My World: Steel & Glass Portfolio: Photographs of my sculptures.

I have been making steel forms, all very simple, but I'd like to share with you. The first was made as as I struggled to make a roof waterproof. Architecture built in the style of Frank Lloyd Wright under Bauhaus utilitarian influence, often missed out any knowledge of where water goes. So fed up with 10 buckets to stop the water in the southern Californian winter downpours, I went through several contractors to remedy the disaster. Eventually my wife agreed for me to have a go. I replaced the 4" styrofoam blocks over the steel roof with 2"x10" wood framing, gaining space for insulation and air circulation and covered it with a sloping processed bitumen tiled rood, invisible from the ground. I made it overhang the windows, (with recessed can lights which at night heat the air and so constantly dry the roof). Around the rim I made a single curved plank, 1ft high, with 18 glued layers of 1/8" marine plywood, painted, covered with a waterproof membrane, then brown paper and finally steel floating as the surface.

Hidden behind this are steel gutters and below that, another one, in case the first fails.

I enjoyed designing and building that steel ribbon and that was the start of my love affair with steel next to glass.

Coming next, the steel tube sculpture, steel and glass tables and "Steel Henge".


Asher

Hi, Asher,

Asher Kelman said:

I have been making steel forms, all very simple, but I'd like to share with you. The first was made as as I struggled to make a roof waterproof. Architecture built in the style of Frank Lloyd Wright under Bauhaus utilitarian influence, often missed out any knowledge of where water goes. So fed up with 10 buckets to stop the water in the southern Californian winter downpours, I went through several contractors to remedy the disaster. Eventually my wife agreed for me to have a go. I replaced the 4" styrofoam blocks over the steel rood with 2"x10" wood framing, gaining space for insulation and air circulation and covered it with a sloping processed bitumen tiled rood, invisible from the ground. I made it overhang the windows, (with recessed can lights which at night heat the air and so constantly dry the roof). Around the rim I made a single curved plank, 1ft high, with 18 glued layers of 1/8" marine plywood, painted, covered with a waterproof membrane, then brown paper and finally steel floating as the surface.

Hidden behind this are steel gutters and below that, another one, in case the first fails.

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The holy rood. What a marvelous and ambitious project. You must be very proud.

Fabulous photo (and title!) as well. The piano metaphor is very apt.

As I make it, that view is to a little south of west.

Best regards,

Doug

I have been also making sculptures with steel tubing. I love balancing and challenging curves that test each other's energy fields, so to speak.

Here's a pair of flirting lovers over polished stainless steel.




Hope you like this example!


Asher

Here's a pair of flirting lovers over polished stainless steel.




This table has the advantage of having two people at each end so that the conversations are particularly dynamic, with the two at each end helping make both sides commune.

Asher

Bump for your comments!!

Asher

Lovely photo. Very nice.

Asher Kelman said:

Asher Kelman Photograph: Ribbon on Bauhaus Piano

Stitched Panorama Sony A7r 55mm Zeiss f1.8, July 2014

(Asher Kelman: Sculpture: Ribbon on Bauhaus Piano, 2007 72ft x12" x 2.5")



​

Asher

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Asher. I do see the ribbon a bit but because of the size of this image, it is difficult to really appreciate what the sculpture and how it fits around (or under?) the piano like structure of the roof. I think that not only I, but many of us, would really appreciate this much more if we could have several images or a collage of some sort that could show off the details. As it is, although I'm sure it is amazing, I'm finding it difficult to express my thoughts. If you do, I promise to come back and leave you more comments.
Maggie

Asher Kelman said:

Here's a pair of flirting lovers over polished stainless steel.

Asher Kelman Photograph: Flirting Lovers

Sony A7r 55mm Zeiss f1.8, July 2014

Asher Kelman: Sculpture: Painted Steel Tubing on Mirrored Steel
2014, 58" length x28.75" height x 25.5" depth)
on painted white steel stand.​

Asher

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I'm pretty sure I've seen this one before but that doesn't matter as it's still very cool. I think the first time I saw it my impression was of a dance and what else is a flirtation but a dance between two people. The red color gives it a lot of energy and almost makes it look like it is out of neon tubing.

I'm curious as the reason for the mirrored steel. I'd be interested in your artistic reason for it.

Maggie

Asher Kelman said:

Here's a pair of flirting lovers over polished stainless steel.

