Blind sweat soldering of an Argentium hinge

A brief peek into my blind sweat soldering of an Argentium hinge:

I cut a channel for each side of the hinge and then coated the pin with ochre.

I then lay the two pieces of chenier on one side of the hinge with the pin inside.

With a soft flame I heated and soldered the chenier.

After cooling. I prepared the top side of the hinge with yellow ochre and placed a piece of solder in the channel and fixed it there with heat.

Lining up the two sides of the hinge was one of the hardest parts,

But once they were aligned I was ready for the final heat and solder.

Final heat was very difficult considering I couldn't see when the solder melted, but there was a slight slump when the metal reached the right colour.

Voila! A moving hinge. Riveting the hinge is one of the last things I will do for the whole piece, after the plique-a-jour enameling and polishing.

All photos: Mark Sherwood Photography

The Memory of Unity has many Guises

The Memory of Unity has many Guises

We are the winners always,
outstretched our helping hands,

talk away your disbelief and offer no thief

that shining life you have within,

near the fire, not fearing the future,

big house, big smiles, big dance,

sold out, got nothing but love, 

melt doubt, molten gold,

no cash drought.

Clean and green, I'm lean and mean

got nothing for you when black smoke choke that cloak 

and stoke the flames that inflame the hierarchy shame,

of their not here fear and needy greedy self/
world view,

queued up waiting, jump ship inflating,

I ain't gonna quake, look quaint, gonna shake off those shoes fake,

walk again in light coming down,

around the town that sparkles,
and the night sky is blue  

There is no Nothing

There is no Nothing. There is only something, but when I say "only", I don't mean that there is only one Something, because there are many. So there is only Somethings. Collectively all Somethings are Everything, but as Everything is not Something, it is Nothing, thus Somethings are collectively Nothing. The Contradiction is grand, and the meaning is pointless, but that pointlessness is the point of the journey, at which point the journey is both finished and begun. To see Nothing as pointless is to see Everything as having a point, but because Nothing has a point then all things are pointless, being that they have no point. This is my point. Yes, it is a word game, and that is why it fails, and I only care for its failure, for within the failure lies the success, which is then the journey begun and the journey finished. Without the pointless journey undertaken I cannot see that there is no Nothing, at which point I can see truly what Everything is, not Nothing, but something; having a point; Everything; yet because Everything is Nothing, then Everything is pointless, which makes pointlessness Nothing, absolutely decentralising every point, which is its pointlessness. When you point to a point, it becomes pointless, for Nothing is pointless, so you cannot point to it, that's what I'm pointing at. This monologue is pointless, but that's its point, the metaphysical deconstruction of all things metaphysical.
There is no Everything.
There is no Nothing.
There is no God.
There is no Self.
And...
There is no Death.

The physical and inescapable here and now of the body is its own death that it lives. The existential reality is through Death. But Death, as I have just announced, is Nothing, the same as Everything, the same as God, and the same as Self. Self is Everything, except Nothing, because Nothing doesn't exist, except in non-existence, where it must always reside, together with Self. No matter where I turn I will not escape this dialectic between Everything and itself. But I do not care and I do not attempt to escape, for it brings me joy to perceive the truth about the lies, and the lies about the truth. The core is the joy that effervesces in ecstasy at the announcement of clarity, the clarity of announcement. And what I announce is Nothing, the silence that reigns and descends unheard. The city of gold that ascends with the herd, the last shard of the first dawn that brings forth the golden light that dims the day. And in the darkness does the light rejoice, and in the light does the darkness rejoice, for both see themselves, and they are the other, and within their other lies their own death, but in death lies Everything, outside of itself, and always within. My Death is within me, without me. There is no without, for that is within; and there is no within, because that is without; it is the mirror entity, the ambidextrous thought that can only be understood by the same thought: no thought. No thought is Everything, and no thought is Nothing. No thought is Nothing, so every thought must be Something, otherwise it wouldn't be thought, it would be no thought, and that cannot exist, and that is its existence.
I only care for the failure of this dialogue, the crushing of the ego-orientation. Ego is dead. Ego is Death. Death is Nothing. This is wrong, it is Nothing, I cannot speak the truth, and that is no lie. Do not pay heed to these words, for they are Nothing in themselves, each revealed as Everything and destroyed therein.

I'm going downstairs to put this spring from the mechanical pencil into the silver hinge that I've been making.

Circle, Mirror and Clown

I am the Clown.

Excerpt from The Circle, the Mirror and the Clown. (Ari Fuller, 2004, p.14)

"I am the clown. I am the fool. 

