Ideas, Inspirations & Ideals

Unlocking Potential \('◡')/

Apr 01, 2024

Unlocking Potential \('◡')/

Does the above image make you wonder, “What the (>▂<) is that?”

It seems like a logical question, besides asking “Who took the lousy picture?!”

It’s one of my little projects that gave me the raison dêtre for this post. True, it is an odd picture and I can already hear your snarky thoughts about where this is going, but if you are an artist, you will be able to relate as everything shall be demystified. Besides, the rest of the Internet is full of empty AI calories that will leave you feeling jaded, tired and bloated, so stick around.

Ideas

When I get the idea for a project, I am sometimes daunted as to where to begin. But when I get a very fanciful or peculiar idea, I discover that the more bizarre the undertaking, the better because odd jobs are often more fun, and the more fun, the more likely I will create a piece with distinction.

Inspiration

Without inspiration, building upon an idea is simply - work. When I am inspired, the starting off period indubitably yields to an intense, all-consuming, single-minded pursuit. I can’t help it! If the project is going to have my name on it, then it has to be perfect and beautiful, or, Perfectly Beautiful! This is where I am my happiest, thick in the middle of that motivation, hurtling through an energy field of generative excellence.

Once I focus on an inspiration, things such as food or sleep become mere silhouettes that lurk in a dusky corner as an energetic fantasy-wild plays out in my mind. Those pesky essentials only creep in from the shadows when my eyes refuse to focus and my hands begin to falter. Whatever that powerful force is that impels me to create, it will never rest until I at least take the first steps and set the process in motion.

Ideals

My tagline is; “Turning Thought Into Form” with the ideal of attaining the ultimate in purpose, profile and potential. On the rare occasion when I can actually build something for myself, well, that’s a big deal! My wonderful readers know that I make a lot of creative projects with their function generally, upon first glance, obvious. Some of them, however, as in the above image, not so much.

Yes, there really IS a point to all this...

My lovely and adventuresome wife, along with our friend Sharon, recently went on a madcap quest to fill our home with even more gizmos, thingamabobs, whatchamacallits, doohickeys, and whatnots. As luck would have it, their intrepid instincts pointed them in the direction of an estate sale. And they struck gold, GOLD I tell you, GOLD! Much to my astonishment, she brought home an item that has actually improved our lives!

For the mere cost of seven and a half fiat American dollars, we are now the proud owners of a bread-making machine. And I’ve gone WILD making bread which is just perfect for my corpulent fat-in-the-aft figure. The upshot is that store-bought bread is now ancient history in our house.

Which means that I now have to slice my own bread. A lot of bread. And I HATE slicing bread! Why? Because I’m hyper-incompetent at it, so... I had to do something about that and took the following steps:

STEP 1) I had an IDEA to build something to guide my hand while slicing bread, and quite frankly, that was the easy part. But, since I’m a cheap bastard, I wasn’t about to go and BUY the required materials for such a project, nope, I instead looked around my shop and;
STEP 2) I soon became truly INSPIRED after I not only imagined how a guide should work, but how I was going to build one without paying the OTHER cheap bastard that owns our local hardware store. Since I already had the materials, that led to;
STEP 3) The IDEAL - I combined the two previous steps by making a functional item built exclusively from items on hand and yet still made it look cool (at least *I* think so)!

Behold! The manually operated, zero-emission, 3D-analog, bread-slicing guide-thingy!

Scraps of Lexan® and left-over butcher-block — Home-made guide for slicing home-made bread!

Though still in the developmental stage, this BETA model is an essential tool for graceless, ham-handed people such as myself who can’t cut a simple slab of bread without it coming out pie-shaped - ARGH! - The slicer is made entirely from recycled materials. The butcher-block was scrap from a counter-top job, the LEXAN is a remnant from a greenhouse project and the handle was salvaged from an old wood-frame window. This is how to recycle!

I hope this all makes sense. Just think of:

Problem + Reaction = Solution / Idea + Inspiration = Ideal

If you have an IDEA, don’t let it die there, get INSPIRED and with these two properties, you synergize them into the IDEAL that you envision!