Asher Kelman Photograph: Steel Block with Floating Glass

Sony A7r 55mm Zeiss f1.8, August 2014

Asher Kelman: Sculpture: "Communion"

Welded Steel Plate with Natural Patina and Tempered 7/8 inch glass with cut out rectangle, tempered.
2014, 120" length x60" wide x 30" high​

Asher

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This looks like it was quite an endeavor. Again, like the outdoor sculpture (Ribbon on Bauhau) I would love to see more details and close-up views. It's very difficult to appreciate the final piece since I cannot see it in person without more images. I'm sure this is the reason you have very few comments.

I do, however, like the idea of 2 chairs at each end; makes for perfect conversation.

I hope to see more photos but even without I think there must be a very huge sense of pride to make something beautiful that is also touched and used everyday. How wonderful.
Maggie

Maggie Terlecki said:

This looks like it was quite an endeavor. Again, like the outdoor sculpture (Ribbon on Bauhau) I would love to see more details and close-up views. It's very difficult to appreciate the final piece since I cannot see it in person without more images. I'm sure this is the reason you have very few comments.

I do, however, like the idea of 2 chairs at each end; makes for perfect conversation.

I hope to see more photos but even without I think there must be a very huge sense of pride to make something beautiful that is also touched and used everyday. How wonderful.
Maggie

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Maggie,

I so appreciate your visit! I have to take more pictures of the ribbon. It's something that has to be seen as close up only allows a vision which is unrealistic but I'll try. I've been struggling with how to demonstrate and showcase it by photography.

I may also do night pictures as well as closeups.

Perhaps i'll climb out on the roof and get some images of short sections.

Asher

Hi, Asher,

This is all extraordinary work, the architecture/design, the execution, and the superb photography. These are end-to-end triumphs.

I am amazed at how much I like the charcoal gray mat (or maybe is is the "wall").

I am slightly unsure about the stepped mat on "Ribbon on Bauhaus Piano". Among other things, that somewhat destroys the possibility that what we are seeing is "wall".

Best regards,

Doug

Here's how the steel table appears in the morning as the sunlight fills the room.




I designed the table fit this room. The table is seen here in morning light coming from the southern glass block wall. I tried to capture the play of light and reflections on the various surfaces.


Asher

The problem you describe in your first post sounds all too familiar to me. Finnish architecture of the 60's and 70's took absolutely no notice of the actual environmental circumstances houses in our climate are exposed to. An even roof is not the solution when your house gets covered by a 3 ft laser of snow every year.

You certainly made a great project of your problem. And your sculpture looks great, too!

Jarmo Juntunen said:

The problem you describe in your first post sounds all too familiar to me. Finnish architecture of the 60's and 70's took absolutely no notice of the actual environmental circumstances houses in our climate are exposed to. An even roof is not the solution when your house gets covered by a 3 ft laser of snow every year.

You certainly made a great project of your problem. And your sculpture looks great, too!

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Jarmo,

Architects should have to live in rainy areas with roofs of corrugated tin and plastic sheeting so they are always aware of dripping water! It's staggering how commonly the most wonderful architecture also leaks when it rains. But I've turned this into a love for materials, doing calculations and being brave enough to build what I imagine.

Thanks so much for stopping by and adding your comments!

Asher

Asher Kelman said:

Here's how the steel table appears in the morning as the sunlight fills the room.

Asher Kelman Photograph: Steel Block with Floating Glass

Sony A7r 55mm Zeiss f1.8, August 2014

Asher Kelman: Sculpture: "Communion"

Welded Steel Plate with Natural Patina and Tempered 7/8 inch glass with cut out rectangle, tempered.
2014, 120" length x60" wide x 30" high​

I designed the table fit this room. The table is seen here in morning light coming from the southern glass block wall. I tried to capture the play of light and reflections on the various surfaces.


Asher

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Hmmm... your image is not showing up for some reason.

I am dealing these days with a problem of water drainage from a flat (almost) roof. Not in my house.

Often, this important part of the building is rather neglected leading to various and annoying problems sometimes expensive ones to solve. Water infiltrates easily.

Your first image is wonderful with such a dramatic blue sky and the piano

Asher Kelman said:

Here's how the steel table appears in the morning as the sunlight fills the room.

