea why this one is so popular. I do hear a lot that people like it when I smile in photos. I know, I know! But is that enough to push it up to the third spot?

4.

I love that this photo is in the top ten. I did it right away in the year, and it was a pretty big project.

5.

For a while this was my most “interesting” photo on Flickr. I love, love, love it. Definitely my favourite urban photo I have taken so far.

6.

I had to laugh that a foot photo made it in- of course it did! For those who don’t know, in 2008 I did a 365 project and the theme was “from the floor”, which meant I had a lot of feet photos.

7.

This was a fun panorama to do — and such an unusual subject! Maybe that’s why it is the most popular panorama.

8.

This was my first attempt at doing a double exposure. I love it! so do you  all, apparently.

9.

When I saw this staircase in silhouette I knew I had to capture it. I only had a few moments – the last few attempts and the sky had already changed too much.

10.

Okay, I’ll admit this one took me totally by surprise! In a good way, of course.

One of the projects I have wanted to do since initially getting into CNC work a couple of years ago, has been a sculpture. It’s something that you see as a show-off project in videos by the big companies. I roamed around the internet looking for a suitable “thing” to sculpt and liked the Buddha design right away. It’s a very complex design – the fabric folds, facial features – but also fairly simple – there are no tiny patterns in the fabric or jewelery, for example. A perfect candidate. If a design has a lot of tiny details, they will either be lost entirely, look muddy or require a super tiny cutting bit to get them (which increases the amount of time by magnitudes).

But I’d never quite gotten it right. So it became a sticking point. I don’t like having an unfinished project hanging over me, so eventually I had to conquer it. And thus, it has been a bit of a running joke whenever we get a new type of tool, cutter or software: Can this make the Buddha?

So a little explanation on this particular one. It was especially tricky to carve because it’s so deep. I wanted it to be as deep as I could make it, because part of the charm of the design is that it isn’t flat. I used a 1/4″ cutting bit for most of the work – it is a reasonable size and happens to be the highest-quality bit I have in that size range. It is 1.3″ long. This project is 3.8″ deep. The tool has to sit in a tool-holder.

You can see what I’m talking about in this photo I took a while ago:

So you can see, that if you try to move too deeply on too sharp of an incline plane, that the tool-holder will collide with your work. This is one of those problems that doesn’t exist if you are making something by hand, but is a very big deal in a machine. I measured everything very precisely, and then gave myself a tiny bit of wiggle room. I ran the simulations at least 10 times to make sure everything was okay. When it didn’t work, I modified the model and the size and the placement and tried again. Finally, I had something that checked out in the simulator. Time to make sure I did it properly!

Usually when I’m making something, I start it and then walk away. This is great because it is passive time invested in the project. I can’t use the machine for anything else while it’s cutting, but I can do other things. I spent most of the time for this one watching it intently, ready to hit the emergency stop at any moment. I did hit it a couple of times, examined, realised it would be okay, and then let it run again.

Once it was cut out, I did the small engraving and carved out the pockets. This fruitwood is absolutely intoxicating. The smell when cutting it was amazing – I wish I had more of this stuff!! Alas, all I had was this single piece of wood, in this size. (It is about 15″ tall and 5″ wide, and 4″ deep)

The back is finished, because I needed to be sure that it was flat. I left as much natural and rough as I could. I love the finished product. I put a lot of time into this — after it cut, I went over with it various grades of sandpaper for 2 hours to everything smooth and perfect. Usually I would use a smaller sized bit to do the finishing work – but I didn’t have anything long enough to do that.

This piece is for sale! You can buy it here.

I hope it gets a happy home.

It’s been twelve days, and I’m starting to get into the swing of things. This year is a very exciting beginning for me in photography – I have a lot of new equipment. Over the past few months I have gotten a Sony a850, which introduced me into the world of full frame photography. I can honestly say that I cannot imagine going back to the smaller size DSLR sensor ever again.

To go with the a850, I recently received a power supply for it. This is particularly exciting for me, because it means I can run the camera off of wall power, connect the camera to a computer and shoot for hours non-stop. The freedom that this allows me is very exciting, and will certainly pay off in the future. (Actually, it already has!) And for those days when you just can’t be tethered, I have enough battery power to get through a full 10 hours of shooting.

I also received a new flash unit this week. That is very exciting to me, as it opens a whole new facet of photography. I’ve always shot with either hot lights or natural light. To work in the strobe world is something I’ve never tried. Forgive me if the next few weeks feature an extensive amount of light bouncing.

While I am a very strong believer that you make your photographs rather than your equipment, a bag full of new gear is a good way to get motivated and inspired. I’ve been feeling restricted and frustrated with photography for a while, especially as my last camera wobbled on its last legs and I had to literally ration my photos. So to no longer have to worry about the technical details and reliability and just make photos – that’s inspiring.

How many can you spot? There’s at least 25 of me. I had a few more, but there were some overlapping issues. (You’ll have to wait for another time to see me playing the accordion, I’m sorry)

If you aren’t familiar with where I am, you should totally check out more of our videos over at The Geek Group. I’m in our soundstage, which is where we spend a lot of time…

There’s a lot of things I wish I did differently in this, but it’s okay. There will be another opportunity I’m sure. All in all, the photoshooot took 4 hours and then it took about 10 hours of photoshop to stitch everything together properly. I tied the camera up to the computer and used a remote to trigger it.

If you click through into my flickr, you can see it much, much bigger.

So instead, what I did was make a batch of 100 business cards, with 100 different designs. The typography on them is almost identical – some are right justified rather than left, some have black text rather than white. I worked around in photoshop and came up with 20 different images that I spread over half a page of paper, and then cut them up into business cards. So what you end up with is a tiny portion of the photo.

Here is a sample of what I made.

A little bit for everybody – some are definitely geared more towards formal photography, some have a definite science lean to them. Do you recognise any of the photos I used for these?

I’m super happy with them, and I’ve been kind of excited to find people I can give a business card to now! I really love the particular set of photos I chose, so I think when I run out I’m going to get the same batch printed again.

I certainly understand the value of using a laptop tethered to the camera. It has a much bigger viewscreen and lets you see more detail. I, however, do not have a laptop that could handle such a thing. So it’s just the camera.

And sometimes you get a really great shot, and don’t realise until the next day that you had part of the surface the camera was sitting on in the shot.

Oh well.

Every day, no matter how it turns out, right?

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The year 2008 came and went, and when 2009 came around I toyed with the idea of continuing the project. But I needed a break. I was exhausted, and the first day I didn’t take any photos was almost luxurious. I’m not one for New Year’s resolutions, but the New Year is a great time to start a new, big project. So with the opening of 2010, I present to you the first of this year’s Project 365.

I hope that this will push my photos back into art, instead of the strict documentary feel we’ve been seeing lately.

I am making a gallery for these images, so I will keep adding to it. While 2008′s theme was “from the floor”, I am taking a less rigid approach this year. “Pieces of me” will convey what part of me I want to share today. What’s important, what’s exciting, what’s frustrating. Let’s see where it goes.

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Expect to see more of these soon.

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