Sculpture and the little tree

Good ideas are a dime a dozen.
Making one idea into reality can take years.

Here's my first iteration of the little tree. 1980? The idea is clear but it was put aside......

30+ years later, here is the revised little tree, below.

The idea has grown, circles within circles, day and night transitioning.

  Is it possible to cut in paper a gestalt of a humble landscape that feels transcendent?

There's aesthetic learning and there is the technical learning curve. 

The ability to cut complex designs into metal means the design needs to be modified 

for mechanical laser cutting. Those sharp acute angle cuts are expensive 

because the laser has to back out of each cut instead of curving around and continuing.

Also pointy paper can't hurt you, but sharp metal projections can.....

That crisp look that comes naturally to a hand with a razor blade needs a softer radii

 for production. The question: does that happen when I make the next papercut - 

cutting softer corners or does it happen digitally, in the vector drawing stage?

And how much will that change the look of the image?

All to be discovered with the next iteration.

Below is a cardboard model for a gate with a fabulous faux iron patina.

It fooled my metal fabricator!

Here's how the metal panel looks in good light.

The art is an object, with sun light it becomes an environment.

And below what they looked like in the finished Yard Garden and Patio garden.

The no-contrast black on black was a big disappointment. That lasted the 3 days of the show. 

The show over, I realized that YGP was the incentive to make them, 

now to search for their ideal setting.