guyjantic has moved!Okay, so more to this story because it's mastodon, right?
I just have a bunch of shit. Because I am just that way. So I had these tiles (about 1.5" or 4.5cm corner to corner) for a backsplash. I got them from a big box hardware store on clearance. I wasn't sure what I'd do with them, but even considered the possibility of making a kitchen backsplash (shock! using materials for intended purposes instead of #hacking them into something else). Luckily, I was saved from this defeat by another project: a cabinet for my messy living room, which will hold some bins to put stuff in (mostly kid's stuff; they're 12 and holy shit can a creative 12-yo generate messes).
The cabinet will be very low, with a countertop-type top and I didn't know what to do with that. I wanted to discourage stuff stacked on it, so I thought something creative could be cool.
I often show Mary (actual artist, amazing #partner) materials I have hoarded bc she frequently has kickass ideas for stuff.
On #nye2023 she was looking at these tiles and other options for creating a top for the cabinet. Nothing seemed to click. Then we started talking about drawing on the tiles and connecting them. Over the next 10 minutes we hashed out a cool system for making rearrangeable, visually connected art bits. These were the initial rules:
1. Three connecting lines per tile, on alternating sides, in the center of the side (the tiles are small, and this seemed likely to leave some space for designs on the tile; connecting all six seemed too busy).
2. Only black sharpie for the designs.
3. Each connecting line = black and the width of a regular sharpie, entering perpendicular to the side it is on.
This seemed like fun. We decided to work on some tiles independently and then see what we had when we saw each other again (another week or two, sadly, due to schedules; #enm and/or #polyamory and/or #longdistance relationships are sometimes frustrating, even when the distance isn't really /that/ long).
Then, after Mary drove back to her kitties and her cabin in the woods (this is not really a metaphor), my daughter and I broke the rules. We saw that the "only 3" rule left holes in the design. This is cool, but we wanted to fill them, so we made a few "zero-connectors" tiles.
And we figured if we're breaking one rule, we'll break another one: we put colors on some of the zero-connnector or "hole filler" tiles.
Mary has not complained. She has adopted our illegal ways. She is an #anarchist, as well as an artist, so I guess rules are often just suggestions.
Until this point I was thinking of this as a way to generate a neat pattern for a countertop-thing for the cabinet. But I couldn't decide on how to do the borders/edges of the top, and I thought it might take a while to decide on a favorite tile arrangement--
So obviously I went with "keep all the options open as long as possible" (which is a thing for me). It was the tiniest of steps to decide not to attach the tiles permanently at all.
Current plan: cabinet top will have a raised border to keep the tiles contained (maybe conforming to the hexagon pattern, but that might be way too fussy) but no permanent arrangement; the tiles can be rearranged as much as we want. New ones can be made and put in (limits: big box store doesn't seem to have any more of these).
THEN I was thinking the top of the cabinet was looking a bit janky: some uneven wood surfaces had been filled with construction adhesive (bad choice) and now needed sanding (too rubbery) or trimming and then priming, painting, etc. So maybe spend a few bucks and get some masonite for the top.
Wait, maybe I have some out in the garage. I do have a bunch of hoarded materials, after all.
Nope, no masonite, but what's that in the back corner? Holy mother of Cthulu it was a flat, smooth piece of galvanized steel a few mm thick, perfect for a top. And the exact width (18 inches) and long enough--just one cut with the angle grinder.
Now it's being primed in the garage, after having the galvanizing sanded off (I know how it is to try to paint that), then I'll paint it and slap it on the cabinet with some trim to keep it in place.
I feel I'm being rewarded for impulse-buying shit on clearance, hoarding materials I have no plans for, procrastinating my real job, and failing to fully plan out my construction projects. But there it is. I'm being rewarded. I guess this is why these behaviors persist.
*Edit: Added another pic of the tiles arranged on the family workspace (i.e., coffee table in living room)*
