Popular Woodworking 2009-02 № 174, страница 59

Chisels, gouges and rasps. The handles for the files and rasps are made from an acacia tree that was cut down nearby. The holders are made of bamboo.

Old favorites. A vintage Shopmaster band saw and an old belt sander are two of the machines Margolin

kinetic sculptures.

I saw one of Margolin's largest sculptures, "Square Wave," at the Exploratorium, San Francisco's museum of science, art and human perception. "Square Wave" stands about 12' tall, isabout 12' wide and looks like a giant patchwork quilt of connected, hollow wooden squares. Each square is composed of four wooden structures made from dowels. At every intersection of two dowels, a metal wire rises to an elaborate web of cams, wooden arms and metal above the quilt.

Like Margolin's other sculptures, "Square Wave" is powered by an electric motor, and when the switch is flipped, the cams and arms move, which then pull on the wires. As a result, the quilt of dowels and fishing tackle rises and falls as if it were gently floating on an ocean. The effect is both hypnotic and soothing. In effect, Margolin has used oversized Lincoln Logs and an Erector Set to build an enormous contraption that demonstrates the wave motion that all physics students learn about.

Another of Margolin's sculptures, "Round Wave," is composed of eight nesting wooden hoops arrayed like a giant Slinky. Each hoop is suspended by wires from wooden rods attached to the ceiling of Margolin's studio. When the sculpture is turned on, a roller at

the top passes under each rod in turn. This causes the hoops below to alternately rise and fall. The resulting movement looks like a circle turning inside out, over and over again.

A third creation, "Redwood Wave," is smaller and is powered by human hands. This sculpture is made of redwood and looks like an open box measuring 3' square. Inside are about 20 wooden bars that have been balanced over two wooden axles. Inserted into the axles are wooden circles placed in a spiral pattern. The axles connect to two handles placed at the bottom of the box. Turning the handles turns the axles, and because the wooden circles are offset, they act as cams, which cause the wooden bars to rise and fall in a wave-like motion. Turning the axles together creates even more complicated patterns.

One of Margolin's round-wave sculptures now hangs in the Chabot Space and Science Center, in Oakland, Calif. This 18'-diameter sculpture was inspired by ripples in water, but instead of being circular, it is hexagonal.

Studio Space

Margolin's Emeryville studio is in an old, warehouse-type building that formerly housed a small ceramics factory; he now shares his space with a specialty soap manufacturer. In

Miscellaneous hardware. On top is a grinder on an acacia base.

addition to his California studio, Margolin has worked in Ahmedabad, India. There, as an artist-in-residence at the Kanoria Center for the Arts, he built mechanical, human-pow-ered butterflies using rickshaws, bamboo and hand-dyed muslin cloth. The resulting creations, when pedaled, "flapped and fluttered down the streets of Ahmedabad," he says.

Despite his love of the mechanical and his affection for wood, Margolin says his goal in makingsculptures, issimply to "make something beautiful," whether mathematical or not. PW

Raphael is a science writer who lives in San Francisco; he works at the Exploratorium. He is interested in the history and philosophy of science, as well as any kind of engineering.

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