We're spending the month of April knocking out this series of mobiles. Based on mobiles we made for Ride Connection last fall, these three mobiles will hang in the stairway of a new elementary school in Delaware. Stay tuned for pictures of the process!
Outdoor Standing Mobile
We're in the middle of making a scaled-up version of our Standing Circles Mobile that will reside outdoors. This clip shows how nicely it will move in the wind!
Design Within Reach Desktop Mobiles
Here's one of the things filling Matt's time lately:
Creating lots and lots of Standing Circles Mobiles for Design Within Reach. Get one here!
Circles and Spiral Mobile
Here are graphic renderings of a new project in our queue:
We're creating this mobile for an art consultant firm that we've worked with in the past. They needed a relatively large mobile within a strict budget. To provide the most bang for their buck, we tweaked one of our existing mobile design and tailored it to the space. The final piece will hang 16' tall by 7' wide.
White River Spruce Up
Earlier this month, Matt and Ben headed back to Batesville, Arkansas to perform scheduled maintenance on our White River piece. The mobile hangs over a hospital food court, so to minimize impact on operations, they worked through the night. (Two nights, actually!)
The mobile was lowered halfway, partly disassembled, and each shape was individually de-greased and polished. And now it's back to its original shiny, beautiful state!
Leftovers
We're headed off the recyclers today with this pile of scrap:
This pile of aluminum is the leftover scrap from the laser cutting process of our Ekko Workshop mobiles. These are the leftovers of about 1,500 mobiles!
Oregon State University Mobile Installation
Here are behind-the-scenes pictures of last week's installation at Oregon State University. This gives a little glimpse into the painstaking process behind installing a 40-foot mobile.
Oregon State University Mobile
It's done! The mobile for Oregon State University! Matt and Ben started Friday evening and spent the first three hours just getting the hanging point secured. The ceiling was 53 feet tall. The tallest lift they could use in the space was 40 feet tall. It took some creative problem solving to narrow that 13-foot gap...
After that, it was smooth sailing. They finished at 6:30 a.m. Saturday morning and headed straight to a celebratory breakfast. (Denny's has never tasted so good.)
Ringing in the New Year!
2015 has gotten off to a good start. We just got back a pile of rings from the powder coater, which puts us on the home stretch for the Oregon State University project! Rest assured, nobody will be hula hooping these polished, powder-coated, perfectly packaged beauties. From here on out, they get the white glove treatment.
As a side note, when the trusty Subaru is too tiny for project materials, Matt and Ben opt for ZipCar pickup trucks. In this case, not even a pickup was large enough, so the guys built a platform to carefully transport the rings.
Reminiscing about 2014
Whew. What a year! After looking over all the stuff we did in 2014, it's no wonder we're in serious need of some rest and relaxation! Maybe once the Oregon State University project is finished? Maybe?
Here are a few highlight:
- This shiny new website!
- Dinosaurs, Kites, Raindrops, Hexagons, and Clouds.
- Local projects!
- That project in paradise. (Sorry, our contract prevents us from giving any details. But we CAN say it was the best locale ever.)
- Ekko Workshop at NY NOW—our first trade show!
- Almost finishing this mobile. We're so close! (So stay tuned...)