Making the Time Capsule--Full Scale

This is the first time I've constructed anything from wood. Fortunately I have a patient and skilled teacher--thanks Gary! I couldn't do it without him. He watches my every cut! Below is a log of the process of making the bench/time capsule.

Saturday November 24: For the bench sides (18" each), I needed to build the width by cutting a 12" pine board into one 52" (18 X 4) by 12" piece and 2 52" X 6" pieces. To do this I first planed the board to 3/4", and then used a jointer to get an even edge. With a straight edge I could then use the table saw to cut to width. Then we glued these pieces together to create one long board measuring 52" X 18". Once glued we used bar clamps to secure the pieces and left them to set over night. I can cut this into fourths and voila! 4 sides are ready to go. The whole process took about an hour.

Clamps hold glued pieces together

Sunday November 25: Today was the really fun, meticulous part -- making the box joints. I removed the clamps from the strips and cut them to size (4 sides at 18" X 16 1/2" each). There are all sorts of routers made specifically for box joints, but I don't have any of them! So we used Gary's table saw. We used a dado blade set at 3/4" and fashioned a jig for the miter gauge. (See pictures below.) The jig has to be made so that the joints can be cut accurately and precisely. Designing, cutting, and testing the jig and setting the proper blade height took up most of the time I worked today, but it made the actual cutting of the box joints pretty easy. The fit of the joints was a bit tight. Since glue would make it even tighter I filed down the horizontal surfaces a bit. Again thanks to Gary for helping me with all this--it was totally new to me! Besides the box joints, I also made the top and bottom panels.
The last work of the day was to cut the rabbets that will be support the interior structure of the bench.

Pieces marked for cutting box joints

Setting up the jig

Set up for the first cut

Cutting the notches for the box joints

Ready to join the pieces

It's a Cube!

Tuesday November 27: Today I dry fit the box and cut off the top. Scary! It meant cutting through each of the 4 sides with the table saw--guiding a 3-dimensional cube over the saw--which was a little tricky, but it worked.
I used the band saw to cut notches in the plywood pieces for the interior and cut the top of the false bottom.

Wednesday November 28: I stained the darker sides of the box, using Minwax, water-based stain in Rosewood. It's a deep, rich brown. Then I laid on a coat of water-based polyurethane, also Minwax, on the unstained pieces. I masked the pieces I stained, but I got a bit of bleed through which I had to sand off.

A stain test. I chose Minwax water-based in Rosewood

Pieces masked for staining

Thursday November 29: Today I finished the lip on the lid. That involved planing a board to 1/2" and then fitting it to the inside of the lid. I used butt joints and fastened each piece with a flush mounted sky. I affixed the top and bottom, using sunk screws covered with bungs. The last steps were to chisel the bungs flush to the surface of the cube and then a final two coats of polyurethane (sanding with 12 0 grit between them.) And it's done!

What I've Learned: Since my concept and the structure were simple I challenged myself by making a full scale model from wood. The whole process was new to me (with the exception of sanding and staining). I learned how to make a jig and use it to make box joints. And I used a variety of power tools, hand tools, and clamps. In general, I found it much easier to get straight lines and true 90 degree corners with woodworking tools than it was when we worked with paper and fiberboard and xacto knives. I still had some mistakes, mostly at the points where edges joined. If I make a few more (which I intend to do--it's lots of fun!) I'm sure the craftsmanship would improve. Two more things: 1) power tools are not made for people who are 5' 4 3/4" tall. I had to do some awkward reaching, and 2) fleece attracts sawdust and woodchips like crazy. I'll wear a less nubby sweatshirt next time!

The completed project

The lid construction

The completed, stained box joints

Time Capsule Process Booklet

We shall not cease from exploration
and the end of our exploring
will be to arrive where we have started
and know the place for the first time.

T. S. Eliot
Little Gidding/
Four Quartets

This is my booklet for the process of developing my idea for a time capsule for IAR first year students. I chose interlocking "puzzle pieces" for the outside to reflect my chosen concept, community and the idea that "the whole is greater than the sum of its parts". (These pieces aren't included in the scale model due to material availability, but you can see the idea in my sketch models.)
The cube shape is a fundamental form for design now and had been throughout history. Most buildings, furniture, and much ornamentation are made up of one or more cubes or rectangular prisms (except for Frank Gehry's and e.s.!) Cubes have special meaning to the 1st years as well!
I designed a small bench that is easy to move because the time capsule has to be here for 20 years. I wanted it to be useful and portable.
The top opens so that artifacts can be tucked away until the big reunion.

Self portraits

Our assignment IAR 101 this week was to mount a display of 8 (!) self portraits. No limits were placed on the materials we could use. The total floorspace of each display could be no more than 3.24 square feet (e.g. an 18" X 18" square).

This exercise was very challenging for me. I took 7 very different approaches. (Two were variations.) My vision definitely exceeded my skills! April suggested that each sketch take no more than 30 minutes. At first I took a lot longer than that, but then I stayed within the limit. That freed me up to go with an idea and not stress so much about "being perfect". I sure admire Jake, Suzanne , and others who can whip up interesting, accurate, lively sketches in a few minutes. I'd like to get to that point so that I can add a visual component to my daily journals and the ones I keep for our family.
So here they are:

The center is my own, using a mirror. The top is after an Art Nouveau picture I found. The bottom is inspired by Picasso's Blonde Model.


This is a mix of drawing and a photo.

Another Mobius iteration. This time as a piece of playground equipment.