I am the monkey with the one key that unlocks me, unlocks none. The clock has sung its final hour, primal power in my antics never frantic, always chanting with ranting voice and raving choices about the forces of my source. 

The source is me and only one, one is the sun, and the sun is one that gives me life and colours my clothes in brightness vivid and rainbows livid. I am the pole-vaulting, somersaulting, summer shouting buffoon of loony tricks and capers mixed with clever flicks of juggling muddles and riddles for children. My laughter is golden and my face is a farce, a colourful mask that hides the void devoid of light, my knowledge nothing, my smile bright. I am only the future, my past is dead. I live for the smiles of the people, for all I know is I am they. My words don’t mean a thing, I throw them around, I make them a ring that sings lullabies, and grows legs and feet, and then runs headlong into the pale sunrise. 

I know my words are meaningless, and so I am never grinning less for I put the sky in a bucket of sunlight and swirled it around and came up with moonlight. I can rhyme if you like, if you like a rhyme, and if I rhyme so sublime will you throw me a dime so I can throw it away and show you the day that is worth more that money, a joke forever funny. For funny is forever, and forever is my never of this funny clever jester who just messed your funny gesture with his crazy never guessed. A guest I am behind this face with a big red nose as I trip over my toes and laugh another daft half-smart cart of silly-billy answers to your questions asked of chances of your future luck for dances. Dance now and pluck your luck from chances you silly-billy prancer, for questions in their answer are implicit more than certain, and I laugh and mock your foolish searches, your futile perches on invisible branches in the clouds of enchanters. 

I laugh and mock you fool, you fool, go back to school and unlearn rules, and then perhaps will the fool then rule from his lonely stool, his only tool his foolish rule of me as you, more fit to rule than rules for fools who cannot see invisible tools. 

I laugh at you for you are me, mere words to join on this laughing spree. If one word is the same as me, then all words are one word not three, not any difference in deliverance, for I say me whenever three is one and two is none, hear how near is my heart, the sun. The sum of me is all, right through the future wall so solid, impenetrable me till now so horrid and misunderstood..."

Completed Golden Forest X

The Lust that Bites

That dream unknown as future grown into the dawn so unrevealed, so blissfully the light it gathers, so artfully the darkness scattered. I wait and breath, and never see the real dream that only ever stalks the reams of data, competing thoughts and half-held quaking fears of chalk in rain, the sleeper's horror that never finds. Like new born mouths to feed the thoughts demand more, me, me me! Though that dream is but the broken mirror, shards reformed to narrate the winner, always losing, always running, always killing and always numb. The woken moment begs the question, relives the horror of thought's congestion, holding phony bony fingers, pointing at the door, the shadow comes. Bring food, the lust that bites, the stomach that feeds and fuels the night, playing half-known, misunderstood, where others tread yet never stood.

Evernight

The last beginning shone darkly spinning, bringing forth the hidden corpse that was given breath in lonely death. Forgotten was the memory clear, that awful sight of lovers near, shunned with spoken words they fled, the burning runes upon their heads. Yet only to return the spurned, as turning churned the maelstrom. A transparent shadow hid their appearance, and suddenly a change so instant. Constance brought the bowed heads low, and disappeared the past's dim glow, alight anew, they never knew, the warmth of others shrouded in blue. So close the distance, so far the near, and always knowing bent its ear, to hear the soundless cries that fly, in ever night towards sunrise.

Another word

It doesn't stop the time alloted to be there when others are clotted with time that cannot grasp the thought, the nought that passes into... my hands that work, my legs that stand, that understand the flowing ground. Reach out to speak the ideas forming, unsounded words that creep like morning to other rhythms, other thoughts, stay still the wind in my fingers caught, to try to say the impasse, speak... don't speak, or unspoken be the thought unheard by flesh the ever-present, memory gliding, gilding, gold glinting building, upward outward underneath, I cannot say the words that speak. I fear the lie that I must say, when utter sounds into the day, and in the dark the meanings mutter, when will meanings only matter. Catch it to hold, behold the drops that fell, unseen, undone, the attempt to tell the dying sun, the last light brightest, last breath lightest, permanence is permanent, always last, forever ending. The ghost jeering at the distraction formed by trinkets adorning yesterday the other way, unleft, ungone, the little known. See the tiny little light, that tiny light in shadows bright, another trick that looked away, unseen again that vast array so small when distance is the time. Arrive there not, that yesterday, where mindless plots will fester grey, arrive here never, not then or now, to see the future words somehow.

Golden forest (progress photo)