Lumber

Lumber, 6/4, 5/4, 4/4. (hardwood lumber is measured rough, before milling, so 6/4 is 1 1/2" thick, milling out to 1 1/4" thick. Similar to the 2 x 4 framing lumber that is actually 1 1/2". X. 3.1/2" On an overhead rack in the studio. This is for one frame, four feet x eight feet. By storing it on an overhead rack with air spaces around each piece it can acclimate to my studio conditions, and dry more if needed. Tomorrow, I'll do some moisture readings to see where I'm at, in moisture content terms. I generally buy lumber as needed, though there is always an accumulation.

A corner of the studio, the wall where the lumber leans; some black walnut boards, birdseye maple, basswood, oak. All extras from projects past. I've been trying to eliminate the really small stuff, but it's hard to cut and burn a piece that might be useful some day. This corner used to be twice as full; As long as I don't think about it too much.

Another overhead rack that holds the ten foot and longer pieces; in the back is a black walnut board, 8/4, 12 or 14" wide, and I think 10' long, maybe more. A remnant of my rocking chair project. I think I bought a lot, as those boards had a subtle purple cast, like the wood had been air-dried, or kiln dried by somebody with a real feel for the wood. That purple color is rare in black walnut; more common when the lumber is air dried, though not a given. Like my post on popple, and rainbow poplar, a few back, cutting open a board can be magic. Jame Krenov, and George Nakashima have both written of it in their books on woodworking.

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Infinite Winter

Another few inches of snow; poor bears. News reports have winter lingering well into "spring". No breeze this morning, so the 15 degrees F felt almost balmy. This helps as well:

Yesterday I got in the lumber for a large "Victorian Excess" style frame, so soon some posts on framing.
And now for some technical minutia. I've just set the timer on my iPhone; sausages grilling on the gas grill, just outside the enclosed back porch where I'm sitting in front of that fire, above. The fire is in a Victorian era pot belly stove, that has had the ash pit filled with fire brick and ash so it can be used as a fireplace. Typing this post on a iPad Mini. The photos I took a few minutes ago have been importd into the Mini, processed in Photogene, and now posted.
(Oh, time to turn the sausages. Sausages are being mentioned, because eating a lot helps with winter.)
This is my first iPad; I've had a Kindle Fire, but the iPad feels more like a real computer rather than an entertainment device. The program I'm using to do this post, Blogsy, makes it very easy to post. That is something I could never do with the Fire. Probably possible, but steep learning curve. The photo editor, Photogene, is full featured, very inexpensive ($.99), and does something the much more touted programs, iPhoto, and Snapseed don't, is allow resizing of images for different purposes. Some complain that the virtual keyboards are difficult to use, but not being a touch typist, I find I'm faster than on my desk keyboard.
Email, of course, but I'm also doing word processing that can be easily linked to my desk machine. There are still some things that the desk machine excells at, but I'm finding more projects that I can do on the tablet. The few days I recently spent in NYC, with only the tablet, did not seem under powered computing wise. Entertainment; movies are great; the small screen, close, is surprisingly effective. Magazines and illustrated books, when done properly (still an issue for many publishers), especially the ability to zoom and change font sizes, let alone carry a vast quanity of material, and have access to an infinite more. I can even go to my local library and borrow books when I'm not in town. Interesting, warmed by the most ancient of technologies, while working on one of the most recent.

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Manhattan, and I should get out more.

My wife persuaded me to go to NYC this last week ( I'm a reluctant traveller, especially flying ), and a good time was had. I think of Manhattan as Disney World for adults, though even more expensive. We were focused on museums this trip, specifically the "replica" of the 1913 Armory show at the New York Historical Society. A nice show, and great to see in person some of the icons from the original show. Then, my wife showed me the society's open storage. As I say above, I should get out more; wonderful to see objects not usually displayed, the Daniel Chester French maquettes for the Lincoln Memorial in Washington D.C. were a delight, as were several under paintings by Asher B. Durand, the Hudson River School painter. Being very technically oriented, I do enjoy seeing the working processes of other artists. We skipped the Guggenheim's discombobulation, and managed the Whitney, the Met, and the Museum of Art and Design, MAD. I was especially intrigued by a show at MAD, Post Digital, showcasing works of artists using digital technology, 3D scanners, printers, CNC machines, weaving machines, to produce very mature art. I have only a few photos of the art; I was more focused on the city itself, though with my interests showing. 8-)

Flying, approaching NYC.

Times Square

City dogs, with their coats and boots.

For me, a quintenssential NYC vista.

Overlooking Columbus Circle. To the right, Central Park.

A monument to the Soldiers and Sailors of the Battleship Maine.

Located at Columbus Circle, and the south edge of Central Park.

Another monument, seen and photographed from a taxi, stopped briefly beside it. West edge of Central Park, and Midtown. From the helmets, WWI.

And a view of Lincoln Center, from our hotel room.

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Sunday afternoon.

A solitary crow, though many of his colleagues were chattering in the immediate area. Crows are very wary of my walking near them, flapping off if I get close.

The snow pack is settling, and even melting a little, though it is still very cold; well below normal temps for this late in the season. Our back yard is still drifted over; to take the garbage to the can in the alley, I walk out to the street and around the block and up the alley. The flowers were almost covered fairly recently.

And now, from my wifes collection, On Bee We Depend, by Catherine Peet. The frame, a found object, was decorated by the artist, including bees wax panels and a resin embedded bee as the top central ornament.

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The basswood in winter

 

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Winter and some Shellac.

Contrary to my previous post, spring seems far away, while the flowers from a few posts back, are almost buried.

Shellac buttons; on the left is Dark Jethwa, right Kusmi #1. The seal impressed into the Kusmi buttons reads: 

ASF

KUSMI

SONAR

BANGLA

SPECIAL

Holding any of the buttons to the light shows the large amount of impurities present, which I find one of the charms of Button-Lac. The colors are concentrated as are the buttons; in use the color is much more subtle. More on shellac, and a picture of Kusmi #2 buttons, here.

Ahh, Spring!

 

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And again, summer.

Mostly I'm posting to work out settings for the new software.

 

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And now, Summer in the City

If one looks closely, at the top of "The Bean", flying rats, winged rats, rock doves, rock pigeons, or just pigeons.

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More

I'm using a new app for posting from an iPad, called Blogsy. Have another picture of a frame.

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Here, a picture of frames:

Some picture frames; it is, after all, a blog mostly about frames and frame making.

Some photos

 

Winter Flowers

Mount Rushmore at Night

Those flowers are about three feet tall.

Mount Rushmore from our recent expedition looking at colleges, in the American West. This winter is one of the more "wintery" ones I've experienced in South Bend, noted for being a place with real winters.

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Mysteries from a Cauldron of Crows

 

A photo from late in the day, near sunset, though the sun is obscured by heavy clouds and some storms off to the west. The Crows have been flying around and alighting in the trees, but are facing in random directions, rather then west as in the previous post.

Definitely an arcane and obscure ritual.

Besides Crows, we seem to be haveing an excess of humidity, frozen. ( It's not the cold, it's the humidity )

Both of the photos in this post have not been corrected, as I like the way they came from the camera. This is also a first post using an iPad Mini; there is, in spite of Apple's assertion that Macs just work, a certain amount of just working in order to find a way get photos from cameras to places where blogger can access them, and sized down. Curiously, many photo editors for phones and tablets have no provisions for resizing photos. Photogene was one solution, expensive by app standards, $2.99, but It does "work".

 

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