The words on the right are from a Mary Oliver poem, The Summer Day. "...I don't know exactly what a prayer is/ I do know how to pay attention, how to fall down/ into the grass, how to kneel down in the the grass/ how to be idle and blessed, how to stroll through the fields/Which is what I have been doing all day/ Tell me, what else should I have done?/ Doesn't everything die at last and too soon?/Tell me, what is it you plan to do/ with your one wild and precious life?"

This is Diana the Huntress who captivated me in my nature, wood-nymph youth. And Diana Rigg, who played Emma Peele on The Avengers. She was smart, independent, mysterious, and she was no damsel in distress. She could fight and shoot a gun. And she looked great in leather. Another childhood hero.

These two are plays on Norman Rockwell's "Three Self-Portraits". It's about my self delusions on a good day and on a bad day. The figures in the good day are Georgia O'Keeffe, Jane Goodall (another childhood hero), and Johnny Depp. On the bad day, the Wicked Witch of the West, Shrek, and a very fat cat.


Part of my psyche--do I act from fear or reason?

My stand is made from wood and dowels; the drawings are attached with clothes pins. I was thinking of self-portraits as a kind of "airing your dirty [or not] laundry" and wanted the stand to resemble a small wooden clothes-drying rack.

Metamorphosis IAR 101 10.12.07

The Assignment: This was a very interesting project. The task was to fuse two objects that were randomly selected (the name above and the name below our own on the iar blog site). After choosing the two objects and the qualities/elements we wanted for emphasize, we made three objects. One was to draw from each object about half and half. Then using the first object and this "middle" object we made a second object. Finally using the middle object and the second person's object we created a third.
So it looks like:

Object Person 1 (OP1)
Mix 1 (OP1--half & half)
Middle (half OP1, half OP2)
Mix 2 (OP2-half&half)
Object Person 2( OP2)

It took a while just to decide which two objects to work from. I chose the Memory Boxes from both Sara Z's and Shannon Heggar. (I couldn't get images from their sites to copy so I only have the links. Sorry.) I chose to work with the colors from each: gray, black, and pink and the textures: the woven surface of Shannon's and the spikes of Sara's.

Ideas and Iterations: Here are all the ideas I had--in Studio, in my car (not moving!), at McDonald's, and in the middle of the night.




And here are my 3.


The first is mostly Sara's with a gray stripe added to introduce Shannon's. (I had a lot of trouble with the photos and they are not the quality I would like. Here , for example, you can't see the spikes inside the box. But they are there!)

The second has a roughly 50/50 ratio of pink (Sara) and gray (Shannon). It still has the black interior of Sara's but has now lost all the spikes.

Finally the third box is all gray except for a single strip of pink around the bottom. The interior walls are made of the basketweave and the inerior bottom is solid gray.


So I went from a pink, black, and spiky object to a predominantly gray, soft one. And from an object with unexpected "danger" to one of soft, domestic, safe feel of basketweave.

Lessons Learned: If I worked on this more I would do the second basket again to spiff up the craftsmanship. By the last box I had a good methof worked out for this style of woven box. Even though the second box was really my 3rd or 4th try at it (see picture below), it wasn't until the last on that I think I got it. (I must have been daydreaming in kindergarten on the day we learned this technique!) I also felt a bit of a discontinuity because of the shape. Sara's was a cube, mine were rectangular, and Shannon's was a curvilinear triangle. It would be interesting to try to morph from cube to triangle.

Templates for plain box and basketweave box

Practicing the basketweave.

If you don't like your photos, color them, filter them, and saturate them! Much better!

A Container for a Memory 10.2.07

The Assignment: Design and create a container for a memory. The container itself should evoke some essence of the memory, but not necessarily the specifics. Materials include: paper, matte board, plastic, cloth, and adhesives.

Early Iterations: I spent a great deal of time and effort on the inner, circular box. First, trying to figure out how to join the base to the side and then making the top fit snugly over the bottom. I figured out that if I built up the circular base with 5 layers of bristol paper so that the sides had a wide, glued surface to grab on to I could get a sturdy structure. As for the top--that was just trial and error in 1/32" increments. Because I spent so much time "perfecting" the circular box, I didn't work through problems with the triangular box as thoroughly. I used a template and was able to fold most edges, but the whole thing had a slight twist that I couldn't get rid of completely.

A few of my many circles.

Delilah checks out the quality of the paper stock.

An early triangle.

Final Iteration: I really like the design of this box, and it does a good job of representing my memory. I'm not so pleased with the craftsmanship. The circular box came out okay and I like the color and ribbon. The tissue paper top is fine, except the piece I cut has a bit of a :) face on it, which is distracting. But the triangle is torqued and not overly symmetrical. Drat!

Lessons Learned: Manage my time better so I don't get caught with one part of the project looking good and the other looking--well--less good. Sometimes it's the part I think is going to be easy that is, in fact, the most challenging.

Emergence of Self 9.24.07

I believe firmly in cultivating "Beginner's Mind" and practice it daily. But honestly, sometimes being a clumsy, confused novice is just icky :(! This is one of those times. Before I did the "Emergence of Self", I tried a basic contour using the info from class plus Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain. The proportions are okay and some elements of the features are good, but it sure lacks personality! Then I went on to the shadow picture. I wasn't sure if we were supposed to stick to contours or shade in the bright spots. So I did a bit of both. Now that I've looked at others on the blog I have a better idea of where we were supposed to be going. I'll try this technique again when I get some spare time!