New starts...

The relatively empty walls in the studio have encouraged some new work which I snapped a few photos of yesterday.  The above piece once again uses a couple of those black finials (which I like so much!) that Su sent me in the goody box.  The entire piece measures about 18" tall and the black box is screwed into a wooden checkers/chess board that I cut down to a smaller size with the tabletop band saw.  The round wooden piece was from a recent bins trip, as was the old rusty compass.  No name yet for this one, but I think it is probably done.

 Though I seldom work in white, this one seemed to want that kind of a backdrop to show off the very simple, old, rusty pitchfork that friend Ray found for me.  While it is not done (I don't think), it will probably only have one addition, something hanging from the bent light socket.

This one is still very much in a state of flux with nothing but the background fabric glued down.  The picture is a little inadequate since it was sitting on the toolbench, not hanging on the wall, when I photographed it.

If you look at the lower left, you'll see a little system of gears which used to be a bright aqua plastic toy piece which I used the rusting materials on.  The little silver circular items hanging from the center of each arch are part of an old window-locking mechanism which I screwed into the top of the box.  On the right is an old black faucet handle (and oh, I should have taken a photo of that from the side) sitting on top of one of those great dials from the vintage gas pump I took apart a month or so ago.
What will go on the top and bottom of the piece remains to be discovered.

The sun is trying to come out and it looks like another beautiful fall day despite a forecast that did not sound so cheery.    Since we had some of our overgrown forest thinned a bit recently (see the wood stacking photos from the firing), the brightness is even more evident.  Wonderful...and the view is much improved too.