Arte De Timo

Category: Creative and Maker Projects

This category is for all those little things I am doing around the house or for myself or someone, that isn’t quite “art” not is it attached to a big area of study or activity.

  • A holiday miracle – Attempt #3


    I was cooking pancakes this morning and my face just showed up in one of them… it’s a holiday miracle!

  • A lost craft work from my childhood

    I found this Thor Hammer Mug in a box of toys I had been keeping from my childhood. It is the first ceramic piece I ever made and had fired. I remember making it at age 12 during a summer art camp. I was in to Thor comics, so between my seventh and eighth grades this is what I made. The under-glazes were mislabeled in the studio, so the colors didn’t turn out how I wanted. I think this is the only piece from anyone at the camp that didn’t explode during firing.

    That was a great summer being a crazy kid. The summer art camp was held each morning at Mission College, which at the time was surrounded by open fields, and was just one big building. I was in the camp with four of my school buddies, and we were at the very upper age limit for the camp. We got bored pretty easily (Something that at this age happened a lot). By the end of the summer we had to be escorted out of the building by the instructor after each class, because we were causing so much trouble.

    We had a habit of taking clay with us from the studio for our mischief. We would shape the clay into what we thought were funny shapes, then fling off the upper stories of the building watching the splat down in the atrium somewhere. Some college students had the pleasure of seeing a clay Mr. Bill explode on the ground next to them as they walked to class. That was when security was called on us and discussions were held. We relished the infamy.

    We had a lot of fun. I remember the face painting lesson became war paint day for us. Can you imagine four young boys with war paint running around? I am sure there were some confused people walking through campus those days. Mostly we went out to the fields around the college to “hunt” rabbits. We had created spears, carried rocks, and made traps, but mostly we just ran around like crazy kids trying to scare the wildlife (and any passers-by). We also got the police called on us a few times by poor old pedestrians who thought we were hunting them. Ah, the memories.

    Amazing what an old mug can stir up.

  • Re-post from Aug., 15 2005: Warning labels and Mexico


    I was vacuuming today and noticed that the bottom of the vacuum cleaner had a notice sticker and a warning label. It was a good thing cause I almost lost a toe while vacuuming. The warning label was the only thing that saved it. Well, not really, but it got me thinking about how many things in this country have warning labels (http://www.mlaw.org/wwl/) compared to other places. On my recent trip to Mexico, it was obvious how different we are as Americans when it comes to safety precautions and liability issues. There must have been hundreds of places, and thousands of things we saw that couldn’t have even operated in the US because of safety concerns.

    For example, we went swimming in a 50-meter (Corrected: ~20 meters) deep senote, which is a sinkhole that links to a series of caves and are usually filled with water. Walking down the slippery wet rock tunnel and path to the water, we looked over the unguarded and rail-less vista points down to the water every 10 meters or so. This was an unusual and wonderful place. There were signs that said no jumping, but that was about it. Once down at the water, people were jumping in all over the place off the rocks. There were no signs at the bottom. Jumping into 70 degree water on a blistering day from 4 meters up off of some slippery wet stone stairs is something I will never forget. It was simply awesome.

    I can’t say it was completely unregulated, because there was a guard on duty, but the only time he blew his whistle was to stop someone from grabbing the ancient roots that hang down into he water. His job was to protect the senote, not the stupid tourists. I think the wildness and lack of rules and safety apparatus was one of the reasons this place remained so special and amazing. If Ik-Kil was in the US you know admission would be upward of $30-$40 compared to $4. It would be rubberized, lifeguarded, railed off, and turned into a water park with the liability insurance to match. In other words, it would suck. But in Mexico where these places could retain their charm and character, they remained unique and awe inspiring.

    Everything on our trip to Mexico was pretty much in the same open air, unregulated state, including the roads (except for the 15 different signs for speed bumps, or topes, which were everywhere). But I’ll tell you, we never saw anyone get hurt. Common sense, responsibility and good judgment seem to be a trait of the Mayan and Mexican locals. The only person we heard of getting hurt at any of these “dangerous” places was at another senote near a ruin, where the guide said that some drunk tourist who couldn’t swim fell in and drowned while his friends watched over 2 years ago.

    It seems like the place I came back to is full of retarded infants who have no self-control or common sense compared to the simple nature of southern Mexico. Everything from plastic bags, to mattresses, to vacuum cleaners have to have warning labels on them to keep the manufactures from being sued by some jackass who can’t keep from suffocating on his potato chip bag while vacuuming his bed.

