rivers for sale!
November 16, 2020
Three small rivers and a piece of beachfront are all for sale now at BigCartel – at bargain prices! Take one home today! This post brought to you by the Shameless Commerce Division of Lee Thomson art.
Month: November 2020
more rivers!
November 14, 2020
Three little ones – about 2×4″ – and one working on getting bigger – 4×8″
I’m figuring out how to draw the laser cutting lines right on the stitched material, so I am working in response to the stitching I have already done instead of carefully sewing the places I know will be cut out later. It is a small distinction, but it lets me work more fluidly in the early part of the process, with fabric and thread.
skills, materials, tools
November 8, 2020
I made this yesterday, and it took me two years, plus an afternoon.
It has been two years that I’ve been thinking about the ways I could make use of laser cutting in my work. It has been two years of getting a grip on the software and concepts, the capabilities and limitations of the tool and the materials it could cut. Each time I learned something, my vision of what I wanted to do got clearer.
And so I can make things like this now.
I feel like I am balanced at the top of whole new mountain – gathering my courage to descend into a valley full of ideas and projects.
Arabella
November 3, 2020
I distracted my father yesterday by taking him to find the people building a boat in Granby. It inspired some writing, that may or may not be poetry:
In the arch of the shed built for her ribs reach up, inverting and echoing the arch of the roof, built truth of the suggestions on paper each one a balance of ideal line and the reality of the materials at hand balanced on her keel, propped by trees from the woodlot behind the house, and more of these trees, neighborhoods felled for this form the bellied center, the eager bow, the solid and comfortable stern planked only part way yet, the final outline is visible even to an untutored eye In answer to his questions, the man replies "38 feet, two masts, ketch, gaff rig" to my father who cannot remember if he asked, or what the answer was From this I can sketch in the rest of this boat, imagine her at sea, sails tall against the sky, masthead pennant streaming and in one short leap I can helm her, I stand there in my minds eye, confident, relaxed, delighted and feel some ease I had not before "38 feet, two masts, ketch, gaff rig" he says again, a look askance at me, is this right? his eyebrows ask I nod, and answer in turn "38 feet, two masts, ketch, gaff rig" leaving him to return to work, to make this skeletal dream a floating surging reality
You can see their progress at Acorn to Arabella – they describe each step, and put out regular videos showing progress, and things they’ve learned. The person I spoke with was exquisitely kind, even though I was distracting him in the middle of something, and he was patient with my Da’s repeated questions. We admired the progress and slipped away again into the blustery day to find some lunch, but it made a huge impression on me.
Lee Thomson 