Art-o-Mat

Herbert Hoover — Artist — is single-handedly trying to revive the economy (and make up for his famous namesake’s inability to do the same in a previous downturn) by means of his contribution to the Art-o-Mat project.

Lisa and I recently attended an opening event for Portland’s first Art-o-Mat now residing in the Alberta district. Knowing that Herbert was present in spirit, if not in person, we biked over to check out the fancy new member of the Art-o-Mat community.

Our new Art-o-Mat is a bright red hot-rod of a machine with obvious care put into every detail from the nice paint details to the very act of transporting it safely to it’s new home at the Radio Room.

There were a few other people there to check out the new art dispenser and one fine patron at the bar even offered to purchase my token from the bar tender. So off I went — token in hand — to find the object in question.

Sure enough, right there in the first slot, was Herbert’s pewter pretzel. After feeding the token into the magnificent machine, the little white standardized box with Herbert’s custom labeling emerged (from the slot no doubt used in the past for something with a picture of a camel) into the delivery tray below.

The pewter pretzel

Knowing that Herbert’s previous saltine offering find’s life in poses and places throughout the world through his Cracker Tracker website, I figured that this pretzel had something special to offer. So sure enough, as I was off to my shop in “the hole” (home of the P.90 camera) I encountered a common impediment — a freight train heading east along Sullivan’s Gulch. Rather than simply wait for the train to pass as is my usual habit, it occurred to me that the pretzel sitting on the seat next to me might offer a solution. So I put on the parking brake and got out to test my hunch. As you can clearly see from the video below, the pretzel came through in splendid form. Watch and listen closely and you too will find that the pretzel posses the amazing ability to increase the speed of the passing train.

Reminded that Herbert’s artistic skills also include pinhole photography and pleased with the time-saving benefits of this pewter object, I put the pretzel away and made my way up to the shop to work on the latest production of P.90 cameras.

That whine … six horizontally opposed cylinders (“boxer” the Germans call it) moving back and forth at exceedingly high rates of acceleration. Intake, compression, ignition, exhaust over and over again all in the service of motivating a sculpture on four wheels to move in a single direction at high velocity.

A friend’s older brother drove the American dream machine — a Dodge Super Bee. A classic V-8 sound emanating from a car whose running gear hadn’t changed much in 20 or more years. The other kids thought it was pretty cool.

And of course there was the occasional sound of a passing vintage British sports car or the week-day ritual of our neighbor — “Clark Kent” I thought to myself — who came home from work in a Corvette wearing his nice business suit only to emerge from his garage a half-hour later on his Harley Sportster wearing his Banditos vest and tattered blue jeans. In those days the Harley sound was unmistakeable. “Thumpa-da-thumpa-da …”

But to a kid accustomed to the game of identifying military aircraft flying overhead by the sound they made there was no sound quite so sweet as that made by a brand new 1967 Porsche 911S  (“driven as it as meant to be” as my father would say) as it screamed past our flag football game returning my father home from work. The circle of friends in the sports car world he inhabited while working for Porsche Cars Southwest helped introduced me to the idea that art and engineering were next of kin.

So it was natural for me to find fascination in the world of automatons. There were countless examples in the odd museums and wacky collections we visited. Whirring gears, creaking mechanisms — crude but mesmerizing attempts to mimic the natural movements of living creatures. That fascination for the connection between technology and art, mechanics and aesthetics — heck, even science and silliness has informed my interests ever since.

So when I first stumbled upon the interesting story of the pile of brass gears, cams and assorted mechanical body parts “dumped on the steps” of the Franklin Institute in 1928 and only recently appreciated for what they were I had to know more. So now the Institute has put together a more detailed account of the adventure on their website.

“Draughtsman-Writer” by Henri Maillardet

The Draughtsman-Writer belongs to the golden age of automatons when technology was at stage where the talented individual could master an extraordinary level of facility with it’s disparate bits and pieces. DR’s given talent is writing and drawing. And perhaps the most intriguing part was the discovery that it can identify it own maker. The text it writes in an arc at the bottom of the work below reads “Ecrit par L’Automate de Maillardet” or “Written by the Automaton of Maillardet.”

The automaton identifies its maker

There are videos (1) and (2) on the website that show the amazing facility of this creation. In one of the videos the Draughtsman-Writer creates the rendering of a sailing ship below.

Sailing machine rendered by a drawing machine

Rejected Apple, Fall, Aomori Prefecture

I originally met Jane after she purchased a Pinoramic 120 camera for a project she did on WW1 cemeteries in France called Tears of Stone: WW1 Remembered.

