Sculptures at Electra C. Doren Open House January 3rd

Duncarrick Mansion - hand cut paper by Darren Kall

My sculptures are complete and will be installed this week! If you're in the Dayton Ohio area on January 3rd come see them as part of the Electra C. Doren library's new reading terrace.

On January 3rd the Electra C. Doren Library will celebrate their reopening after 10 months of renovation with an Open House for the public from 11:00am to 6:00pm. I will be there starting at 11:00am to show the sculptures. There is a children's program at 11:30am and 2:30 pm. A teen program at 4:00pm. And special guests and prizes during the day. The branch has new features such as a bright new children's area, dedicated spaces for adults and teens, a community room, enhanced technology, and a new reading terrace featuring my six aluminum sculptures of Old North Dayton landmarks. Hope to see you there.

http://www.daytonmetrolibrary.org/locations/electra-doren

Electra C. Doren 701 Troy Street, Dayton, Ohio 45404

Plus, because the sculptures are outside, the library is planning a special unveiling just for the sculptures sometime in the spring when it is warm enough to actually sit outside and enjoy the reading terrace.

I'm not posting pictures of the sculptures until after the open house but the attached image is one of the final artwork designs that the six metal sculptures were made from. The final artwork designs, like this one of the Duncarrick Mansion, were hand cut from black paper.

I'm way behind in writing posts. I was busy finishing the sculptures... but I'll be catching up now on lots of insights and stories. 

Visually Impaired Touching Sculptures

The Healing Arts - photo by Artotem

I have a deep personal interest in making the sculptures I'm making for the Electra C. Doren library accessible to people with visual impairments. 

The sculptures are going to be built as part of the fencing on a proposed reading terrace that is being built for the library. Most of the fence will be directly accessible to touch. Even the parts that aren't directly accessible are only behind a small area of landscaping or alternately accessible from the street level by reaching up. 

Since the sculptures are cutouts, visually impaired patrons can touch the cut out areas and build a mental image of the artwork from the feel. 

The sculptures are made out of cut sheet aluminum. The waterjet cutting process leaves burrs on the far side of the cut and sharp edges on the leading edge. These will be sanded smooth to prevent injury when being touched. If the sculpture were mounted out of reach these would usually not need to be sanded.

This sanding preparation benefits more than the visually impaired patrons of the library. Anyone can touch the sculptures; kids, the curious, and those making accidental contact. Making it safe for the visually impaired makes it safe for everyone. 

I came from a family with a disabled family member.  Growing up in the disabled community I learned that most of what blocks access for people with disabilities are small things. Small things are easily fixed. If designers are made aware that they are blocking people with disabilities from accessing what they create, they can change that. Meeting constraints and challenges - it's what designers do. I have spent a large part of my career designing technology for people with disabilities. I want to make sure that the sculptures I'm designing can be accessed by people with visual impairments.  

All patrons of the library will be invited to experience the sculptures, and the sculptures will be designed so that all patrons can. 

Tap, Track, Eyelet, Weld

Gary Plant Tubular Steel Corporation - photo by M. Marshall

My sculptures will be a permanent integrated part of the reading terrace fence at the ElectraC. Doren library. But how to integrate them?

Beyond the practical aspect, ensuring that the attachment is secure, I had two additional goals: aesthetics and reuse.

Aesthetics: My design is to replace the section of fence railings between posts with my sculptural metal panels. The pieces will be permanently integrated into the fencing supports as part of the fence, not as an attachment or overlay. This is done so that sunlight will puncture through the cutouts giving them shape and background without the added patterns of vertical fence railings confusing the image.

Reuse: I wanted to make the panel attachments something that would not stand in the way of future use. Twenty years from now when the library reading terrace gets remodeled I want the library to have the option to take the sculptures out of the fence and attach them to a window to let light through, to a wall, or to mount in some other free-standing place.

My thoughts were to use attachment methods I had used in the past. I suggested screw taps, slotted tracks, or even eyelets that could act as a locking hook mechanism. All of these could be anticipated in the design and built into the sculpture itself as an integral part of the metal during fabrication.

At the time of the proposal I did not know the actual fencing and post support system that will be used. I planned to work with the architects and the fence fabricators to determine the best way to install the sculptural panels. And I needed to resolve this before the panels were designed because the attachment method might impact the visible area of the panel, or what structural shapes I could do or not do.

After discussing these options with the architects and fence fabricators they had two different and insightful concerns: safety and resistance to tampering.

