Redirect to a Religous Experience

This place isn't the right place for this.  So like looking at a reflective surface, I'm a bouncing you to a place that better allows the story to unfold and to be told.

Jesse James and his experience in Death Valley.

Outgrowth

Me, this morning reflected in a bottle of Rosé Champagne I was photographing.
Last night, now that was so different then this morning.

Next door neighbor, Crystal used the studio to record and video one of her original pieces of music.  Nine piece orchestra.  Crystal plays the cello.

Mark, her husband setting up the mics, Crystal warming up.

 The rest of the players start to arrive.

Tuning and Mark still fiddling with the mics

Crystal had done some changes from the last time the group had played it.  They nuance out the differences.

Conductor asked how she wanted a particular part to be played, Crystal says "Like a slingshot to the Universe."

Checking sound levels before the audience is allowed in.

And of course, my camera gets put away since it gets in the way of listening so the last one of the evening is after final claps and the conductor wants a group shot.

I'll admit I'm not up to speed on classical music.  I just don't understand the math behind I guess but wow, last night I got it.  The opening violin parts were so fraught with impending failure I found myself clenching my fists until they were out of danger when the thicker string instruments came in to strengthen their resolve.  Gorgeous, lush, resonant without the razorness of other more live sound spaces.  Like the conductor said, it was the space between the notes that sounded so good in here.

"I'm not making 300 of anything"

So, I'm making 300 round aluminum/plywood tops for a stool/table to go into new buildings.
I remember saying I wasn't going to go into production of anything quite vividly as if it were only a couple years ago. Plans move slow when you're talking about building new buildings.
But Ken and I were coming back from something in his truck when the project was first brought up.  In my head, nothing could be further from what I want to do as making 300 of the same thing.
I said no way, no how. No.
One offs.  That's what I do.
I was reading a great essay/article "The Quest for Mastery Through Production Work" by Jarrod Dahl and that changed my opinion.  I told Ken I would do it.

These are the first 64 of them.  The ply cut into squares.

 Just moments after this photo, the stack crumbles onto Damian's painting behind.  I apologized to Damian for putting rips in his not yet sold painting and he lets off the hook pretty easy.  Said no big deal to repair them.

I take a walk out to Garden Buddha to say thanks

Cement applied to the two surfaces.

Why waste cement by putting it where it doesn't need to be?
Made a circle cutting jig for the bandsaw and ran them through.

Table is angled to give a bevel to the cut.

Then like a bus driver turning the big horizontal steering wheel, the cuts are smoothed on a belt sander.  Like slowly turning right while wearing hearing protection.  Although I know next to nothing about pattern makers, I did learn a little trick from them of watching the very edge of the top surface.  When you can see it just barely starting to turn upward, you know to stop.  Creates the finest of wire edges.

The little piece of green tape on the circle tells me where to start and stop.  Without it, you're always guessing on if you've turned the bus enough to get back to the starting point.

I also gradually stepped up the sanding jig so I could access fresh parts of the sanding belt.

The cut-offs (which are often times more interesting than the main piece) are unceremoniously tossed in the back of Ken's truck.  I didn't want them and he'll rip off the aluminum and recycle it.

Bonus pic of not an industrial product.