Jane shows a natural talent with the panoramic format and was inspired by the large number of WW1 memorials she saw on a trip to France to return and document them. The gallery of images that resulted from that trip can be seen at Jane’s website.

Memento, Vermandovillers German Cemetery, France

Jane used an original model Pinoramic 120 model for the Tears of Stone project.

Jane Alden Stevens with Pinoramic 120

He sent me an artwork.

I think there is a check inside

for the repair …

but I don’t know

because I haven’t opened it.

Art in Transit — from Steven Holloway

“The Ruin” — Cartago, Costa Rica — P.90 photograph

I imagine that one of the reasons people travel is the chance — however small - it affords to see that you have ways about you that weren’t all that apparent traveling only amongst your own tribe. Lisa and I made a medical tourism pilgrimage to Costa Rica recently and I was frequently aware that it was not my tribal elders that ran the place.

And there’s nothing like getting behind the wheel of a car to give you a quick appreciation for that. Never mind the odd layout of streets and utter lack of street name signage in San Jose or the complete disregard for what signage there was come nightfall, one of the things that most tickled my cultural funny-bone was the presence of bus stops in the right hand lane along the main highway. Costa Rica is just similar enough to my own home turf to find it amusing that I had to be constantly on the lookout for pedestrians on the highway trying to catch a bus stopped in the outside lane of traffic. But then — I don’t get out much …

So after quickly tiring from the thought of driving by yet another standard issue Costa Rican church (Italy spoils one for that sort of thing) I was completely delighted to stumble across the Romanesque edifice know to locals in Cartago simply as “The Ruin”. This was clearly another kind of project and indeed it turns out to have been designed in the 1870’s by the German architect Francisco Kurtz on a site typified by the frequent destruction of churches due to earthquakes. In keeping with tradition, this example was never completed because it was built on a site typified by the frequent destruction of churches by earthquakes. More recently the church grounds have been made into a very pleasant contemporary sculpture garden featuring one my favorite materials — rusty steel.

I consumed an entire roll of film with my P.90 while wandering among the Costa Rican couples and families who inhabit the grounds apparently oblivious to their original intended role as a place of worship and perhaps even the current focus on the display of rusted personal expression. Naturally I couldn’t help reflecting on the Bungaloft remodel and its attendant seismic concerns as I worked to be inconspicuous with my very conspicuous wooden camera while photographing the roofless remains. My favorite image from that afternoon so far is the one above. I like the tree asserting its presence next to the timeless old structure and my own awareness that just below the frame is the veritable throng of visitors keeping their vigil beneath the beautiful stone walls.

Pond view taken with a P.90 lensless camera

Since the Bungaloft renovation took over my waking hours at the cessation
of the watch winder project last year I haven’t had a lot of time to do much
else. Isn’t there an expression “house finished — life over”?

On the Hill

But just recently I decided to restart production of the P.90 cameras.
After having celebrated the beginnings of the financial meltdown by ceasing
production in late 2007, I have received ongoing interest in the cameras.

Pots and pans

So the last set of cameras from the late 2007 production is being assembled and
should be available for sale this summer. Subsequent to that a new set of P.90
cameras will begin production.

View across vineyard and lake

I’m hoping to lure some current users of the P.90 into sending along some of
their more interesting work.
In the meantime, I am posting a set of my P.90 photos.
If you would like to receive the latest news on the P.90 cameras you can sign
up for the P.90 newsletter using the form available on the right side panel of
the blog.

You’ll also find the original P.90 release newsletter posted on the P.90 page.

Rainscreen siding underway

We have HardiePlank 5 1/4″ lap siding stacked up in the house. Lisa applied the first coat of a delicious Benjamin Moore red paint to each plank. They’ll get finishing coats after installation in complete.

The extant walls in the front (the back half of the house will eventually be almost completely new) are 2 by 4 fir studs with 3/4″ t&g fir cladding on the outside. Among the other creative things the original builder of our house did was to choose a pleasingly random stud spacing. The standard practice for Hardie involves looking for studs at standard spacing to attach to. This was clearly not gonna happen intentionally on the Bungaloft. Dialogs with fiber cement siding engineers and a couple of obscure Hardie documents on rainscreen siding (Technical Bulletin 09152008B) and SIPs construction (Technical Bulletin 07102008) led to the alternative concept of firmly re-attaching the existing fir cladding and using it for the siding substrate.

