Columbus Art Museum: The Shapes
August 19, 2010
We're making good progress on the interactive stabiles for the Columbus Art Museum we mentioned last month. Ben, our in-house industrial designer and materials aficionado, found the best ever material for the shapes: polyethylene, a colorful heavy duty plastic normally used on playground equipment that's fade resistant, crack resistant, and practically indestructible. Perfect for the beating we expect (or hope!?) these stabiles to take!
Here's a rendering of the shapes:
And here are (a portion of) the actual shapes:
Also in the Queue
August 13, 2010
Here's another project in our queue:
This piece will hang from the decorative recessed ceiling in the lobby of an orthopedic clinic in York, Pennsylvania. It will hang about 16 feet wide by 14 feet tall.
And yes, it's shaping up to be a very busy fall.
Gateway Church
August 4, 2010
Here's the newest project in our queue: a 40-foot long piece that will hang in a newly completed church in Dallas. The structure will include 22 individual pieces, each about 4 feet long by 1 1/2 feet wide.
Here's the rendering:
As an interesting side note, this particular client came across us when he saw one of our early commissions, which hangs in a rec center in Saginaw, Texas. It's mind boggling to think how much we've learned since that particular project. Needless to say, we're excited to work on this!
Columbus Museum of Art: The Bases
July 27, 2010
We're working on a really fun project right now: An interactive set of stabiles with interchangeable arms and hanging parts that will be on display at the Columbus Museum of Art.
The stabile bases are about 3 feet tall, and each will include 15 varying-sized arms and 32 shapes.
Here are the stabile bases waiting patiently to be powder coated:
Collaboration
July 23, 2010
We just finished up another collaborative project with local mobile
artist/glass worker extraordinaire, Leah Pellegrini. (See November 11,
2008 for the first collaboration.) The project included a set of four
8-foot-wide by 4-foot-tall mobiles. Leah designed the mobiles and
created the glass shapes. We did the wire bending, balancing, packing,
and shipping overseas to the Hong Kong International School.
Museum (Gift Shop) Worthy
July 14, 2010
If you're in the Chicago area anytime before October, be sure to check out the Museum of Contemporary Art's Calder exhibit. And while you're there, be sure to check out the gift shop for the Ekko Mobiles exhibit! Ok, "exhibit" might be an overstatement... Still, we're honored to be in such good company.
Texas Twosome
July 8, 2010
Another blast from the past. Rather blasts from the past, both projects in Texas (and images shot by the same photographer).
The first mobile was created and installed in November 2008 for the North Austin Women Hospital. At the time, we struggled to capture images of the piece because of how it hung within the staircase, not fully visible from any vantage point. Ah, but leave it to a professional to pull out the fisheye lens.
And this is a mobile we completed for the San Antonio Children's Hospital (May 5, 2009). Love this photo! (But frankly, anything would have been better than the pathetic iPhone photos we snapped at the install.)
SemiSwing Junior (Blast from the Past)
July 2, 2010
In case you haven't noticed, we've been on a mission to collect images of past projects. Here's a mobile we created two summers ago (see August 21, 2008) for a client in Houston.
She had such an interesting design challenge: fit a floor-to-ceiling mobile in a little living room nook between two doorways–without getting in the way. While we were happy with our creation, we never saw how the mobile fit into the space...until now!
Rapides Lobby
June 29, 2010
Our client for the Rapides Regional Medical Center project just sent along these fun photos of the completed lobby where we installed the massive mobile back in February. Call us biased, but we think the mobile looks great with the lobby's bright color scheme and playful design elements.
Omaha Pictures
June 23, 2010
We just got this images of the mobile we recently installed at the Ambassador Health System facility in Omaha. We love how it looks in its entryway atrium!
Upwardly Mobile in Neighborhood Notes
June 18, 2010
A Portland blogger did a great write up on local mobile artists, including yours truly.
Check it out here!
Omaha
June 11, 2010
It's no secret that our photography skills need some work. So for this picture, we're keeping it real. You get to see our attempt at a decent shot of our latest piece...with the shop in its full glory in the background.
This piece hangs 15 feet tall, and Matt is headed to Omaha next week to install it in an existing hospital's newly completed atrium lobby.
Harpo Studios
June 1, 2010
Four summers ago, back when Matt was a one-man shop working out of the garage of his townhome, he completed a mobile for Harpo Studios. The mobile looked beautiful, but unfortunately, these were the only images captured of the piece:
Cute, but not exactly portfolio worthy, right?
So imagine our surprise when just this week, we got these beautiful images of the piece in its real-life home at Harpo! Thanks Oprah & friends!
Copper Vs. Cardboard
May 26, 2010
Remember the cardboard model we mentioned back in March? Here's the final product. This is for a fellow in California whose home has a lot of copper elements, so we incorporated a good mix of copper, silver, and black shapes into this original design. The piece hangs 9 feet wide by 6 feet tall and moves freely with the slightest current.
Seeking a Good Home
May 18, 2010
In this photo, Matt is making final adjustments on a scaled-down mobile model we recently pitched to a local library. The library folks opted for something much less modern, so now this new design needs a good home. Any takers? The final piece was designed to be 18 feet tall by 10 feet wide, but we can tweak dimensions (and colors and just about everything else) to suit your space. Let us know!
Glamour Shots
April 30, 2010
Our friends at the Rockingham Hospital sent along these photos. Aren't they lovely?
(Man, photography skills make us jealous.)
Our Neighbors to the North
April 21, 2010
Here's a mobile we shipped to Canada a few weeks back. It hangs 12 feet tall by 4 feet wide and will reside in a Tortonto office building.
The Good, the Bad, and the Beautiful
April 16, 2010
The Good: The Rockingham mobile made it safely to Harrisonburg. So did Matt and Ben.
The Bad: The installation proved tricker than anticipated. Matt and Ben had to install mounting points above the drop-grid ceiling. As pictured below, they spent a lot of time in the underbelly (or rather upperbelly?) of the hospital. In the end, the install required working 40 nonstop hours. 40 hours! (It's tiring just thinking about that.)
The Beautiful: The mobile. We're so happy with it!
Harrisonburg or Bust
April 6, 2010
Well, our Rockingham mobile is officially en route to Harrisonburg, Virginia. To streamline things, we crated and shipped it directly from our powder coater’s shop. It’s hard to tell in that last photo whether Matt’s (temporary) farewell to the piece is teary, nerve-wracked, or just plain relieved…
The Model
March 31, 2010
We’ve squeezed a custom mobile for a private residence into our production schedule. Here’s the cardboard model we threw together to figure out sizing and balancing points. Cardboard on wood paneling is quite the combo, no?
