Happy Friday to ya's good friend :)
(now Saturday [after it since 4:00A] as I had appts yesterday that I needed to be to and never finished or published)
Man! the tempo of the weeks - months since our Bonus Dad's passing, the holidays thereafter, the emotional fallout between the suddenness and the 1 year anniversary of Chas's late Mom, then, then.. man! ... all of which is a part of life, but it's a challenge to be positive and have gas for a lot of things.
I've also noticed it in my writings. Either they're super emotional or they're short, or, or...
But one thing I've not shared with a friend has been a story about building some cool ass shit!! :)
So on this Grateful Friday! :) I am just going to have fun and show some pretty cool ass shit I've had the incredible privilege of doing! :)
NOTE!
I am coming down from a designer's high of having gotten home last night at 8pm, after completing a 26 hour heaven of a lighting install job. I was asked to simply install 4 pendant lights to spruce up a kitchen and a bar area. After meeting the clients and sharing with them some past projects they said "YES ~ PLEASE!" "Can we please put you on our schedule to do that?"
I had SO! much fun I realized that I hadn't shared with yall any kind of cool shit in a while!
In my past life I had the opportunity to work in the electrical design field doing a number of different things. One of which introduced me to the idea of art through lighting. Accounting for shadows, color rendering, balance, style, you name it.
With the passion of building water features and making neat stuff I had always wanted to try this certain idea.. I wanted to make a cross water feature and light the inside of it so that during the day you could just see the fountain run, meanwhile you could only see the shape of the cross showcasing the fountain... then! at night, down lighting would pop through the footprint of the cross, literally exploding with light!.. MAN! I was jacked! ... but, I had to wait almost two years before an opportunity presented itself... Sur'nuf! It did! and she was like, YES! DO it! ... So I did!
That is all that needed to happen for me to fall in love with lighting....
My ideas and creative bandwidth increased over the years... You know what would be cool?!! YES! DO IT! :)
Bam!
Another idea came to mind.. merging a static piece of art in front of the water, through the light to create something different again. YES ~ PLEASE!
Notice the beak of the hummingbird inside the footprint of the stained glass flower. Man! I was thrilled with the design.
As time would carry on the lighting technology got better and so did my capabilities of what was possible.... so when clients would hear me talk about what was possible, they were like YES! PLEASE!
So we did!
Pikes Peak sand blasted on the back of the glass so that bright 5000K LED's would pop and reflect off of the white backer coming through as bright snow... then, sand blasted on the front of the glass as the foreground of the mountainscape while downlit from the top giving another dimension. Time and material would only get better... with that followed a level of complexity and untested ideas I had not yet encountered. Here is a design where I needed a partition to be installed between the logo to separate the different usage of colors.
Followed by a unique color code..
That had to be taped separate from each other, then individually painted, then dried, then peeled, then taped again.. repeated 5 times.
But damn dude!!
Hella cool ass shit!
Then taped one last time to make sure no light could punch through the paint.. of which in prior testings showed that light would cut through the paint. This aluminum tape ensured no light would get through...
Sur'nuff!!! I was right!
And we fricken nailed it!!
One client wanted to backlight the sand blasted design AND backlight the product itself.. MAN! Beautiful!
As time went on, the stresses of the fountain biz mixed with my double life as a realtor and handyman, I had to retire from the business... I couldn't go without one last attempt of pushing the envelope... So I did one last time.
Sandblasted and painted American flag on the back, the Punisher backlit exclusively like the power of Iron Man... meanwhile, Marc Lee's silhouette on the front of the glass with downlighting topping it off... man! a true piece of art.. boy did I enjoy that build... However in doing so, I closed a chapter of my life. It was the last fountain I made... we donated it to our nonprofit foundation, AmericasMightyWarriors.org and it raised $5,800 that evening as a live auction item... a hell of an experience. :)
Transitioning from not building fountains anymore was hard for the creative heart.. but it was the right decision. The only challenge was that I had a shit load of ideas with no outlet to make that happen...
Then, the universe would provide..
I was talking with a gud handyman customer and after installing some artwork I shared some cool ideas on how to sex up their entire livingroom, kitchen, and pool table area... she said YES~PLEASE! and have fun!!....
Like a caged animal set free! I was out again, having fun, and doing cool shit!
We knocked it out of the park! MAN!
Notice the "UNDER COUNTERTOP LIGHTING!!
YESSIR!!! see how it lights up the floor?! dang bro! :)
Not only is the look incredible, the utilization of the under countertop lights! WOW! :)
She said have fun!... so we continued to! :)
Here's a video of me talking about the lighting and controlling it via a remote control. It's super cool to watch all come together! :)
This single opportunity perpetuated more incredible projects for people to enjoy! :)
This kitchen, the builder installed lower cabinet lighting. Of which didn't have the right color balance. So shortly after the amazing backsplash was installed (ahem... not bad if I say so myself!) hahah! ... we updated the lowers to correct the color rendering/brightness. :) Made a huge difference! :)
I love the shadowing and the cuts it makes against the ceiling! :)
One of the things I enjoy so much is drilling the raceway holes, where the electrical route will go, cutting out the length of lights followed by the wire, soldering, and sometimes creating custom parts.
Like an erector set without instructions, or ALL the parts needed. It's certainly been a learning experience. I think it's cool that I have pictures all the way back from when the ideas started and transitioned. :)
Thanks for letting me share that stuff with you! :)
Who knows what other kinds of neat things clients will grant me the opportunity to shed some light on the future.. :) Until then, I will continue to ponder the endless possibilities :)
Have an amazing weekend!
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