Asher Kelman Photograph: Steel Block with Floating Glass

Sony A7r 55mm Zeiss f1.8, August 2014

Asher Kelman: Sculpture: "Communion"

Welded Steel Plate with Natural Patina and Tempered 7/8 inch glass with cut out rectangle, tempered.
2014, 120" length x60" wide x 30" high​

I designed the table fit this room. The table is seen here in morning light coming from the southern glass block wall. I tried to capture the play of light and reflections on the various surfaces.


Asher

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I'm glad to see a different shot of the table as here I can see how it is held up. Very clever and interesting. I'd love to know more of how you achieved this. Did you design it and contract it out? Did you make the cement slab yourself? Were the chairs chosen to go with the design or had you found the chairs and designed the table around it? The entire set looks wonderful in this space.

At first I thought the chairs might be uncomfortable but I see nice heavy thick padding for people's posteriors! :-D It looks quite formal and very impressive. I'm sure you have a more relaxed area to have breakfast and morning coffee.

Impressive work, Asher.

Maggie

I'd love to first make a scholarly comment, but really what first comes to my mind is.."my, but aren't you an industrious old toot." I am saying this with a broad grin and there is a touch of envy that you have so many skills in your repertoire of life's studies. Bravo for all that you've accomplished and for that which is surely to come.

Beautiful ambiance.

Great image !

Maggie Terlecki said:

I'm glad to see a different shot of the table as here I can see how it is held up. Very clever and interesting. I'd love to know more of how you achieved this. Did you design it and contract it out? Did you make the cement slab yourself? Were the chairs chosen to go with the design or had you found the chairs and designed the table around it? The entire set looks wonderful in this space.

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Hi Maggie,

The chairs were my version of a previous design I had seen and the table was made to go with them. There's no cement slab. That's 1/4 inch steel, LOL and takes 6 men to move it! The table is totally a novel design and not a derivative from anyone else's work that i'm conscious of. I wanted to be able to have the glass appear to float in the room. With the chairs not there, it appears more as a monolithic sculpture than as a piece of furniture.

This is for formal dining. Our main table is made of oak and by is round. It was for formal dining until I designed this one. I have steel welded and glass cut by major workshops expert in these crafts as it's quite dangerous and I do not want to take chances with burning down the house, welding a giant mass like that myself, or else losing a limb if the glass were to break while cutting it! Actually the glass did shatter the first two attempts to cut it!

Maggie Terlecki said:

At first I thought the chairs might be uncomfortable but I see nice heavy thick padding for people's posteriors! :-D It looks quite formal and very impressive.

Click to expand...

The chairs are actually superbly supportive and comfortable even with no cushioning.

I am putting the finishing touches to a work I call "Steel Henge" - a glass wine cellar built around a 9 foot high 6 ft wide steel arch made of heavy steel and covered with a stainless steel skin with a brushed vertical finish. That I'll show shortly.

Meanwhile, i'm busy designing new sculpture in laminates of curved wood as a maquette for my next work in chrome mirror polished stainless steel. This requires that I hone my skills in routing and use of dowels and it's a good excuse to push my capabilities.

Thanks for visiting my work!

Asher

Chris Calohan said:

I'd love to first make a scholarly comment, but really what first comes to my mind is.."my, but aren't you an industrious old toot." I am saying this with a broad grin and there is a touch of envy that you have so many skills in your repertoire of life's studies. Bravo for all that you've accomplished and for that which is surely to come.

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Well, Chris,

As a Radiation Oncologist I made sculptures in free space to coincide with the exact shape and position in the body of cancerous tumors. So I figured that if I could imagine and deliver, (with the help of great engineering and physics support), what I imagined would match a tumor deep in the body, I for sure should be able to work with tame materials, and not magavoltage lethal xrays, and export to physical form ideas that my mind conjures up.

I realize that just as a mother has to feed her infant, I have to materialize and export ideas that are otherwise just latent fantasies, deep in the recesses of my cranium!

It's actually quire enjoyable and the steel and glass neither have to be fed or paid or chaperoned, LOL!

I need something physical in addition to the Canon or sony cameras. Maybe that's why LF is so attractive to me. Sculpture, however, answers these needs!

Without the sculpture, I'd be in trouble for sure!

Asher

Antonio Correia said:

Beautiful ambiance.

Great image !

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Antonio,

I can't tell you enough how much I value getting this feedback. Getting a thumbs up from you means a lot to me.

