cart / horse

in

Surprise surprise I got ahead of myself again and thought of form (zine! anthology!) and totally froze myself. Rededicating myself to working in / on whatever interests me in the moment and taking it day by day, minute by minute: shaping scrap metal, joining words together, drawing little index card cartoons of myself every morning, writing these things at midday. Not to say I won't pursue longer form or longer term works (longform doesn't always mean long term) but I won't set out to do so or assign it / them deeper value to my day and life than that. Make, release, make, release, make release...

buffalo measuring

in

Today at least is going to be spent flapper-disking the next big metalwork project which has now morphed into one and a half metalwork projects (ad has made the project that it was going to be become something else entirely further on down the road) because, as Brad Bird's favorite axiom goes, Use every part of the buffalo. This one's going to push me further into woodworking, for which I've yet to find a genuine, visceral love: if (my ignorance-fueled iteration of) metalwork is more like cooking, throwing ingredients into a pot to make something new and tasty, then woodwork is more like baking, precise measurements required to make the pieces fit, measure twice cut once, stir stir stir. Then again, 3D printing is very similar to baking – I do, after all, jestingly refer to my printer as an easy-bake oven. I guess it's not so much that I dislike woodworking (I don't, not at all) but that I don't find it as harmonizing with the type of creativity that makes me feel whole. I admire those that do it well and make beautiful things with it, but I get far more creatively turned on by seeing a rusty spring than I ever could a beautiful piece of timber: both have their place but the latter requires a creative vein which I've yet to tap into.

the fathoming

in

While I've never had a problem running companies or saying good things about other people's output (if I like them), it's always been difficult for me to do the same with my own: there's a mental block that keeps me behind a wall of my own insecurity – even though I know I'd buy my stuff, I can't fathom others wanting to. As my wife said, I'm my own worst enemy (I've always known this one); as I only just realized, I'm now my only enemy: I've no one to create in spite of - I've only got to create for myself: I can be as weird as I want to be without having to justify myself to anyone. Hopefully – now that I know which wall to chip through – I can give myself the permission to accept, on a visceral level, that if I'd buy my stuff, it's fathomable that others might be as well.

/202509131102

in

Wee baby welding cart has been modified (see Principle _02) to fit the decidedly not baby laser welder, primarily heavier-duty wheels that aren't held on with pins. Still waiting on the new argon regulator so I can either get an argon flow going from my wee argon canister or upgrade from the wee to a non-wee. While I wait: determine if I can move the welding table to The Shed porch and use metalshack as metal storage (though I’ve given the cart heavy duty wheels, moving a 40-lb laser welder down my little alley path between fence and shed isn’t going to happen). There will be lasers, eventually.

/202509091200

in

Today being one of those post-project massive Shed clean-up days which have become essential rituals - but this one especially so: I'm finally getting the laser welder set up. Or at least figuring out what I need to get to set it up (I think just a thing of 1mm steel wire but 🤷🤷🤷. Also have to set up a thing to mount my little argon tank to the wall which may need to be changed depending on how much argon this Goldfinger device actually uses. Computer monitor sits, wanting me to work at it but these days my happiest creative moments are spent away from screens with a (shielded) faceful of sparks or scribbling with a pencil in a notebook. Rolling with it.

a big fucking corkboard

in

For the first time in more than 10 years I've a raging desire to buy a big fucking corkboard and fill it with index cards with scenes and scraps and phrases and stuff on them (in no particular order), a desire to bring the tactile prototyping approach to thinking that metal (or cardboard and tape) brings to the present (and far-preferred) iteration of my creative practice. Not sure what these hypothetical cards are meant to become – I remain proudly medium agnostic until the time comes to declare my project-faith – though I do know it will be something a.) I can do on my own (or learn to do on my own) and/or b.) nifty, the latter of which is really all that interests me these days. Or, perhaps, it's all just a desire to redecorate The Shed and make one of the walls more useful than as a shelf for things that could and probably should be shelved elsewhere because they're going to fall on me any day now.

refuel / bridge

in

Riding and occasionally drowning in the wave of The Void, the BIG Void, first zilch period, no long-term projects, in almost 25 years. Simultaneously liberating and terrifying, finding my way back to having a creative brain again or, rather, a creative brain able to concoct something interesting be it word, picture, word and picture, scrap metal, and/or any combination thereof. Perhaps more regular textual postings will appear here (as I've wanted before) but I do know that I've brought out my paints and canvi and am painting again. Seems to be a bridge / gap pursuit / release that yields things in those other media that I have slightly more than a fetus's ability at and even then – and an invaluable tool for returning to "play and explore," something I'm going to fight like hell to maintain going forward, no matter the medium. Think it was something I read / heard David Bowie say, that when he's stuck or empty, he turns to painting to reignite. If I'm going to take anyone's advice...

/20250602_1027

in

A writing morning, hoping to make this the regular thing (though in summer months, I may have to switch: metalwork in the cooler mornings, writing in the AC'ed shed in the hot afternoons).

Aiming to wrap up one large project over the next couple days – or to at least have an incling as to an idea of HOW to wrap up one large project. Hopeful that finishing this one – started in the pre-metalwork days – can act as a bridge to whatever the next phase of my writing (process) looks like, one more influenced by metalwork than the other way 'round. Scribbling nonsense (and writing posts) to unstick / speaking of: Rite in the Rain pencil ➡️ paper love continues, especially since I've added a rOtring rapid PRO 0.7mm pencil to my graphite scribble practice.

Brought my BOOM3 speaker out to The Shed so maybe I can start my way through that Bandcamp / EarBliss backlog because why would I listen to music any other time right?

new approach

in

A shift in my writing practice, from the daily guilt-ridden grind of days, weeks, years past to a more "blast all of it in a few weeks or days when the need strikes" now. Perhaps what I was needing was something like metalwork (and my resultant newfound obsession with 3D printing not only to reproduce metalwork in plastic but to design pots for K since I found scanning and printing different versions of existing ones to be onerous, to put it mildly) to fulfill me in the non-writing parts of my day. Which are a lot of them. Far happier and more fulfilled, creatively, away from the computer, playing with fire and sparks and making weird metal things, than I am staring at a screen and hating myself for not being able to write something no one will read anyhow.

But yes, a new approach. Toying with the notion of blasting out a novella or something in a short time frame, two weeks to a month, when the need to write strikes me; otherwise, I'll tinker with metal stuff and mini-comics and Singularities and etc. A note to myself in my Obsidian canvas: long-form ≠ long-term.

Now I have figure out how to assemble this 3D printer cover because a shed is not the most dust-free place for a 3D printer to while away its non-whirring hours.