I have agonized over the gallery floor since I first thought of this project. Well, I don't actually agonize over much but I have been thinking about it. My shop on the other side of the gallery wall is a shop and looks like a shop and I am okay with that. I want the gallery to be nice, clean, clear, warm, inviting, interesting.
For the longest time I was wanting a wooden floor. My house has all wooden floors, no carpets anywhere except for the occasional throw rug. They are really Persian Carpets made by the little hands of child labor but I didn't buy them. They belonged to my mother. Wooden floors are warm, easy to clean and I like the sound as feet walk on them.
Three things held me back. 1st, wooden floors would have cost me about $600 and I am pretty cheap, I admit that. The second obstacle is me. I am just dirty and I admit that too. I can't imagine me in a clean white smock doing anything. Paint will happen and I will drop it, I know. The third is Soozee who suggested concrete stain and a lacquer finish. So I got to thinking about that.
I originally built this shop in 1991 as a wood shop. It was full of planers and sanders and I was making cabinets and furniture and playing with wood stains.
About 1995 I invented "Stone Posts" and made them in the shop when the weather was cold and rainy. This was the introduction of cements and colored grouting to my concrete floor. I had a big floor scraper I used to get the big chunks off but the evidence is there, a little always remains. Then I discovered welding and filled my shop with grinders and cutters and the welder. This puts a rust patina of fine steel particles deep into the pours of the concrete slab.
I could have scrapped and grounded and sanded this history off and begun this project with a clean slate, sort of speak. But I didn't. I bought some greenish acid etching stuff and mopped the floor with it, spilling it a little heavier here and there and adding the necessary drops to make me feel like Jason Pollack reincarnate.
He might have been crazy but he sure had fun! The real colors won't appear until the floor is lacquered.
That will take some time. I have to mop the floor about seven times and a couple times with amonia in order to neutralize the acid in the etching process. The floor needs to be Ph neutral before you can apply the lacquer finish and this will take a couple days and then it has to dry, of course. Maybe this weekend I can get the finish coat on it.
It will be "Art History" for sure. I will remember every stain, each blemish and every drop of blood. I am sure my DNA is inextricably mixed into this new floor. Maybe by Christmas I will be painting and add more history to this floor I walk on.
My Official website is HERE
For the longest time I was wanting a wooden floor. My house has all wooden floors, no carpets anywhere except for the occasional throw rug. They are really Persian Carpets made by the little hands of child labor but I didn't buy them. They belonged to my mother. Wooden floors are warm, easy to clean and I like the sound as feet walk on them.
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| 20 years of History on the floor |
I originally built this shop in 1991 as a wood shop. It was full of planers and sanders and I was making cabinets and furniture and playing with wood stains.
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| floor sections for sale, plus shipping and handling fees. |
I could have scrapped and grounded and sanded this history off and begun this project with a clean slate, sort of speak. But I didn't. I bought some greenish acid etching stuff and mopped the floor with it, spilling it a little heavier here and there and adding the necessary drops to make me feel like Jason Pollack reincarnate.
He might have been crazy but he sure had fun! The real colors won't appear until the floor is lacquered.
That will take some time. I have to mop the floor about seven times and a couple times with amonia in order to neutralize the acid in the etching process. The floor needs to be Ph neutral before you can apply the lacquer finish and this will take a couple days and then it has to dry, of course. Maybe this weekend I can get the finish coat on it.
It will be "Art History" for sure. I will remember every stain, each blemish and every drop of blood. I am sure my DNA is inextricably mixed into this new floor. Maybe by Christmas I will be painting and add more history to this floor I walk on.
My Official website is HERE
2 comments:
Don't Rush Jerry, let it do its' thing... It's looking good with all that history and DNA you are etched in there forever ..
BJ
I think one of my favorite posts ever. I don't know why but it is so. This floor is gorgeous and only going to be more so when it is finished, Jer. I can't wait to see it!
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