More Progress: Combining Two Disciplines

Well I've been working very hard on my new project. And today, I finished it! It is called "The Altar of the Oracle: Cleansing." It is an altar made from numerous types of wood, but primarily maple. It also features a massive amount of metal work. The interesting part about the metak work is the fact that a good chunck of it is functional and somewhat hidden.


Of course, to start explaining this piece, I should explain why I made it. It started as an assignment for my furniture design class where we had to choose an object and base a table design on said object. The object that I picked was a wooden incense burner. Oddly enough, the incense burner is not part of the finished table, though it was the influence for it. The idea for the design came from Aztec temples, which are very modular and geometric. Generally, I avoid geometric shapes, but I felt that when addressing the topic of religion, geometry and predictability worked well conceptually. The design of the altar evolved in a large way from its original design, but art is living.


Here is a picture of the altar after the wood was cut, glued, and sanded.

As you can see, there is a kneeler in front of the altar. The altar itself is only about 3" tall total. The back of the altar resemples an Aztec temple quite literally.


Here it is after staining it with red mahogony. I chose this color because it was the same stain that was used for the woodwork in my childhood church of St. Matthew's in Syracuse.

As you can see, there are holes in the center of the table. So I suppose this would be a great opportunity to further explain why this altar is a little bit special.


Those holes serve as a plumbing connection. For what? Good question. For the fountain that had to be installed into the table. Since I pictured this table as a cleansing space, I wanted to play into this idea of ceremonial cleansing and preparation. In the center of the table, I decided to place a brass bowl. One that I sunk and raised by hand. Coming from the back of the altar, there would be a flow of water into the bowl. This played off of the common religious concept of purity and renewel.

This is an image of the brass bowl and the faucet. Though we metalsmiths are trained well in clean-up of work, I opted into keeping, and in some cases forcing, the fire scale on the brass to pull a more aged look out of the metal.

But how would a person make this work? Well, I started out by gutting a small decorative fountain for its water pump. I then fabricated the housings for all of the components that would be used to run the fountain.


Here is an image of the pump motor housing. It has a water output line as well as a power output line.



This is an image of the power housing. It holds 4 AA batteries and has a power switch on it.











This is an image of the forward resevoir which is attached to the main water line. The resevoir attaches to the base of the bowl, and the water line goes back to the pump housing.


This piece was fabricated from brass and installed under the altar. Though it serves no similar function, the design is derived from that of an exhaust pipe.



This is the altar completely assembled. Test runs were successful.


What other tricks are on this table? Well, 4 AA batteries is more power than the pump needed. It's also used to power a white LED in the base of the bowl which lights up the surface of the water, giving it a seemingly holy glow.



So I guess it was a successful semester!




See you space cowboy....