First lap siding over the insulation and strapping

The rainscreen system will consist of a layer of 15 lb felt serving as a secondary water resistive barrier over the original fir cladding , a layer of 1 ” extruded polystyrene insulation taped, sealed and flashed as the primary water resistive barrier, 1/2 inch pressure treated plywood furring strips and cor-a-vent strips to provide a ventilation space and finally the Hardie siding.

View of the structure of the cladding

The view above shows the Hardie plank applied to the front of the Bungaloft and the preparatory work done on the adjacent side. the first strip of siding is applied with a thin starter strip over the cor-a-vent which is in turn applied at the intersection of the 1 inch Fomular insulation and the custom flashing I designed to manage water intrusion and keep bugs away from the bottom edge of the foam. That detail can be seen below.

Rainscreen vent over foamular insulation and custom flashing

I’ve consulted voluminous sources of information during the course of the Bungaloft project and on the rainscreen issue in particular I have found the extensive writings of modern building science researcher Joe Lstiburek of BuildingScience.com very informative. A lot of similar information is now routinely presented and discussed on the GreenBuildingAdvisor.com website. Some usefull information can also be found at the ToolBase Services Rainscreen article. But one thing is painfully clear — there is no one single one-size-fits-all solution for rainscreen design. You have to evaluate your particular case against climate issues, structural issues, budget issues, local practice and the building codes to find something that makes sense.

A new replacement for damaged sill horns.

The four front windows in the Bungaloft project were original cottage style, double hung, single pane windows. A while back we replaced the sashes with Marvin Tilt-pack units that made a tremendous difference both in thermal efficiency and noise transmission. But it was clear at that time that the window frames were a bit marginal. So as part of the remodel process, I have taken out the windows and done restoration to improve matter a bit.

Trial fitting the sill horn replacement.

One of the windows had significant damage to the “horns” at the outside of the sill. So a replacement front edge was made from material reclaimed from the house demolition.

Flanges being fitted to the windows.

I devised a plan to attach flanges fabricated from pressure treated plywood to each of the windows to facilitate installing them with the insulated, ventilated rainscreen siding. Each flange strip has an edge of fir (also reclaimed from the house) attached to the inner edge that will be visible under the final trim. The PT flanges are the same thickness as the furring strips for the rainscreen so they will also provide a place to attach siding adjacent to the windows.

Dentil shelf ready to attach

We found this beautiful six light, three panel fir door on Craig’s list. It’s a blank with no holes or hinge mounts. Since part of the plan for the Bungaloft is to maintain a bungalow character at the front of the house, I decided to add a typical Craftsman door detail — a dentil shelf.

A couple of pieces of very nice, quarter-sawn fir taken out of the house during the demo phase were hanging out in the shop so I did a few variations on shape and proportion of the three basic components until I landed on one that seemed to work best. In the photo above, the dentil shelf layout is complete with an initial finish coat applied in preparation for gluing the assembly to the front of the middle door rail. There is no finish on the door at this point so the color is different from the dentil shelf.

A couple of other pieces of 8/4 quarter-sawn fir will be used to make the door frame with. I also had some weather seal products left over from an earlier project. The adjustable door bottom seal from Resource Conservation Technologies has been mounted into the door at this point and will be followed with WS-14 silicone jamb seals mounted into the door jambs and head once I fabricate the door frame and threshold.

Although the door is not insulated, the six lights are double pane, bevelled glass so, combined with the weather seals, this should be a reasonably energy efficient entry door.

I wanted hardware that wasn’t necessarily traditional Craftsman while still retaining some of the character of the style. So when I saw this Emtek Tuscany cast bronze knob set at my favorite local hardware store — WC Winks, it seemed like a good fit. A nicely matching deadbolt and hinge set completes the package.

Roof corner with primed wood

Finally a roof!

It seems like an eternity since it first became apparent the roof would be claiming first priority in the Bungaloft project. But a big sigh of relief came over me following a day in the rain installing shingles with my roofer Mike Black and his helper. One day later it was essentially done. I still have to nicely trim the shingles at the edges and finish the varge rafter treatment but worries about rain and wind are now a thing of the past.

Lisa and I had spent some time looking at roofing material options. The variegated appearance of the common architectural style shingles was particularly unappealing. Soon we found that we had to look at somewhat more expensive shingles with a more uniform color but a more exaggerated physical appearance.

Since we had a color scheme in mind, the shingle color selection fell into place easily.

Once we got these shingles on the roof  it was clear we would be happy with our choice.

Now it’s on to the siding. The next big adventure.