Box of bolts and live sculpting

Yesterday i became the 16th recipient of the bucket of bolts  (started by IG : @bucket_of_bolts).  A very cool...  thing whereupon a metal sculptor receives a box of weldable scrap,  uses that scrap to make a sculpture,  adds his creation to that ever growing log of work and then fills up a new box with scrap and sends it along to another artist and so on and so forth.  So I'm pretty excited about working with this stuff and doing something interesting with it.  Maybe even an animation will come out of it...

  But that's all happening next week,  this weekend marks another first for me,  live sculpting ...  Well not exactly a first.  Allow me to explain: having been doing this so long field work and sculpting on the go is part of my life,  but i don't usually do it at big events.  Sometimes I'll do a quick demo like we did at the library the last few years,  and one time in a particularly interesting case at a thing called family day  when i was in  israel two years ago... [cue flashback] That came about as a kind of last minute invite to take part in a family fun day oriented around kids and activities.  We ended up letting the kids design little sculptures and even weld some of them (with my direct guidance and usually my holding the nozzle of the welder and saying "squeeze")  the event was fun,  but we weren't really prepared for a mob of children all rushing to create their own piece of art while i tried in the most basic of Hebrew (really really basic)  to tell them to go slower as they weld.  Suffice to say it was not live sculpting at its finest.

  Now I'm heading down to make a specific sculpture (an anthropomorphic snowman riding an ATV *see attached photo )  at the lake George winter carnival and i think it's going to be a lot more fun (at least for me).  I've got a truck loaded with scrap and equipment.  A brand new pop up shade tent,  a shield i picked up in cali and some fresh welding screens...  My dad and my wife are joining me and will probably do some sculpting themselves.  So stay tuned for what i hope will be some pretty sweet results.

stainless pawn fabrication video

Instagram comes to the blog. ZAMCAX!

So I've been battling the question "how social media?"   ¯\_(ツ)_/¯  ...I can step up my meme game that's for sure.... but is that for me, is that my move, is that my life? ( cue Nate Dogg [rip] : "my life!") .

I'm not sure. I mean maybe it is actually... but thats not the point, the point is; whatever I do, be it memes or sculptures or animation or video games (hopefully) I need a pattern and a trend and a way to release this info. What's free, what can I charge for, can I justify charging for it. What diet of releasing the content is healthy for subscribers and interested parties, what level is healthy for me, does it eat into my actual creative process and of course the ever present does any of it even matter?

The last question is relevant not just to me, but to anyone who wants to market themselves, believe in themselves, and pursue their dreams and passions as an artist.  Of course it's  the most difficult one to answer, but in short I will say this: Art is about forging new territory and being out on the edge, and nothing represents the future and advancement of society like social media and the internet. And selling art like this represents this is a huge paradigm shift. Art can now belong to the many, not just the select few, and the artist can still earn enough to eat (sounds like a win - win).

So for me,  I've made the decision,: yes, for it's worth it to self promote (though maybe I don't  always enjoy it) and to market (though I'm not good at it) and to hustle (can't knock that) my work to the world via... via... ? What's the best way to digitally promote oneself? So yes back to the initial question:  "How social media?"

So I've made the  following decision:
I've decided to post everything I post on instagram on here. That means any picture on IG will also be posted here. And sometimes  I will add more information or back story...  Sometimes I will release exclusive content on Patreon.com/zacmax to anyone who subscribes at all to my patreon account 1$+ (There will also be raffles and give aways for patreon supporters, and you can subscribe to get regular T-shirts or other gear whenever I make anything..)

Also coming soon: chess sets with customizable/comissionable kings.

Brought to you by ZAMCAX Snacker Cracks corp.

Pix and Patr

Website got streamlined a bit. Blog got spruced up. One thing to note is that the People section was added to the website to invite anyone who has a picture with any of my sculptures and would like to be on the website please send it to zacshavrick@gmail.com  (re: photo of (your name here))

Next item of note is the Patreon launch, which I will be doing either today or tomorrow (getting late so probably tomorrow). The Patreon site will include a sort of live update of the chess set which I am making as it gets made. It will also invite people to comment and potentially even live sculpture streams. We will see how that goes. But yeah the first three people who sign up for my patreon account will get free sculptures.  I'll even eat the shipping on the first two.

State of the table.

A new weekly segment.

Photos from today's table and current state of  my mid sized chess set.  Also  I'm going to try out patreon and I'm gonna do a free sculpture give away to the first three people who do a 1$ or more subscription.  More details on this soon.

Caliphotoblogpost

Guess which one isn't cali

my humbldte studios, and ramblings

I couldn't figure out how to get a subtle Humboldt county pun into the title so i just lost some vowels and ended up with something that doesn't make much sense. Anyway, the joke is ruined by me explaining it not to mention I'm not even close enough to be making a Humboldt county joke to begin with.. but that is all behind me now.

The future involves a very nice little studio where I will be making a Mid Sized (not sedan) chess set. A good friend of mine out here in California has a commissioned a chess set and I will be staying at his apartment and working in a studio which is essentially the foyer of said apartment. But it's truly perfect. It's like building the studio around the project instead of the vice versa. Which normally when I'm thinking of a studio setting for a job it means an area getting bigger, but here the size of the project and the size of the space will both benefit from the convenience of compactness.

I hope.


Current welder spec : Hobart 140, running 030 solid wire and 75.25 co2