[NOTE: If you own one of these bread machines but have been disappointed in the impenetrable, rocklike bricks it produces, I’ve got great news! I’ve developed a masterpiece recipe that will dazzle your taste buds with a light, fluffy white-bread wrapped in a buttery crunchy crust! Click here for that and other recipes I am foolishly giving away. You’re welcome.]

✝ A Promise Kept ✝

I made something meaningful, meaning this isn’t about me.

Friends of this Substack are ~~tired of reading about~~ keenly aware of how I keep finding and collecting large amounts of materials, mainly wood, but also wood-framed windows and antiques. Over the years, Kathie and I have been the gracious recipients of glass of all kinds. We love it when this happens and we owe these folks our steadfast appreciation. But, I have to share the untold story of being the recipient of not just A HUGE, HUGE CACHE OF GLASS, but I tell this tale not so much for the glass, but because this was a singularly formidable occasion.

Honor for the fallen soldier. I built this case for his father in order to house this handmade flag. This is all he asked of me.

The saga began in the mid summer of 2017, a time where the afternoon heat can almost, ALMOST make me wish the Autumn rain would return. (During these moments of insanity I immediately dunk my head into a bucket of ice-water and snap out of it.)

This opportunity came in the form of a fellow artist named Sally Joan Jones, a really sweet woman with highly accomplished mosaic skills. She alerted Kathie and I about somebody getting rid of a bunch of glass, but didn’t know much more than that. “Cool!” I thought to myself, as this is generally my first reaction before I end up getting in over my head and wondering why ... why.

We were put in contact with Dave and Sheryl, a very friendly and humble couple in their seventy’s who’s years of arduous toil worked lines of experience upon their brow. On their multi-acre property, off to one corner, stood an old structure, if you could call it “standing” or even a “structure” at this stage.

It was the stuff of legend. The location was a former glass company who’s owner had a fondness for a substance that traditionally comes in glass bottles and he left the place a total disaster. I keep hearing of television shows where apparently camera crews are present when ~~actors~~ totally ordinary people allegedly discover rare items in a barn that so happens to be ~~prearranged~~ easily accessible for some reason. Well, this was indeed a “barn find” but the “barn” was a large metal roof four-bay garage that was so badly decomposed and falling down that it was listing like an inebriated shipwreck. In order to access this glass, we would had to scale huge mounds of trash, broken timbers and other treacherous items barricading what we could see was a HUGE trove of glass of all sorts!

It turns out that they were getting rid of some glass alright, about enough that we would eventually have to make three trips in my faithful and enduring 1-ton truck, and I had to leave behind several tons of mirror and not-so-precious patterned and colored glass to boot!

They then said that after we take what we want, they were going to bulldoze it all down and have it hauled off.

(⓿_⓿) Everything? (⓿₀⓿) Bulldozed?

Yep. Every. Single. Thing. Razed to the ground and taken to a landfill. They had no choice, actually, and helped us extract and load up much of these materials.

What *I* found most astonishing in this unnerving episode is just how extraordinarily gallant and brave my wife Kathie is! Either that or she wasn’t fully cognizant of the manifest danger at hand. This rickety old place would groan, creek and shutter whenever the wind blew. There were hazards everywhere, yet she would go anywhere I went as I tunneled through these giant piles of haphazard glass, trash, car parts, timbers and more than I can describe here. I often held her back from taking the risk that I’m dumb enough to walk into myself.

But there’s more to it than this.

Dave and Sheryl lost their oldest son whilst he was serving in the US military. We didn’t ask the details as it was clear the pain was still a burden of terrible weight. After we were finishing up with the last load, I asked Dave if there was anything I can do for them?

He thought about this for a moment and, knowing that I build glass and wood projects, said, “Do you think you could make a frame for a flag knitted for my boy? We lost him in the war.”

I asked him what size, he showed me the flag, I took the measurements and said, “I would be honored.”

I made this from reclaimed maple, walnut and mahogany. I did purchase new glass as he wants to have something etched upon it.