Cleaning Up

The other day I came into the shop and found an angry Pete. He and I had a little talk about keeping the shop in order. He asked me to pass on a few words about that. "My biggest pet peeve is tools," he said. "I'm tired of coming in here in the morning and finding all my tools missing." This is number one. If you use a tool in the shop, put it back where it came from. If you just found it laying around, and you don't know where it belongs, just put it back where you found it. Don't weld tools together, and don't weld pieces of scrap metal to them. Finally, If you use up a grinder, weld spool, compressed air tank, etc., tell someone so you can learn to replace it.

If it applies to you, read the rest of this note HERE.

Special Announcement: Jewelry Alert

Hey, it's Tucker again, here with a special announcement: The Trenton Atelier is now making jewelry! Thanks to a little bit of inspiration by Renata, one of the friends of the Atelier, I decided to get back on my horse in that division. And so, now we make necklaces, bracelets, and whatever whimsies come to mind. An incomplete necklace.

A few ideas I have.

Playing with colors.

Some of Renata's beading.

Seizure in three...two...one...

Some of the leather strips I cut.

The muse, Renata, working on some stuff.

 

Just thought everyone should know what's going on here.

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Finished Albert's HeliShuttle modular wheeled frame.  Works great.

Tucker made lunch for the day.

See the full gallery on posterous

Monroe Brothers are working on the Thiel Foundation "20 Under 20" grant applications.

See the full gallery on posterous

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Last days of 2010 in the Trenton Atelier. 

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While embracing the snowstorm with delicious free food, 

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we worked with Al doing some artwheelz for a New Year's party in NYC.
[[posterous-content:pid___61]] After four hours that turned into twenty four, the beast is ready to go crazy on Friday night!

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Hey, Bryan here posting another entourage of images from my eccentric artsy life. First up. "Raining Bananas" - peels and frame on blue wall.

"A Helping Hand"  - colored pencil on paper

We ordered replacement screens for two of our laptops, and I replaced both, but the MacBook screen came broken, so we are waiting for a response from LaptopScreen.com.  The other screen we received worked great and had no dead pixels or any problems.

I've also taken on the fun challenge of developing a flier/ad for the Trenton Cultural Arts Summit to be held late January/early February 2011 at Artworks Trenton. The Summit will be open to artists, activists, creatives, and anyone who is interested in creatively re-inventing the City of Trenton through the Arts and Culture. We've also been putting the whiteboard to good use, filling it up with our plans for various gadgets and gizmos, improvements on technology, and just plain crazy philosophical meanderings.  There's always something new to see on the white-board.  We have been using recycled whiteboard markers so far (ones gathered from college moveout trashpiles), but these will not last forever, so, we should look into eco-conscious dry-erase markers? or switch to recycled paper and pencils? Eli swung by the shop today for a metal-working lesson and firebowl construction lesson.  He chopped, grinded, cut, and welded his way through the day. After many hours of learning and crafting, Eli's FireBowl was complete.  Great work Eli! We've also been working on a modular bicycle-wheel cart (The HeliShuttle) for artist Albert Wilkins.  Made from extended bicycle forks, pieces of a bed frame, old rebar, this custom metal job was created using mostly recycled materials. The cart must break down into several smaller parts, making it a challenging project.  Today we decided to add shear reinforcements to prevent racking and add structural stability to the front wheels, which are stationary.  Tubes and tires will be added tomorrow, and the cart will then make its way on to be fitted with the HeliShuttle fuselage.