    I like the fact that my perspective changed enough on this trip to notice this quark of American society. I guess that’s one of the nice things about traveling, and probably the most rewarding.

    *Warning: this message contained suggestions of events, which may be dangerous. The author does not recommend doing them unless in Mexico and claims no liability for your own stupid actions.

  • Compost – Part 1

    Compost is a great topic with all sorts of room for discussion and investigation, so I am going to take on the topic in parts.

    It is also a BIG topic. Understanding compost requires a few layers of biology, a layer of agriculture, a layer of physics, and some thrown in construction, environmentalism, gardening, and spirituality. Well OK, its not that complicated of an idea, but it touches on a lot of important issues.

    First and foremost, composting is the rotting of organic material (Not the little green label on food, but things made of molecules that contain carbon) into humus (Not the yummy tan colored food, that’s hummus. Humus is the part of the soil that is organic). Composting happens pretty much everywhere that organic materials occur; forests, oceans, gardens, the dump, behind your refrigerator. You might say that composting is the biological version of entropy; if there is something that can be broken down in nature, it will.

    Once the maintaining properties of life leave an object, the doors are opened to a range of organisms that want to recapture any stored energy from that object. In nature, things just keep on rolling, so any creatures whose biological defenses fail become, quite literally, dirt; and that is a good thing. It can happen fast or slow, and through a whole range of processes. Sometimes there are feathered or furry creatures involved, but at a certain point, almost assuredly, some ants come into play. If there is enough chemical energy left in the object for it to become food, then some ants will find it, and eat it. This goes for a piece chocolate you drop, to a damaged flower seed. Eventually though, in all the dark quiet places of the world the more important processes take over .

    Fungi and bacteria are the heart of the composting process. They are always in a battle to find food, so living things develop strategies to defend against their onslaught. We, humans shed our skin and hair, we have kamikaze immune white blood cells, acidic stomachs, oils, saliva, you name it, all in an attempt to keep fungi and bacteria away from our energy, i.e. cells and tissues. When those things fail, I think we know of some of the things that can happen; infections, stomach problems, and disease. It’s pretty ugly stuff.

    Finally, once things settle down and a little moisture is mixed in, the real work begins; active microbial decomposition. All those brilliant fiber structures, cell membranes, complex molecules, and energetic chemical bonds that make up our beautiful living world are cracked open, broken down over and over again, and become raw materials and energy for a host of microbes.

    In the garden, it is the compost’s job to take advantage of this process and turn all the left over organic material back into something that can be used in the garden. It can be as simple as piling up leaves in the Fall, to carefully layering “brown” material with “green” material to build a hot “heap.” Striking a balance can be tough sometimes, when things like, speed, space, smell, and output are considered.

    When I first started composting, I was living in a townhouse with a small patio, and I didn’t get the balance right in many ways. Space was limited, I didn’t have access to enough “brown” material, and my inputs were too high. I’ll confess, the outcome was not pleasant for anyone within nose-shot. Not only that, I had good humus mixed in with fresh food material, making deployment of the compost impossible. Here’s some pics of the experiment:

    The ideas were sound, but my execution was not so great. The most important thing was that I learned about how a biological composting system functions, and how that sort of composter might work. When building something from scratch, its always good to have some hands-on knowledge to go along with the ideas. I did go on building fortunately, and I now have a good functional 2 yer old system up.

    In Compost – Part 2, I will post about the composter I have now, along with my techniques, and what I gain from the activity. Part 3 will be about the ramifications of composting on several levels, and why I do it. Oh, and I have a video to stick in somewhere, too!

  • Attempt 2: Fail (But better than Attempt 1). Progress.


    Getting closer! This is just a teaser of something in the works. Not quite ready for the light yet, but wanted to share a preview.

  • The economics of a rain barrel

    My water company charges $2.99 for a unit of water, which is defined as 100 cubic feet, or 748.5 gallons. This breaks down to just under 4 tenths of one cent per gallon of water that comes through the pipes. So what do we get for that 0.4 cents? We get water from a local well, possibly mixed with some surface water from a nearby reservoir, some chlorine, some dissolved minerals, and a little bit of organic matter.

    A rain barrel is typically about 50-60 gallons, so every time it fills up you are accumulating about 20-23 cents worth of water at the water utility rate. What do you get?

    If a rain barrel costs about $80+ to make or buy you would have to fill it up and empty it 400 times to break even. And, if you get around 20-40 chances a year to fill it up, we are talking 10 to 20 years ROI for a rain barrel. Yikes! That is not a good investment!

