Show Day...

This is a quick post because I have to get to the school and make sure everything is set up. Today is the day of the show, so wish me luck.

Let's Do it....

So what's going on world? Things are finally getting going here. This week so far has been all about painting and sanding and more painting. If I have to paint one more plinth I am going to throw something. But that all came to an end today. We rented a big truck and started to deliver things.

It's amazing how many plinths we actually made. I think we made about 40 plinth in all. Most of them were the same size, with a few exceptions. You'll see them all when I get the video up hopefully later this weekend. I've been taking real exciting footage of everything. OK not really, but it'll be good.

I tried something new yesterday. I waxed all me furniture. Now I have never done this before. But I didn't have the time to put more coats of oil on. So I used a good cannuba and paraffin wax mix. I like the feel it gives the furniture. But I'm not sure about the overall up keep. I mean the main benefit of oil finishes are that you can always fix them, by adding a new coat. But with a wax on top, that stops you from being able to do that unless you strip the wax off first. I don't think I will use wax in the future. But right now, I'm trying to sell everything that I made. Because I can't afford to bring it home. So hopefully the wax will make it all nice and shiny and someone will go WOW look how nice and shiny that cabinet looks and it's only 800.00, let's get it. ( I think I am living in a dream world right now ). But it can happen.

I hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving. Here in Australia they don't celebrate Thanksgiving or even Halloween. So I forgot about it. Also the fact that it is the Christmas season and it's like 90 degrees outside. But I hope the holiday season is going well for you all.

Next time there should a great video on the show.

So until then friends.... Ghengis Khan Is My Homeboy

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Now playing: Tone Lòc - Wild Thing
via FoxyTunes

What do I have to say....

Well I don't have a lot to say tonight. We rented a car and and headed out of town for the weekend. I left the school with all but 3 plinths made. I hope that they got the others done and at least a couple of coats of paint. I guess I will find out on Monday. I still have a few things to tie up on a few of my pieces. I have to final sand the shelves to my "Hollow" unit.

I found out on Friday, when I stopped by to see the set up of the exhibition that was in this last week, that they placed books on my coffee table and then put it in front of a window. There just happened to be some big sun spots on the table. So now I have to scrape down the top and re-oil this baby. I don't know what this guy who set up this exhibition was thinking. He also put one of the other students cabinets upside down. They actually displayed it upside down. You know what they say, " if you want something done right do it yourself."

Anyways, I will try to get some good posts in this week. I have to get the show set up and then I hope to get permission from the other students to make a video of the show. So look forward to that.

Until then friend... Camping is In-"TENTS"

You are cordially invited...

So my mom got in the weekend and is here for the next few weeks. Which is really nice. We spent the weekend in the rental car driving all over this little Island. It was a lot of fun just going places. Not even planning what it was we were going to do. We just got in the car and went places. We left on Saturday morning at 10.00am and got home Saturday night at about 10.00 pm. Then did the same thing on Sunday. I tell you what I am tired of driving.

But I took my mom into the school today to give her the 10 minute tour. And I was happy to see 5 of my fellow students hard at work making all the plinths that I planned out last week. Hopefully they will get the easy ones done by tomorrow and then it's up to me to get the rest of them done. I think that they haven't gotten that fear in them yet, the show is next Friday night. Yeah I know that is roughly 2 weeks away. But we have to start setting up on Wednesday next week. That's only week away. So there is a lot to be done. The catalogues have gone out to the printers and the invitations are going to be sent out by tomorrow. We have to finish building and painting all the plinths. Make sure all the catering is done and ready, get all the booze for everyone. I really can't wait until it's all over.

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Now playing: Men At Work - Down Under
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Update..

Well there's not to much to update on. I have a cold, my mom comes into town on Friday. Still working on the show ( that I already wish was over ). This thing is becoming a monster, right now we are planning the plinths for everything to sit on. We ordered about 1000.00 dollars worth of MDF yesterday. It all showed up today. Now I am making cut lists for each plinth that needs to be made. I hope to get that done tomorrow and then hand it off to someone else to make, while I spend some time with my wife and kid and mother.

This weekend a lot of my furniture is in an exhibition here in Tasmania. It was a last minute thing, but I guess this show is about a book about the area. And it is being released at this show. But I was told today that I am not invited to the opening. In fact none of the artist on display are invited to the opening. I guess only the elite and the rich are invited. But I don't hopefully they will buy my stuff.

Until next time my friends... Stay tuned changes are on the horizon.

Come one Come all, to the greatest show on earth

So I told you that I would write a bit about the process of putting a show on. Well here it is for your reading pleasure.

First- Find your venue. This is important. You want it to be a well recognized place, a place the will invite people. Typically it's a gallery of some sort. You want this because there are a lot of perks built in when a gallery is involved. One is that they have there own mailing list to get people to come to your show.

Second- Try to figure out what your costs are going to be. And think about everything. Food, booze, invitations, promotions, the cost of the venue (maybe), Catalogue of the work being displayed. All these things cost real money. IF your lucky the gallery might throw some of this things in. In our case the invites and some of the booze are part of the package. The venue is free also, but after opening night they charge a 5 cover charge for people to come in and see your work. That's how they recoup there money.

Third- Sponsorship, sponsorship, sponsorship. This is very important, because this show costs. So think about who you might like to have as a sponsor. Don't be afraid to ask. We asked for a beer sponsor only to be turned down. But then we asked some magazines and they gave us great sponsorship. You have to offer them something that is worth wild.

Fourth- Make sure that you have work to show. With us it's not a problem, but that's because it's a group show. A solo show might be harder.

