CLOCKS #1

-Eric Velleca, 2008
-106” high, 27” wide. 18” deep
-mild steel, found objects, fabric, clockworks
-photos by Ken Nelson

Techniques: plasma cutting, forging, forge welding, machining, fabrication

Clocks # 1 was an idea I had had for a few years. I am fascinated with time, fear of wasting it, running out of it, and generally not having any control over it. I feel time will erase everything eventually. I made this clock for a showing of furniture made from mostly recycled materials. A friend gave me an old dumpster that provided the sheet steel, I went to the scrap yard for a few things, and picked around my own scrap or leftovers as well. This clock design is based off gothic architecture with the flying buttresses being utilized to seemingly suspend the clock and pendulum box. The chime vents at the top are loosely forge welded sprockets and scrap steel, and the door on the drawer at the bottom is solidly forge welded plate with sprockets, chain, nuts and bolts. The compression of these industrial parts obscures them giving them an archeological feel. The dumpster material when sanded back revealed the colors it had been painted through its life. These blues and greens look strikingly like planet Earth. I found it very gratifying to take elements that represent a few of the many great human accomplishments over time, and rework them together while using or reusing materials and objects that are mundane, taken for granted, and or discarded.