Ribbon Stacks
Ribbon pieces have been part of my work since the very beginning and it’s a style I keep revisiting and rethinking. I’ve had pieces with very wide ribbon and very narrow ones; pieces with only two or three rotating elements and pieces with a dozen; pieces primarily from aluminum, then stainless steel and now I’m working with 3D printed plastics which let me play with forms that would be extremely difficult if not impossible to make with metal.
Ribbon Stack Pair Four and Five
Another smaller pair of Ribbon Stack Pieces, this time with narrow ribbons only one inch wide. This pair is shown with natural movement driven by a pair of small, slient turntables. In my constant struggle to find ways for indoor pieces to be in constant movement, these turntables that come from the photography industry are just about perfect.
New Ribbon Stacks
Here’s an exciting update (at least for me) on the Ribbon pieces. All of the ones below were built on a single stem - rotating elements were off-set but still only rotated in a single dimension. Now each rotating element is uniquely mounted on the element underneath, which results in much more complex and unpredictably movement, which is always what I liked the best about Kinetic Sculpture.
Rectangular Ribbon Pair
This started as a simple idea and turned out to be one of the harder and more complex pieces I’ve created so far. Because the length and width of each rectangle is different each had to have unique internal connectors as well as unique support tools. For me the end result are two pieces that work beautifully as a pair. At the Octavia show direct sunlight comes in around 5 pm and these two pieces reflect shards of light all over the immediate floors and walls due to the mirror finish on the stainless steel ribbons.
Tall Square Ribbon Lamp
A tall version made specifically for the Octavia 2020 show.
Early Ribbon Lamps
This video documents a number of early Ribbon Lamps and really shows the range of how these pieces can be thought out and created.. You’ll see all kinds of variations here from my first year or two of experimenting. All of these were rendered with polished aluminum and many would make beautiful final pieces in stainless steel.