let it snow, let it snow, let it snow

As part of a new project on which I'm working - "Cold Genius" - I needed to draw a LOT of snowflakes in Rhino, which is possible using a 30:60:60 degree triangle and cutting out chunks, then duplicating and mirroring it and rotating copies around an axis. What a hassle! However, a quick online search brought me this brilliant Snowflake Generator from Evil Mad Scientist Laboratories. Worth using for the name alone.

wholly unsatisfying

Just had the most horribly non-achieving week. Everything I tried to do ended in problems which can only be solved by waiting for tools and materials to be delivered.
Bah!

recharging the batteries

The end of the week. I've finished all my work for the exhibition and have started making the boxes - from old cigar boxes (which I get from a tobacco merchant in Edinburgh, not by smoking!) - for the pieces. Next week, I will be in Brighton to recharge the batteries and to work on an idea which has been obsessing me for quite a while: a box/pendant on the theme of "Cold Genius" based on the ideas from Act III, Scene II of Purcell's opera "King Arthur".

This has been at the back of my mind for a very long time, and I've never known quite how to tackle it. The breakthrough came last weekend when talking to a good friend in Edinburgh, Jeff Zimmer, who makes medium-scale glass sculptures based on toy theatres:

It struck me that as I am trying to interpret a theatre piece, a small, wearable "theatre" would be the answer. As many of my previous pieces have been box-shaped structures in which ideas are framed, I thought that this would be a fine solution.

With any luck, I will be back from Brighton and ready to start work.