Inspiration can strike a maker at any moment. For [Laura Kampf], it happened in the desert when she saw a tumbleweed.
Tumbleweeds roll through the western United States, hitting cars on the interstate and providing some background motion for westerns. [Kampf] found the plant’s intricate, prickly structure mesmerizing, and decided to turn it into a piece of contemplative kinetic art.
[Kampf] attached the tumbleweed to a piece of wood using epoxy and mounted it to what appears to be a worm drive motor nestled inside an interestingly-shaped piece of wood. As the tumbleweed turns, a light shines through it to project a changing shadow on the wall to “create silence, it creates calmness, it takes away from the noise that surrounds it.” While [Kampf] has some work to do to get the sculpture to its finished state, we can get behind her mantra, “The most important thing about the phase of execution is to get started.”
Are you looking for some projects of your own to help you find calm? How about some ambient lighting, a sand drawing table, or a music player that keeps things simple?
“through the western United States”
This is likely a Salsola tumbleweed, which was introduced from the Eurasia. It’s interesting that it’s become so iconic over here, I’ve had to clear paths on highways a few times (hooray for never removing the wintertime emergency snow shovel), and it can be scary when the big ones whip across the road in high winds.
the species of tumbleweed is irrespective to where they “roll through”
the fact that tumbleweeds are not native to the USA is tired trivia and not relevant to this article.
Always happy to see Laura making things. Can’t say I didn’t enjoy her videos over the past few years with the house and other projects but I do miss this style video a lot.
I laughed though when she mentioned the motor was too loud, the first thing I thought when i saw that thing was i bet thats going to be noisy.
> bet thats going to be noisy.
Same thoughts here, also the light source would benefit if it was a light ring embedded in the wood and around the (smaller motor). But the video is certainly inspiring and invites to view common day objects in a different light ;) Also I’m really jealous of all those profi shop equipment.
Watching Laura make things is a joy of itself, but having worked in Telecoms for so long, I thought something else entirely when I saw Cisco ball…
I live in southern Arizona and if you pick tumbleweeds when they are first sprouting in the spring (maybe 2 or 3 inches tall) they are a tender and slightly sweet vegetable to eat … cooked or in a salad. They taste quite good.
They burn exceptionally hot when old and dried out. I always expected somebody to farm them, grind them up, and compress them for fireplace logs.
Nice idea.
For me, this would be much too nervous. I would slow down at least 10x or more. More like a lava lamp, with a constantly changing projection on the ceiling, but not directly drawing attention.
For the light bulb. Looks like this is blinding the bystander and drawing attention to the light. I would have tried a recessed led ceiling spot light (narrow beam?), embedded inside the wood. Or maybe a led “laser blade” light where you don’t see the light source, shining up to the ceing. Only light on the tumbleweed and the ceiling.
I think it’s rotating too fast. In the current state it still creates too much motuon and adds to the noise rather than creating calm. Should probably be closer to 1 revolution per minute or less.