Starting with 3D Design, I took a kinetic wood assignment that was limited to using only 2" x 4" Douglas Fir, wood dowels and glue and created the Malinke Drum Machine.  

Fire Dancers was my first welding project. As an assignment to create a light or shadow drawing, I created a fire kinetic sculpture using 16ga mild steel sheet, 1/4" pencil rod and a found 2" steel pipe.

In this work, I plasma torch cut a number of dancers through a slip-rolled cylinder. Inside are large steel fan blades with a cone at the center that balances atop the central pipe affixed with a machine-pointed rod. When a fire is built, the updraft of the heat interacts with the interior turbine, causing the figures to dance around the fire. The fire pit is vented with the rope pattern found in djembes, a popular West African drum.

This work was featured at WonderLab (a Children's Science museum in Bloomington, Indiana) during their "Forged By Fire- Kinetic Fire" a month long series of events showcasing the various ways fire and heat are used in the creative art process. WFIU, the local NPR affiliate, interviewed me for their local program featuring the exhibit. You can listen to it here:

http://wfiu.indiana.edu/podcasts/audio/artsInterviews/11/110222-forged-by-fire.mp3?nopop


Fire DancersMild Steel, fire48" x 30" x 30"2007
dismantled 2012

Water Chimes is a water kinetic sculpture that captures rain water to fill corresponding lower tubes. Once the tubes reach a determined level, they dump out and strike a chime with a wooden hammer.

 Water Chimes
Steel, PVC,deconstructed wind chime, wood dowel and rain
48" x 26" x 26"
2007

destroyed 2012

Abandoned Space #1 uses abandoned fabric and wood to render an abandoned glass blowing factory in Fort Smith Arkansas.
 
Abandoned Space #1
Salvaged wall studs, window sill, cabinet panels,
discared t-shirts, thermal underwear, Carhartt Jeans, gesso, oil paint
24" x 36" x 2"
2008

Personal Collection

Each ceramic hand emitted the audio of a series of interviews through piezo-electric discs.

 The question for Our Giving was, "What was the most
meaningful gift you were ever given that was not actually an object, or that was temporary?"

For Our Fist the questions were "Recall a time you instigateda fight" or "Recall a time that you were a victim of aggression or violence."

For Our Greeting the question was "Recall a person you met, established a deep personal interaction with for a small period of time and never saw again."

Our Hands- (Our Giving, Our Fist, Our Greeting):Hand-built earthenware ceramic, peizo electric bendersplywood, gravel, steel, enamel, cable.Each hand was between 14"-18" long. Installed:4' x 5' x 3'
2008

Permanent Collection
Fort Smith Regional Art Museum

Audio sample of the stories emitted by the ceramic hands.

In this sound installation, the listener is surrounded by a rotating procession of voices giving them directions on such disparate things as:
How to dodge a photographic print; How to fire a gas kiln, how to plane wood, write a literary review, paddle a canoe and lay out a drill hole pattern.

The interior of the wooden structure housed a motorized turntable that rotated a speaker to pass by eight physical channels that surrounded the participant in a disorienting succession of voices giving directions. The speaker cones were stationary, the movement was only perceived through sound.

Multi-directional Kioskplywood, wood, bearings, steel, computer speakers,12v battery, MP3 player, foam, DC motor, PVC, papermache of a road atlas and instruction manuals.6' x 6' x 7'
2008

Dismantled 2010

Detail of work with participant for scale.

The audio sample of the device's disorienting effects are best if headphones are used.