Safety: To ensure that the attachment mechanism will hold up to extended normal use the fabricator suggested welding the panels into the fence instead of an attachment mechanism that can be undone. This would still meet my aesthetic goals because we can place the railing mountings and secure the welding inside the fence components where it can't be seen. It makes reuse somewhat more difficult. Twenty years from now the library will only have to disassemble the fence and cut it at the welds which won't interfere with the sculpture itself, and they may not even need to do that if the welded components can be part of the new installation.

Resistance: I had thought about making the metal I used unattractive to those who may want to steal it for scrap metal; that's why I thought of steel and now of aluminum. But I didn't think about making the attachment mechanism undesirable to deal with. By welding the sculpture in place it makes it more trouble than it is worth to remove the sculpture. If someone could inspect the fence and see screw taps they might invest the time to try to remove it, but if they see welds they'll know that it will take a lot more work to remove.

So welds it is. Welds meets my goals and the goals of my project partners. 

Why I track my time

Burning Stubble??? Oh my!!
Photo by Pete

A lot of my artwork is tedious and detailed. When people see it they often ask "How long did that take you?" I tell them I would have to look up the actual tracked number of hours and their next question is; "You track your time? I thought artists didn't do that."

Without tracking time it is very easy for me to finish a project and have no idea how long it took me. When I'm doing artwork, especially if I have a big block of hours to do it in, I fugue into the work and lose all sense of time passing. Did I just spend an hour, two, three?

I don't know about other people who do artwork, but I track my time. Yes surely I don't track it all. If I'm sketching ideas, or I’m creating something for fun, I don't track my time. But when I'm on a project, a commission, or working on a specific piece with a purpose I start time tracking.

When I'm working on something that I will get paid for, having the time it took me to create it lets me calculate how much I made on the sale. I can figure out my "hourly wage" is for the work, and I can improve my estimation when I'm pricing the next art piece or project.

I count the total time: Sketching, obtaining materials, mock-ups, negotiations, communications, and the actual painting, sculpting, printing, etc. AND clean up. I don't count general studio operations, blogging, marketing, proposals, sales, or errands that keep the overall studio working - that's overhead. I take the price it sold for, subtract the cost of materials, then divide that number by the time I put into the project.

For example; I sell a painting for $4,000. I subtract the cost of materials; $500. I take $3,500 and divide it by the hours of work; 80.5 (I round to the quarter hour for ease of calculations) and I get ~$43.48 as my hourly rate for this painting. If my hourly rate target was to make $50.00 an hour then I need to charge more, paint faster, or reduce cost of materials :^). 

Calculating this is separate from figuring out what my hourly rate NEEDS to be. When I do that I calculate covering my overhead costs (see partial list above), how many items I sell in a year (occupancy rate), the market value of my artwork, and my financial needs. All of which factor into making the business of artwork sustainable. In this post I'm just talking about keeping track of time to get financial feedback on creating that one piece.

I know time tracking isn't very aligned with the general image of a free-flowing artist sitting at a café sketching all day and then working in feverish frenzy all night long, but if that's your style you can do that and track your time too. Maybe to protect your image you just don't tell anyone you track your time. :^)

Of course this is all a moot point if it only takes you an hour to paint $20,000 paintings and you can sell ten a week. But until you get there, tracking time is great for improving your estimation skills and your pricing of projects so that you're making enough to keep making artwork. 

Measure twice, (three times, four times,) cut once: Sculpture size decisions

Measuring tape - photo by Sarahluv

The sculptures in my commission for the Electra C. Doren library will be integrated into the fence of the new reading terrace. The fence will surround the terrace which will have raised landscaping and plantings, a sitting wall, and a view from inside the library through large new windows.

The terrace wasn't built at the time of my sculpture proposal. Even the architectural drawings for the terrace were not in their final state. Yet I had to propose a size for the sculpture panels.

I was given two sets of rendering/drawings for the fence that differed in the length and position of the fence, and different post-to-post distances. All these factors would make a big difference in the size of the panels I would propose. At the time I didn't know if there could be other dependent factors I wasn't aware of.

Knowing that my proposal was due before the decisions would be made to finalize the architectural design I had to either propose two different designs, one for each rendering of the terrace fence, or choose one and design for that proposing that it could be adapted if the decision went a different way.

