About RAZOR Right
A hand-drawn wave, a razor blade, and a few years of not knowing what to do with it.
The Experiment
Originally this piece was a simple experiment — much like most of the art I create. I was trying something new by covering small abstract paintings and stained wood with masking tape, hand drawing designs with a pencil, then cutting the designs out of the tape to reveal what lay below.
I had experimented with a few different wave designs before eventually creating Razor Right — named such because the hand drawn design was cut out of the tape with a small razor blade… which was quite a pain in the ass.
Masking tape over stained wood
Masking tape over stained wood
Masking tape over painted wood
Into the Shadows
Once I finished cutting out the design, I stared aimlessly at it for quite some time and realized I had absolutely no idea what to do with it. So naturally, I placed it out of sight — right alongside all the other projects I had started and never followed through with.
A few months later, while rummaging around my studio looking for something else, I found it again. I stared at it for a while, waiting for some spark of inspiration to show up.
It never did.
Still unsure of what to do with it, I figured I could at least have it scanned and digitized so I could use it for something in the future — because I was really stoked on how the design came out.
This is the result…
As happy as I was with how it turned out… I still had no idea what to do with it. So again, it was pushed into the shadows and forgotten about.
Fast forward two years and the ideas finally started coming.
MAKE IT METAL.
I decided I wanted to create sculpture pieces out of metal and wood — my two favorite materials to work with outside of painting. I initially tried cutting pieces of aluminum by hand, without much success. Then I tried cutting the design out of wood with various tools — also with very limited success.
After much trial and error, I had the original scan converted into a file for a CNC machine used to cut metal. I took the file down to the local metal shop filled with excitement, thinking about all of the possibilities.
And finally, the seed that was planted a few years back began to bear fruit.
These are the first two pieces from the initial metal shop run — and I could not be more stoked with how they came out. Stainless steel was the medium of choice for the first run.
What’s Next
I am continuing to explore the possibilities with this design — combining different types and cuts of wood, different combinations and colors of stains, unique frames, and moving forward will be exploring a wide range of sizes.
The first run of Razor Right has been a great creative experiment, opening a door to a wide range of future possibilities that I could not be more excited about.