What do a mountain goat, a hot air balloon, a beet, and a sun ray all have in common?
Warm air is often involved?
They can be white?
They are new Gatskis?
Yes! That’s it! Indeed, they are new Gatskis!
We started off our most recent round of new work with a desire to create something similar in spirit to our ever-popular moose head. We decided on a mountain goat. After all, there is something equally amusing and inspiring about the image of their hooves navigating around tiny crevices on incredibly steep slopes….
But anyway, back to the metal. We knew the fur would be a challenge (as it always is). After trying various fur styles we settled on some simple rounded edging. While the result has a little more of a serious appearance than the moose, we think these two could definitely be friends.
After the mountain goat, we moved on to designing a console table. We sat down with a blank sketchpad to see what we could come up with. It can sometimes take a while to tap into the combined visual history and experience we draw from. But after a couple sessions and a few pages of “just ok” designs, I took the paper and pen and roughly scrawled out an idea. Normally Ben does most of the sketching, but we both agreed my idea was compelling and worth a try. I now realize the design might have been my reaction to what felt like an endless number of cloudy days. It seems my yearning for sunshine created the Sun Ray Table.
Next up, we were dreaming of a new freestanding sculpture. Thanks to your encouragement, I was still pondering a vegetable – specifically a beet. I was considering how to give it some personality – and I thought of using a beet as a hot air balloon. When I mentioned it to Ben, he liked the idea of creating a hot air balloon in and of itself. We agreed that it would be a worthwhile challenge, just like the fur – because metal doesn’t necessarily want to be round.
But as we thought about it more, we realized that sometimes simplicity is best – and decided that keeping a hot air balloon a hot air balloon and a beet a beet was most fitting.
What are you working on this time of year?
