Mechanical Artwork and other art items

I started making Chess sets last year for Christmas.  here is one set that I made.  The pictures are a bit vauge.  This one is out of stainless steel tidbits I found.  I made one set out of old nuts bolts and radio tubes.  I am awaiting pictures for that one from my dear friends.

This is a hand crank powered copper rotating gyroscope that I built in 1999 for an art class.  It consists of 5 concentric copper rings that rotate in three dimentions on 4 different pivots.  These pivots conduct electricity to the central portion of the gyroscope where a lamp is located.   This structure origionally was 120AC and had a 200Watt halogen bulb located in the center.  No one could look at it or touch it unless they wore hand and eye protection (I  liked this alot because it was a piece of artwork that you couldn't touch or see without it hurting you).  I had since changed it to 6volts DC and made it a little safer.   It was origionally used in a performance art piece where it cast the most incredible shadows over a large area.   I renovated it recently and installed two tiny copper ships that move around on the base as the main handle crank is turned.   These ships (one a pirate ship and the other a french gondola) have a little girl and guy on them.  When the ships rotate around the base and their passengers touch in an embrace, they conduct the electricity to turn on the light in the center of the gyroscope above them. This is currently on sale at A'New fine consinment furniture in Columbus Ohio.

Above is my angel gun.   It uses a super bright 5 watt luxeon to cast a shadow of a gyroscope shape on the ground.  It worked great.  The brass rings would spin in three dimentions producing a dazeling image.

These are some scenes I decorated for a dinosaur exhibit at Brooklyn Children's Museum.  They are a bit degraded after 3 months of being tuged at by children.

All images, designs, and inventions displayed on this page are the sole property of Brian Matthews as protected by the Copyright laws of the United States.

Back to Piratebrian's Main Page