    So why do it? Why spend the money and time? Is it that feeling of freedom and independence of “going off the grid?” Maybe a bit of nostalgia for how our farming forefathers and foremothers used to do things? I would say it is a little of all of this, and a little more.

    Setting up a rain barrel has a bit of that DIY feeling that gardening, canning, sewing, etc. have. There is no immediate need to do any of it, but there are enough little good reasons, and enough little pleasures in doing it, that it is worth it. A wine barrel just looks neat around the house, particularly one from France.

    A big part of this sort of project for most people is a sense of connection. Like growing a tomato out in the yard, there is something wonderful about being a part of the whole cycle of providing sustenance for one’s family. I would say the majority of people never get a chance (nor are interested) in seeing how their water gets to them. Turn on the faucet and water comes out. Harvesting some rain water lets us see and feel where our water is coming from. It is a reattachment to the seasons, and to the nature of rain. We are so sheltered from the atmosphere and weather, this sort of project is a way to get us thinking about how the seasons affect us again. Rain harvesting is a lesson on what the rainy season used to mean. Is it a green season, or a white season? Will it have an impact on you this year? How should I plan for the coming months?

    A rain barrel is a sort of slow motion alarm clock that is controlled by nature, and can’t be set by our hands. It will fill according to some other system that we have all too often forgotten and disconnected from. In that relationship, the ROI has already been met.

    I now have 50 gallons of murky water in this thing to use, and return to nature. It sits there to be used before the next rain. It sits there outside waiting for use. It is also waiting in my mind as a reminder that the Green season is approaching, and that the grasses are growing; that the natural cycle still affects us even if we often choose not to see it.

     

  • Wooden Bike Saddle??


    I think the MFA program did something to my head, because somewhere in the processes of dreaming this up I concluded it was a good idea to actually do it…

  • A Global Bike (a longer post)

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    Globalization. For many it has been a contentious issue the last decade or two. For others, it has been a boon to business, and merely the next step in our economic evolution. In any case, it is hard to deny that we now feel the extreme consequences of globalization, good or bad. The truth is that globalization has been a fact of western life, and therefore its colonies and conquests for hundreds of years. It has only been the recent (maybe 30-40 years) industrially scaled globalization and hyper application of outsourcing  that globalization has had the extreme effects we feel. This system of  commodities, markets, raw materials and labor (i.e. Capital systems)  have a wide range of outcomes when applied, but like everything else, how it is carried out and to what ends determines the results.

    When I got my old English (?) bike it had parts from literally around the world. Handle bars from Japan, end caps  and kick stand from the USA, hubs from Austria/germany, brakes from England, cargo rack from Switzerland and pulley, cables from who know where. And now, I continued that history  by “importing” a few more vintage parts from England to complete it. So in the case of my old 1954 English bike, maybe globalization has been a birthing ground for a solid piece of transport. Globalization produced a bike that has been used and appreciated  for over 60 years (though, seemingly not cared for in the last 10-20 years.).. Maybe this is a little romantic, because it is just a bike that could have been made anywhere at any time and done the same job; but you get my point.

    I am the first in line to claim that globalization with its underlying capital systems is out of control. It is a Frankenstein that is slow killing us, but as William McDonough (One of the originators of Cradle-to-Cradle design) talked about in a little video I recently watched, the detrimental effects of business are design problems, where regulations are symptom. In his view, governmental regulation is necessary to stop these effects, but it will take a proper re-design to fix the error. He talks about how pollution is not in a companies best interest. Hurting customers, facing law suits, lower productivity from works, are all costs, that can be lowered or erased by removing the pollutant in most cases. IN the Cradle-to-Cradle design process, that is what they do, and the result is that the companies cut costs, increase productivity, and therefore make more money. Clean environments and healthy workers and customers makes for good business? Who would have thunk?

    So is an international old bike really all that meaningful? Maybe a little, but probably just a object of vanity. Philosophically, though, some important the lessons are built into what I am doing with that old bike. A 60 year old bike that promises to once again be a utility (and maybe a beauty) for (wo)man kind, shows us what good deign and forethought can accomplish. If all our objects can become as much, I think our global society would be in a bit of a better place.

  • Timo Lantern

    In preparation for Halloween; The Timo’Lantern!

  • Remember these?

    They’re out of a box of toys from when I was a kid. Amazing how strong the memories and emotions attached to those little things are even after a couple decades of other life to get in the way. Anyone who says nostalgia isn’t a powerful emotion probably isn’t human, or has some sort of mental block.

    Now these originals are moving on to another generation. Fun for now.