Of course, it's only necessary that my wife and prospective buyers like the work, but I won't part with it. I will make new versions for sale. This is too much part of our dail experience.

I will also take a picture of the table as a sculpture and then one can get a better sense of the ambiance possible by the utterly simple design.

Hope you'll watch out for the posting of the Steel Arch, "Steel Henge", shortly.

Asher

O.K., here's the wine cabinet built around my "Steel Henge"


The panel of glass facing is to be replaced so the seal is faux, of electrical tape, until the final glass is added there. The ceiling in the roof has to be installed as well as steel cables to brace the arch against California earthquakes. I've built the pie e with that in mind.

Pressurized liquified gas refrigerant circulates to to the roof of the space in insulated copper pipes. It's compressed and cooled at a condenser I installed on the roof. The cold liquid gas expands in evaporator which simply takes away the heat from the air in the chamber to energize the molecules to the gaseous phase.


The door weighing 800lb is made of 2 sheets of 1/4 glass with a 1/2 space filled with the viscous gas Argon. That's the insulation for the front. There's a steel rim behind the door with a silicon gasket to make the storage area airtight. The rest of the glass is single pane 0.5" low iron glass for maximum clarity and tempered for safety.

There's a foot of insulation in the wall behind the cabinet and around it in the roof of the kitchen and adjacent dining room.


For us, it's a special treat to have artwork in solid architectural form to live with every day. The wine is another bonus and was an excuse to get the arch agreed to, LOL!

Win-win all around!

The kitchen had been flooded and so I had the opportunity to rebuild. It took me over a year and of course I designed a pair of tall new narrow windows to let in the morning light and a 10 ft massive glass door to complete the lighting to the rest of the kitchen space on the left, which is not in view in this picture.




I still have the ceiling of the wine cabinet to address, (I like the view of the giant twin fan rotors drawing up the air to be chilled), so perhaps I'll use a sheet of white glass with a giant rectangular opening).............and still must install the steel cables above the arch, (which gave to be custom made to exact dimensions), but thought you'd get a great idea of the work in it's present state.

Asher


Yes, there are stitching errors for the pixel peepers to notice, and I will redo this to make it perfect when the work is complete in a week or so.

Asher, you're a bloody legend....and an over-achiever.

I'm loving you and hating you right now.

Andy brown said:

Asher, you're a bloody legend....and an over-achiever.

I'm loving you and hating you right now.

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Andy,

Thanks for the compliment, LOL! You raise an important point. I have decided to answer in full in a separate thread as the topic of "Achieving above one's grade" is worthy of discussion.

The background to this might surprise you!

Asher

I have been fortunate enough to visit Asher at his lovely home and it is a gorgeous work of minimalist art. Thanks for these shots Asher to remind me of a lovely afternoon we spent together with lunch together in that delightful Italian restaurant off Rodeo. I'll cherish the memory

Asher, I like what you've achieved in your home here. It's quite inspiring...
Sam and I have our home on the market to sell at the moment but in our new home we are considering creating a more modernist look. Lots of steel, granite and glass...

Btw, I think your chairs in the kitchen opposite your wine cabinet are upside down! Just kidding...

Asher, I love this table. Really gorgeous and goes perfectly in the room!

Asher Kelman said:

Here's how the steel table appears in the morning as the sunlight fills the room.

Asher Kelman Photograph: Steel Block with Floating Glass

Sony A7r 55mm Zeiss f1.8, August 2014

Asher Kelman: Sculpture: "Communion"

Welded Steel Plate with Natural Patina and Tempered 7/8 inch glass with cut out rectangle, tempered.
2014, 120" length x60" wide x 30" high​

I designed the table fit this room. The table is seen here in morning light coming from the southern glass block wall. I tried to capture the play of light and reflections on the various surfaces.


Asher

Click to expand...

While I enjoy these creations for some more time all I can say at the moment is

' bloody hell' in astonishment.

I shall return.

Having looked at your work for some considerable time...

Wonderful fusion of thought, vision and hand work. Love the way the whole setup is integrated into the
room. The sculpted red ribbon stands in beautiful contrast to its surroundings, drawing one to approach it and look closer. Super work.

The image additionally plays to the strength of the light flooding the room and how it illuminates the various elements.

Now where would you spread a small carpet on the floor for you and me to dine together

Best regards.