And On the Ninety Third Day

He Created Light.
and he's not too sure about it yet....

Lots of photos so I'll do this in a couple of posts.

Started some three months ago when Will and I made the trip out to Aborica.  If you want to read about that then go here, if not then the take away shot is  the two pieces of wood that came out of it.

One of the pieces on the left will become a light for the kitchen.  There's been a temporary shop tube light forlornly hanging there since the inception.

Chose the tall red gum eucalyptus and ran it though the planer on a sled. It was warped pretty good so had to hold it in place to be able to flatten.

Dust collection couldn't keep up with the amount of shavings.

One end was naturally round so I cut the other to mimic with this saw.

It was difficult to tell the wood from the bark on the live edge so it took some effort to pick away at with various implements.

Shot quite a few coats of shellac and rubbed that out to a mirror finish.  At the same time I shot the other piece of wood, the walnut.  That was fortunate as a large wine job landed and I used both pieces of wood as surfaces and backgrounds.

A couple cropped for you vignettes

A couple of the walnut.

And there the project stopped so I could do the wine job for the next three weeks.
53 photos later of wine and food in restaurant and home sets we're back on it.

Time to move onto the light holding devices themselves.
A simple steambox was constructed which in the end I didn't use too much.

I resawed two wood species.  The leftover wood from the large patio doors I built...a salvage Ponderosa Pine from Camp Mather in the foothills and also some vertical grain Douglas Fir.
I was aiming for right around 1/32" thickness.  Anything more, light would be difficult to pass through, anything under that was impossible for me to cut.  It consistently miked out at 1/32" or a few thousand under.

To hold the actual light source I made some eggcrate crosses and then cut them round.

End of part One.

Let There Be Light

This was the process for making the shades.  First constructed some out of the Ponderosa Pine but in the end did not like how it looked next to the Eucalyptus and so did the Doug Fir for real.

The veneer was jointed and then glued into longer strips.

 Some shavings from fitting the eggcrate crosses.

The long strips of veneer were first epoxied to the crosses.

Then the veneer was joined together where it met.  Ended up using magnets for clamping pressure as ordinary clamps were just too heavy and awkward to use without them splitting the veneer.
Also do not use the magnets without a sheet of waxed paper in between.  You've been warned.

I've been matter of fact about the process of gluing the veneer into shades but don't let that fool you. It was a 3-4 cocktail at the end of the day process just to ground me enough to do more the next day.  Made quite a few more than I ended up using because there was a lot of attrition by cracking or by me throwing it against the wall in fits of unbridled fury.
I'm very glad I read the I Ching all those years.
"Perseverance is the Way of the Superior Man," I kept repeating to myself.


The Euc will be the holder of the shades and everything had to be done with it being suspended.
Two SkyHi Combos along with two C-Stands allowed me to assemble everything.

Viewing some of the lights during the assembly process.

Reflected in the espresso machine.

The entire setup was put on wheels and directed into the kitchen area.

The SkyHi's go up to 15' so I lifted it a bit at a time into final position.

Cabled it to the ceiling (twice).  I didn't like my initial height on it.

Wired a dimmer switch to it, turned it on.

I will wait for one year to determine whether I scrap it and start over.  It is growing on me, the light coming off of it is like firelight.  So warm and beautiful.

Eddie's Club, Missoula, Montana 1970

They say that eye witnesses to something aren't real reliable in terms of an accurate report of the event.  Even more so after 49 years since it took place.
So take that into account.

Two posts below this (for future archeologists) the moose lodge I referred as a bar really wasn't.  But it felt like one to me.  I've been in many like it, while living in Montana all those years ago.  It got me thinking and I realized that by walking into a bar in Montana in 1970,  it started and led everything to this very point in time for me.

It was by walking into a bar that the man behind the bar and the photos he took that ran down the wall changed everything.

Eddie's Club.  The man behind the bar was Lee Nye.  If you've been in an old bar in Montana, you would know it would be filled with regulars.  Old Timers.  Middle Timers becoming Old Timers.  And the young pups.
With names like Plato, Dutch, Honk, Yum Yum, Rock Creek Hermit.
Those would be the faces on the photographs on the wall of the bar.  Black and White.  Natural lighting that shafted down in the alley behind the club.

It was those faces, weathered from the winters, from the Bourbon Ditches, from their cigarettes, that turned me.   The eyes.  Someone can do this with a camera?  Make something so compelling to look at, with light and lens?

Lee would put down his Boston Shaker, pick up his camera and haul a regular out back to photograph them.  Always always with truth and compassion for the person.  Dignity.

As I remember Lee was a gruff one.  Had a big cigar in his mouth, missing a good portion of a finger.

Well, Lee offered photo classes and I signed up.  Borrowed a 35mm camera.

He taught an incident light system of exposure determination and the film development schedule.
It was the system taught to him from a commercial photography school he attended in California.

We went on a field trip up Highway 200 to a ranch right out of a Hollywood backlot, complete with snow capped Mountains rising up the fields.  Lee drove his car, a 55 Chevy (don't fact check on this one) with straight pipes and a white Hurst gear shift knob.  Cigar smoke getting ripped out his open window.

Lee liked one of my photos.

Maybe that was the moment that led me here?

The idea of doing what I do now was planted there.  Missoula 1970.

He, of course, had no idea of his influence on me. I decided to go to the same school he did in California.  I was retaught the same incident light metering system.  Learned the view camera, and lighting and problem solving that is (was) commercial photography from there.
Been doing it since.  Wouldn't had it any other way.
Today I used the same tripod I had in school, a model 1500 from Majestic out of Chicago.  Goes up 8feet.

So Thank You Lee.  It's a beautiful thing when something gets paid forward without any knowledge or agenda.

Addendum December 27, 02019.  Lee's widow contacted me to tell me he rarely smoked cigars because she was very allergic to them.  He did roll his own smokes though using Velvet tobacco.

Production Time

I came real close to taking a baseball bat to a personal project that had me near breaking point.

First I was going to smash it.
Then I was going to burn it.
Then I was going to piss on the ashes.

And then Ken showed up with this one morning.  And this was going to be the exact opposite of what was taking place at that very moment.

And then a couple days later Ken showed up with ten sheets of this, that I cut into that.

So it's production time.  Mindless work really but necessary after the one off-super intensive-fragile as hell-reality bending work I was doing.

Two Hours in a Car

For 15 minutes in a bar.

We play the open mike at Sonoma Moose Lodge!!!!!!!

Ok, so it was a "rent party" so to speak, to raise some money for a friend.

The Barker for the evening

Off key as hell but what the hell, Tom took our early spot so we could go on later

And Ken waiting for our three spot slot to finally...finally...finally open up,

It's long been on my bucket list, to play the Moose Lodge in Sonoma.  I can now move onto #435, get my Tarot read in Boise, Idaho.