Sunday, August 14, 2011

experimental silk media paginator

By way of India, Michael, and his collaborator Santosh a group of paintings on black saree to adorn our house before our tentative voyage to CLEVELAND last year. I wanted to create a paging mechanism for the work, kind of like a book.









Sarah and I brainstormed the idea a while back for the living room. The main challenge was how to create a light weight framing mechanism that can handle the forces involved. the beams are split lengthwise for the length of the painting. this slot then receives about 1/4" of fabric, and the two halves are pinched together with some brass screws.

Turned out to be pretty difficult to achieve when all you got is lap-n-plaster to mount the device to. We jammed a trimmed wine cork underneath the lower extremity of the mounting shoulder to help support the assembly when the "pages" are turned.



I tested the mechanism out in my garage, but without the weight of the cloth, still not sure how things would work out.



Project began with some reclaimed doug fir that I ripped with the band saw, shaped with the spokeshave and a sander



The blade mounting harness was also shaped from fir, using a hollowing plane from Lee Valley to get an interesting final texture to the surfaces



A drill press was essential in positioning the paging axes





I joined the shoulder support to the wall mounting bridge using a few 1/4" dowels. This whole shooting match will be attached to a dovetailed cleat affixed to the wall. Some very shallow dados help orient things





3 comments :

  1. This is fantastic! Articulation adds at least an order of time-magnitude to each the quantity and quality of thinking required in any structural/physical project. The device does not detract from the objects d'art and fits well into the rest of the "919 decor". Now we can all look at the silks. It must have been difficult to decide which "order" in which they were placed. A great deal of enjoyment!

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  2. This is a brilliant and most gratifying conclusion Bow in thanks and love XMT

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  3. Yum-mazing, Adam! What an ingenious design, with beautiful results.

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