I have been buying (and making modest suggestions for the design of) jewelry from an awesome Neo-Modernist named Daniel Macchiarini since the late 1990s. Danny is the son of Peter Macchiarini, who was a key fixture in the San Francisco artist scene in the North Beach area of San Francisco from the 1930s to the time of his death in the 1990s. Feel free to visit Danny (virtually or in person) at:

Macchiarini Design
1554 Grant Ave.
San Francisco, CA 94133
Toll-free: 877.982.2229
Phone: 415.982.2229
Email: danny1mac@sbcglobal.net

Store web site: http://www.macreativedesign.com

anYhOw... thanks to my pent-up desire to do 3D art, which I had never done, and my respect for Danny, and his own pent-up desire to begin to think about offering workshops, we agreed to set a time to see how we might resolve this clearly mutual creative interest. And we did, over the weekend of March 20-21, 2005.

Former UM undergrad and Berkeley PhD-candidate Ian Stewart, who has been known to drop a peso or two at Macchiarini's place, joined in the fun on March 20.

Day One (noon): A brief lesson from Danny, on his computer, about space, shape, texture, balance, and other fundamental art ideas, using images and examples of his and his father's pieces as a resource. Then, Ian and I got a user's tour of the workshop, and a big old blank spot at a workbench... a large sheet of newsprint, some pencils, and lots of metal and wooden objects to think about as we played "the game of the sculpture." This is a fun game and takes at least two players: laying out shapes and developing a single drawing as you talk out loud about your ideas. On another day, maybe, I will give a more detailed version of the process. But, once the ideas began to converge as an array of objects whose relationship started to be fixed (around 2-3 pm), Danny (who was just hanging back and mainly answering questions) showed us how to cut and solder different types of metals, and to deal with the other technques that we needed to learn.

In the Neo-Modernist tradition, the plan evolves through iteration: you do not always know the whole story first - it emerges. Most of the basic story emerged for me by the time we started soldering (although I did not share it), and the sculpture itself continued to emerge as the story refined itself in my mind. Yeah - you will be hearing about it soon enough. We worked until about 6 pm.

Day Two (10 am): Just me and Danny. I worked on my sculpture, learned to work with ivory and ebony, and bantered around with Danny while he worked on a large fountain/sculpture that was to be installed in someone's backyard garden. By about 4 pm, the sculpture was done (except for polishing) and being hung on the wall. I went over to the newsprint design and wrote the title next to the drawing: "Oppenheimer's dharma." A client of Danny's came into the store, and Danny was all "Look what Brian did at this workshop we just finished." And the client was all "Nice, interesting, whatever." And I was all "You guys want to know the title and the story of this piece?"

Heh heh heh - Danny tends to sculpt and design in large sweeping ideas and motion, rather than in descriptive narrative, so I think he was at least a little surprised when I had this story to tell.

Read the story (opens a new window): "Oppenheimer's dharma."

See the sculpture (opens a new window): "Oppenheimer's dharma."