We celebrated Christmas a bit early at our household.  I have been working on a couple pieces for presents.  Now that they have been given I can share them to all who are interested.
The first piece is called "Laughing Santa."  I was working on an idea earlier this year about a laughing man and his jiggling belly.  I was going to call it "Belly Laugh."  I realized it would work well as a Santa recalling the line from the poem Twas the Night Before Christmas, "and it shook when he laughed like a bowl full of jelly."  I ended up making 5 of these, one for each of my 4 brotheres and sisters and one for my daughter and her family.
The second piece is called "Dorothy's Shoes."  My other daughter loves "The Wizard of Oz."  I thought it would be fairly simple to make a pair of shoes click their heels 3 times.  I decide to look around the internet to see if anyone else had the same idea and there was.  It is a beautiful piece with a mechanism made of brass.  Unfortunately I can no longer locate the video demonstrating it, the best I can do is a picture.  The shoes would rotate its heels up and click 3 times and then return to the ground.  I knew if I made one it would have to do the same.  My mechanism is simple but effective.  I also was able to include a music box that plays "Somewhere Over the Rainbow" as you crank it.  On the opposite side of the crank I have the wicked witch flying over the Emerald City just after skywriting "Surrender Dorothy."
I hope you enjoy them.

Up on the site is Fledgling.  This is a smaller version of Fledglings and uses only one corkscrew.  It has 2 bellows and 2 whistles that give it a nice cuckoo effect.  I made Fledglings for the upcoming "Wine About Winter" event coming up Jan. 16 in Grand Haven.  Fledgling will be donated for their auction so somebody will be taking this home with them very soon.  It's a fun automatan and I thinking about exploring more ways to use bellows and whistles.  Check out Fledgling!

It's been a while since I have updated the site.  I have been busy working on several projects simultaneously.  I usually work on one project at a time but I thought I would try something different.

I finally have added my Art Critics automatan to the site.  This was part of the Grand Haven Art Walk special Detroit Institute of Arts exhibit at the Fire Barn Gallery.  It was a great show and this is a fun piece, kind of a tongue and cheek look at art critics.  I have wanted to use the geneva wheel mechanism for a while and it works great in this piece.

Also new to this site is a piece I'm calling "Fledglings".  There is an event coming January 16 in Grand Haven called Wine About Winter.  They are inviting artists to team up with businesses downtown to sample wine, cheese and art. Sounds like fun.  I have had an idea in the back of my head using corkscrews and this event seemed to be a match made in heaven.  I hope you like it.