ghost tangle

One of the unexpected and beautiful moments in making these objects has been the discovery of ghost tangles.

miniature tangle

handspun cotton, graphite and acrylic sheet

3" tall

tangle boneyard

During the hours of sanding and polishing these edges, I mused over the absurdity of the task. My final goal in these pieces is tangle capture and collection, but the edges are where much of my time is invested. The investment is time well spent, details make or break a work and I'm finally happy with the ones on the right.
The small scale of this piece satisfies me, tiny spun threads handled with tweezers on the pages of a sketchbook make it feel precious and reminded me of mounting insects for collection for an entomology class in college, every leg in just the right position.

My sketchbook practice used to be quite rigorous and though this series of work doesn't lend itself to quite that type of careful record keeping and structural drawing, I find I am missing it. Assembling this piece on an open sketchbook felt appropriate, it is a drawing after all.

Below is the process boneyard:

miniature tangle in progress

A miniature tangle sculpture has been in the works. When finished, it will stand just three inches tall. Trimming and sanding the edges. Achieving the perfect polish finish on the edges of such tiny pieces proves to be a challenge.BeforeAfter.
On this scale those bubbles are, to say the least, a bane. I'm working on other solutions. Update forthcoming.

p.s. You would have not believed the state of the scroll saw table before I cleaned it up, Florida humidty is so hard on metal tools. A friend alerted me to a magic liquid, Evapo-Rust, which got rid of the rust crust quite easily.