Since the time from the RFP announcement date to the proposal submission date was extremely short for this first of the ReImagining Works RFPs, I decided to go with one proposal and suggest adjustments for changes to the design. It saved me time by not doing double designs but still showed that my proposal was adaptive and not dependent on just the fence design I selected.

I chose the fence design that did not have any sloping fence (going down a ramp). To help me with the size decision I did sketches of the terrace based on the architectural elevation illustration and put rough images of what my sculptures would look like at various sizes.  In some sketches I didn't use the whole post-to-post distance but left some of the fence railing space on either side of the sculpture. The balance of sculptural space and fence space seemed "right".

I proposed that each sculptural piece will be approximately two and a half feet high, and approximately four feet wide. The size of panels was approximate, based on the architectural drawings and I planned to adjust them as needed.

After I got the commission the fence plans kept changing. Even after one of the two sets of renderings became the plan of record there were more changes. The fence plan of record had 20 equal sized post-to-post sections of fence. I chose 8 of these positions for my sculptures. Then there was value engineering (See my post "Numbers, reuse, and value engineering") and the fence sections were redesigned and wound up not being equal. In this latest design there were only 10 potential equal sized post-to-post sections that were possible for my sculptures. I eliminated two of these because they were abutting each other in a corner. I eliminated two more because they were right next to other potential sections because I wanted the sculptures spaced out. That left 6 panels distributed around the terrace. Doing site specific public art requires project management of decisions like this and calling out the dependencies of the artwork on the rest of the architectural, construction, and fabrication decisions. 

Even with this change in the fence I was told I wouldn't really know the final size available to me until there were final shop drawings and field measurements agreed upon by architects, fence installers, and other stakeholders. This  meant I wouldn't know the size I had to work with until the wall was built. I collaborated with all these parties to uncover dependencies before I start designing my sculptures. I don't want to design something for one size only to find out that it changes and forces me to redesign. I want to work all this out before I start designing the final pieces. If I don't, then I could be doing a lot of work only to be surprised later and have to redo it. I'd rather invest the time up front. 

For example I got a version of the shop drawings that I was told were final. Then I had physical mock-ups made. When I compared the mock-ups to the shop drawing I noticed they were different by almost 3 inches in width. The mock-ups used an attachment method which preserved the open space on either side that I liked. The drawings had the sculpture attached directly to the posts with no space and a different connector method. If I had done my final artwork based on the shop drawings without the mock-up, I would be doing the final artwork over. 

The fence fabricator and I took the outside dimensions from the original shop drawing. We then calculated the space on the mock-up taken from the real connectors and mounting methods. We left the open space on either side and calculated the available space. Then we got everyone else to agree that this was the final size for all the sculptures.  If further dependencies show up then the fabricators, assemblers, and installers will adjust their work to that size and make it work. 

Numbers, reuse, and value engineering

Value - photo by Cassidy Curtis

I learned a new term: Value engineering.  And I learned how doing value engineering would impact my design decisions on the sculptures I'm doing for the Electra C. Doren library as part of my ReImagining Works commission.

My metal sculptures are going to be embedded into the fence. That means that my designs are dependent on the fence design. And the fence design had to be settled before my sculpture design or I would have to change the design of my sculptures with every change to the fence design. Before I started designing I let the architects and the art board know that I needed the final design decisions of the fence for the reading terrace to be settled. Good thing I did - because there were value engineering changes to the fence design. 

I was prepared for the impacts of one decision: the fence door on the back of the reading terrace was changed into an emergency only exit. This made sense: the function of the fence door changed and there were a cascade of changes to my design because of this change in purpose. But some of the other changes were not as obvious. One of these changes impacted my sculpture design. Rather than the post-to-post distance being the same all the way around the fence, as it was in the original drawings, now the post-to-post distances would be irregular. Some would be around 4 feet and some around 6 feet with a few at unique distances; in all there would now be 6 different post-to-post distances. I couldn't figure the reason for these changes.

Value Engineering: I was told that they were the result of "value engineering". The description that followed sounded like "cost reduction", something I’m familiar with from technology product design. But value engineering is different. Everything in a project is evaluated for potential cost savings but value engineering calls for  preserving the desired level of function in the process. Only if function is not impacted can a cost savings be acceptably realized.

The fence would serve the same functional goals whether there were posts every 4 feet or every 2 feet or in the unequal pattern that was actually chosen. The difference was that if the distances could be maximized without sacrificing the fence's function and goals then the project could save costs. Fewer posts means fewer pieces to fabricate, fewer to install, and it means that the fence panels could be ordered at a larger size and cut.

