Ruth's Camera Kite | Process shots of the painting

The second layer of paint on this amazing quadline kite.

Ruth's Camera Kite | Process shots | painting first layer

This is the beginning of a quadline kite that is conceived of by Ruth Whiting and will be finished by Tim Elverston. This is on Cuben fiber and done with oil paint. We realized that we needed a way to chase the photographers that are always chasing us. More process shots to come soon.

Wing tip

Building a mini photon

Here is a time lapse of the final stage of building one of these little kites. This particular kite is sold to Scott Howlett - thanks Scott! I'm first putting clear reinforcements on the tips, then black fibrous reinforcement which gets hot-tack welded to prevent creep, and black bridle point circles. Then I hand bend the stainless fittings for each tip and fit and adjust those to the carbon frame, assemble the kite, and tie the bridle. This is nearly two hours of actual time with a photo taken every 5 seconds. Kite designed by Tim Elverston and Ruth Whiting of WindFire Designs. Carbon, spectra, cuben fiber, oil paint, stainless steel.

Clicking the HD button once the video is playing will increase the quality dramatically.

Painted cuben micro morpho

The painted mini morpho glider. I have made only one prototype that is blank. Ruth designed these graphics and this is number two. Shown here lying against a window patiently receiving her beautiful design.




Ruth continues to develop her style painting on cuben fiber. Here she is putting on the second layer of color after the first layer was dry. This is stuck to a window using water so that she can see in real time how the color will look when backlit. I will post images of the finished paint job in a few hours.

Foil design jig

I decided long ago that while computers are perfect for many jobs, they were not suited to accomplish the entire task of designing the foils that I wanted to fly and make for ourselves. While I do indeed use computers for much of the process, the core of the shape is done very like lofting a boat. These kites really are far too much work to be for sale, but this is how I sculpted them with a life-size model. This jig is used to to find the non-intuitive shapes of each cell. These were taken in 2001—hard to believe it's been so long.

Flying the MiniMorpho under the streetlight

Well, we really like this kite. Graphics come next, Ruth is excited. We were worried that it wouldn't glide, but luckily we were wrong. This thing almost flies itself.  We were getting 30 and 40 second runs with totally slack line.

Cuben MiniMorpho Glider | Snipits from the build

I built this very small cuben morpho glider last night. I haven't flown it much yet, but it seems like a lot of fun. There is a problem at this scale with the stiffness of the cloth, and I think this might come into play with this kite. We'll see.

Micro cuben fiber pocket

It sews itself on as you insert the rod. This one is a test fitting, but I'm about to use it in an actual kite. I'm quite proud of the minimalism here, and I also like the fact that this fitting avoids glue, have I mentioned lately that I dislike glue? The rod is .030 - this stuff is tiny.

Time lapse of the Rabble Mobile

The Rabble Mobile. This mobile is actually 7 kites called mini photon fighter kites. Designed by Tim Elverston and painted by Ruth Whiting. Each kite weighs only 4.6 grams. They are 22 inches in span and can be removed and flown indoors or out. Materials are: carbon, cuben, spectra, stainless steel, and oil paint.

If you enjoy this, I highly recommend watching it in HD. You have to click play first and then 'watch in HD' near the bottom right of the video - then full screen it - this is easier if you go to youtube. Thank you Tom and Edith for letting us play in your beautiful house. Tom Smith designed and helped build this incredible piece of architecture.

Seven piece painted photon mobile

Not sure what the actual chances are, but now that all 7 are in a space that they like, waiting around for them to line up like this is quite the game.

Mobile from Photon kites

When you want to fly them, you can easily detach each kite and hang a 4.6 gram placeholder in its position. I put this together last night after living with the now seven mini photons for almost a week. They were hung on a line all together in my office. They were obviously dying to become a mobile. This is a 5 piece, which you can see is the maximum allowed in this space. I am going to a friend's house to do all 7. I will shoot and post a time lapse.

The details of the pieces

As with all mobiles, this one is also very difficult to capture. These are detail shots that show the wire work a little more closely. They are so light, and the joining method makes the whole system so frictionless, that they move absolutely constantly. I often imagine them moving even when I'm not there, perhaps in the middle of the night when no one is even watching.

Black and white mobile - ten piece

Along with the installation of this lamp, I also made this two-layer mobile for Sidney Wade. In her house she has this fantastic flight of stairs with a very high ceiling. When I first saw the stairwell, I knew exactly what I wanted to make for it. I started with 14 rectangles of the simple fold pattern. I then decided on the progression of the sizes. Cut the circles and stitched them to the wire frames. I worked out that there are over 270 knots in this mobile but they are nearly invisible. 

Evan Roth - Vienna show - Available Online for Free

Our friend, and we hope a future collaborator of ours Evan Roth, is having a show of his recent work.  It's in Vienna.  Two good links are here ni9e and here advancedminority. From the show's text:

February 26th 

Advanced Minority, Vienna

AVAILABLE ONLINE FOR FREE is the first solo show of Graffiti Research Lab co-founder Evan Roth. This exhibition contains new as well as past work and includes pieces currently in the permanent collection of the MoMA NYC as well as prints from the latest Jay-Z video. Driven by his motto “release early, often and with rap music”, humor, activism, hip-hop and technology are frequent themes that carry across multiple media, including custom computing hardware, lasers, prints and canvases. The title of the exhibition, AVAILABLE ONLINE FOR FREE, alludes to the friction between the artist’s interest in utilizing the web as a medium for freely sharing content and ideas, and the art world’s interest in unique objects and limited editions. While many of the works created for the gallery are indeed unique, they are also made available for free online in their digital form.

Party for six mini photons

Well, here are 6 of the 7.  I need to take them out and fly them together and do a real photo session. We are going to take these to San Vito Sicily this year. I'm thinking of clustering them, but first I guess we need tails for that. They fly so well as fighters that I'm a little reluctant to put tails on them.

Second color scheme for Mini Photon

All seven mini photons are now painted. We're trying to decide on the sex of the two color schemes. I'm not sure which I like best yet.

Tape folding jig

I made this ages ago when I worked for Guildworks. I was digging through old photos and found it. I love this jig. It folds tape in half and removes the paper backing all in on operation. Each part is is adjustable. The wire is actually wire we stole from a nail making factory upstairs from our shop. What a crazy time.

Four Morpho Grandes

Four of our 14 foot deltas. They are polyester and carbon.  

Wire mobile doodle

I got some new wire recently. You can get this stuff from mcmaster carr. It's stainless aircraft wire. It's thicker than I've ever had and takes a beautiful curve. This is a quick doodle, but I'm wanting to make some large outdoor mobiles this way.