Wall 3 | Mysite 2

Bathing In Light - Wall 3

7. "Portal to Your Mind"

8. "Portal to Your Mind 2"

9. "Portal to Your Mind 3"

10. "Energy"

Wall 3

"Energy"

Mixed Media with LED Lights, Sizes Vary

"Portal to Your Mind"

Oil on Canvas, 2' X 3'

"Portal to Your Mind 2"

Oil on Canvas, 1' X 1.3'

"Portal to Your Mind 3"

Oil on Canvas, 2' X 3'

Energy Boxes at Night

Energy Boxes in Daylight

Installation

The Creation and Install of Wall 3

Creating my "Energy" boxes was a long and difficult process. I had previosuly created two "test" boxes and wanted to create three more but change the design slightly.

Wood Working

My perfered medium has been paint for a long time. I find myself getting bored with only painting though and always get ideas for sculptures. This was one of my more ambitious ideas but with the help of my grandfather, I went for it.

Wood Working

Working with wood is not something that comes all that naturally to me but I've always wanted to get better at it. My Grandfather on the other hand taught himself how to build with wood and make incredible pieces of furniture that are truly works of art. So with his guidance and the help of my Dad we got to work on creating my vision.

Wooden Box

We first had to cut grooves into multiple boards that plexiglass would eventually slide into.

Plexi Glass

The challange with this was making sure the grooves were wide enough to fit the plexi glass but not big enough that it would slide around. My plan was to sandwhich two pieces of plexi glass together with geometric shapes cut out of colored overlay film in between them. The hard part is getting the width or the groove to be wide enough for two pieces of plexi because the average saw blade is about the width of one sheet. This means you have to go through at least twice to make one groove and I wanted three grooves for a total of six pieces of plexi. I also wanted strip LED lights to be inlayed into the box so we had to make grooves large enough to fit them as well.

Cutting the Wood to Size

Then to make things even harder on us, my vision was to make three different sized boxes. One 8"X8", 10"X10", and 12"X12" boxes. This means we had to cut perfectly measured sides to each box. Easy in theory but the slightest mistake means the plexi would not fit or we could run out of wood that already had grooves cut into them.

Nailing Box Together

Once the side were cut to size we glued and then nailed the sides together to form a box.

Nailing Box Together

Again this had to be done precisely so that the corners line up.

Clamping Boxes

We then clamped the sides that we glued and nailed together so they would stay at 90 degrees. We left one side open so that I could slide the plexi glass in.

Sanding

Once everything was dry I sanded it all down before painting them.

Cutting Holes in the Covers

We also cut holes in the top of each box that the battery box of each light strip would fit in.

Painting

We then spray painted the boxes black.

Constructing Boxes

I carefully placed the colored film pieces in between plexi glass and then slide them into place for each box. The fit was not perfect so I had to figure out which pieces fit where. I got a few pieces stuck but eventually was able to fit them all in and got the covers to close. This was not an easy process but I'm so glad they came out the way I was invisioning.