Numbers: When I planned the sculptures from the original architectural drawings I chose to make eight sculptural panels. This was based on the equal spacing of panels in the drawing and wanting to have an acceptable panel to open fence ratio. I planned on three sculptural panels on the north terrace fence railing, three panels on the south terrace fence railing, and two panels on the west terrace fence railing. But I knew the fence design was in flux so I built flexibility on the number of panels into my proposal.

With the newly arranged posts I had a decision to make about what post-to-post distances made the most sense for the sculptures and how many of them worked in the new arrangement of fence sections. I chose to use the 4 foot sections because if I had chosen the 6 foot sections the resulting sculptures would have been visually overwhelming. Even though they would be of the same number, they would occupy much more of the visual space. I also chose to make 6 panels not 8 panels. Because of the pattern of posts if I made 8 panels it would mean that two 4-foot panels would be side by side in a corner. That would not be a good pattern, it would bring two panels too close, and whatever corner I put it in would make the images look cluttered. Instead the pattern works out to three panels on the north, two on the south, and one on the west wall. I negotiated to have the order of unequal fence sections rearranged on the north wall so that the three sculptures would be closer to the building and more part of the terrace space than if they were closer to the exit.

Reuse: My second concern with value engineering was anticipated early in my proposal phase. Value engineering is often associated with planned obsolescence. If the functional life of something is only expected to be 20 years then you do not need to invest the cost to make something durable enough to last 70 years. This is a wise investment because if you paid more for 70-year quality and only got 20 years before your use became obsolete, you'd have been overpaying. A fence and a reading terrace, will likely have a limited lifespan before it is time to replace it. For example 20 years from now the library may need to be remodeled because the pattern of library usage may have changed. If people no longer want to read on a terrace at the library, the library system will remove the terrace and construct something that meets the needs of those future library users. However, I want to design my artwork to last as long as possible - well more than 20 years. I don't want my sculptures to be obsolete.

I purposefully designed my sculptural concept for reuse. I conceived of the design so that the sculpture panels can easily be disassembled from the fence and put to other uses. For example, they can be mounted flat against an appropriate colored wall inside or outside a building where their images can be viewed. They can also as easily be mounted into the structure of a window to allow sunlight to come through the cutouts revealing their silhouettes. Or they can be separately mounted on supports to become freestanding separate panels for a sculpture garden or room use separator. 

While value engineering had an impact on the design process I think we mitigated the impacts on the actual sculpture. The sculptural panels are fewer in number but approximately the same size as before. They have new positions around the terrace, but ones that I think will work with the space. The fence has a 30-year warranty and may have a purposeful life expectancy of 20 years, but my sculptures can be reused.

Using sketches to help ME decide

Since the sculptures will be flat cutout images of buildings inspired by the style of Stacks in Celebration byCharles Sheeler making a cutout sketch of ONE of them helped me figure out the design of an individual panel. But I needed to imagine several of them in context to know if they would create the environment that I imagined for the reading terrace. 

I didn't want to make cutout sketches of all of them. I didn't have the time before the proposal deadline and I didn't even know what all the subjects would be at that time. Plus if I did them as cutout sketches I'd need to make a bigger environment sketch to put them in to see if they "worked" in the space. Overkill. I didn't need finished pieces, just rough approximations would help me. Plus I wanted the art commission board to see what several of them would look like in the context of the fence.

I did rough sketches of buildings with Sheeler-like sky backgrounds based on the architectural drawings that were part of the ReImagining Works RFP. I included these sketches in my proposal accompanying my explanations of what I proposed to sculpt.

Sketch 2: view from terrace 

This sketch shows how the sculptures will be seen from inside the reading terrace just as you step from the library out onto the terrace. There will be eight panels. Not all the panels are depicted in this sketch. Having panels surrounding the patio creates a gallery atmosphere to the enclosure.

Sketch 3: View of South terrace from Edmund Street

This sketch shows how three of the panels will be visible from the side street. They will be visible to pedestrians and to customers from the parking lot of the business across Edmund Street.

It may seem really simple to have used just these basic sketches to support my imagination. It probably took me longer to scan these sketches in and write this blog post than it did to do the sketches. But doing the sketches was critical for me to solidify my impression and confirm that my plan for the multiple sculptures would work for the space. It gave me confidence I was on the right track.