Fifth- Plan out your space. Know the area that you are going to be displaying in. Know how you want your work to be viewed. Know this before hand, it makes it easier than just rocking up the day of and going, Hmmm.. that would look good there and this should go there. Don't be afraid to go out on a limb and do something different. People expect to see your stuff on white plinths 2 inches off the ground and a do not touch sign on it. Plinths are good don't get me wrong, but if you don't want that sterile feeling then do something different.

Sixth- Have a huge opening night, get the press there. Send out press releases 2 weeks before hand. And send them anywhere you can think of. Recently I sent ours to The Furniture Society, Australian Wood review, Fine Woodworking and all the local newspapers. Invite everyone you know to be there. The last thing that you want to happen is nobody to show up.

Seventh- This I just thought of, but the whole goal is to get your name out there and hopefully sell some stuff. Always remember that the gallery is going to mark up your stuff. So price it right. Here the gallery adds on 33% and then a 10% government charge. So if you want 4,000.00 dollars for your coffee table, know that the gallery is going to put a price tag of a little less than 6000.00 on it.

I hope this lays out some of the steps to throwing a show. It's a long and hard process. Especially with a big group of people showing. Everyone has there own opinion on things. For us it's boiled down to putting 2 people in charge to make the major decisions.

So until next time people... Always remember the show must go on..

The rest of the Professional Shots

Well I finally got the rest of my furniture professionally photographed. All the pictures were taken by Misha from Merettie collections. You can find him and his work at www.merzetti.com. For any of you that might live in Queensland Australia, that's where he is. He does great work.

I'm really glad that I got these taken. As I began to realize that I was not going to be able to take any of my work home with me, these pictures became more important. Not just for sentimental reasons, but for future professional reasons also. I spent about 250.00 dollars to have the photos taken, which is far cheaper than 8-10,000 dollars to ship all my furniture back to the states.



So what have I been up to. Preparations for the end of the year exhibition. Myself and a fellow classmate Fiona have been laying out the rooms with all the furniture. There are three rooms to fill. Which won't be hard with 12 students and 4 pieces of furniture each. I tell you the process of setting up a show is crazy. Maybe I'll blog on that this weekend?

Anyways, here are a few shots of my entertainment unit which I have decided to call "Hollow". The reason behind the name is the fact that it's made from the foam torsion box, so it's not solid. Also that it has a lot of open or hollow space.



Check out the rest of the photos by clicking on the gallery of photos. I am just going to add the new ones to that album.

Also I am trying out a new thing called Twitter. You can see little updates on the side bar. They are just quick little updates right now on a daily basis, but soon to be more often. You can go to www.twitter.com and subscribe to receive the updates when they come out. I also just joined up with Facebook so look me up there also.

So until next time people...

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Now playing: Wyclef Jean - Gone Til November
via FoxyTunes

Looking for some inspiration...

Well I'm at home today because it's a holiday here in Tassie. Which holiday is it you might ask? The answer is I have no idea. There are some many holidays here you'd think that people didn't like to work. Anyways I have a little time today so I thought I would post.

So I was thinking over the weekend about the next step in life. Which for most of you know is moving back to the USA. It will also include finding a job that will give me some health insurance and slowly starting my own business. Which will mean setting up a shop and the hole 9 yards.

I started thinking about this little blog that I write. I have really enjoyed this a lot. It has lead to some good opportunities. Like writing for some other blogs like www.woodtalkonline.com. I've been able to learn a little about making and posting videos. Which also is a lot of fun to do.

So I thought this weekend about what the next step for this little blog is. Now that school is pretty much done, what am I going to write about. So I've thought about writing about specific topics. Now I haven't thought about those topics yet, but I will. If there is anything that you all might want me to write about or share my opinion on please let me know. You can either email me, or leave me a comment here on the blog.

I have been keeping track of hits for about 6 months now. The blog is getting about 500 hits a month. Now I know that is not a lot, compared to some blogs. But if you were to tell me a few months ago that 500 people a month would read stuff that I wrote I would have told you that you were crazy. So thanks to all of you that read, I appreciate it. So please let me know what it is that you would like to see happen here over the next few months. What direction should we go and what things we should talk about. Believe me I am extremely flexible.

So have a thought about it and drop me a line.

Until then friends... Keep on Truckin'



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Now playing: Israel Kamakawiwo'ole - Take Me Home Country Road
via FoxyTunes

A Nice Relaxing Week...

Well this has been a great week. Nothing is due and there were no pressures, it was really nice. I went into the shop on Monday and took a quick video of the unit. Which you all have now seen. I promptly went home, because I could. Then on Tuesday I decided that I should do some work and started to veneer the rest of the parts that I need for my Unit. That didn't take to long, so I looked into my timber rack and noticed that I had some Peruvian walnut left. I also had a few boards of maple. So I decided to make another Wrapped table. Only this time I did a few things different. Instead of cutting hand cut dovetails I cut miters and keyed them. Thinking that this little table might become a production item. So I want to see how fast I can make these. So this new version took me 8 hours. I know I could have done it faster, but I indulged myself and did some hand planing.

With that said, I spent about an hour this week tuning up my hand plane. I had to regrind a new primary angle. Then I put the secondary bevel on it at 30 degrees. Put the blade back into the plane and adjusted everything. Set the blade to a really fine cut and adjusted the mouth. Then I proceeded to use this baby, man did it work beautifully. I forgot how much I love to use hand tools.

Well I had the rest of my pieces professionally photographed today. So I should get those pictures by Tuesday next week. Then I will show you all the new table and the professional photos of "The Unit".

So until then... you scream, I scream, we all scream for Ice cream.

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Now playing: Foo Fighters - DOA
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