Back Roads and Zip Ties, OH My!

Daisy like to be the Co-Pilot

Saturday, Daisy, Dad and I had an unintended big adventure. We drove through intermittent heavy down pours to pick up my artwork from the month long show at the Bowen Gallery in Dawsonville. From the gallery in the center of town we took many different back roads that Google had shown as an easy 16 mile route  to get to Cumming, south of Dawsonville. I planned to see an art show that some of my fellow artist are in. Well, it turned into quite an adventure with often zero visibility and no road signs, needles to say I got lost. At one point I thought I was going to just be lost all day driving around on small country roads in the rain. If it had been sunny it would have been a pleasant drive I’m sure. The GPS decided to go with lost signal most of the time.  Roads would just dead end and I would have to choose left or right, which I never had a clue which to chose. After what felt like hours, really only 15 or 20 minutes we came into a suburban housing area so I figure that signs of a town would soon follow, which finally they did. In fact we did land in the middle of Cumming. Then as luck would have it the GPS decided to have a signal and give us directions to the gallery. The show was interesting and much larger than I expected. There was one piece that really fascinated me and it was fun to see my friends paintings.

Cumming Art show

Now there is something we don’t really think about much they seem very ordinary zip-ties or cable ties. Bet you didn’t know that they were first invented by Maurus C. Logan while working at Thomas & Bett, an electrical company, in 1958 under the brand name Ty-Rap. Initially they were designed for airplane wire harnesses.  Over the years they have become very popular with many uses, but I bet you never thought of making a woven sculpture. Yesterday, at the art show in Cumming I saw this sculpture. At first I thought it was all made out of traditional weaving materials and then I realize it was not.

Zip-Tie Sculpture

The other week I witnessed a far less inspiring use of zip-ties by the State Troopers as they arrested some of the demonstrators in the state capital using zip-ties for hand cuffs.  Have you found any really interesting or different uses for zip-ties?

This week I’m looking forward to the Piedmont College Alumni Art Exhibit. I have a couple of paintings in this show. The best news after taking a creative sabbatical, I have returned to painting. Stay turned for postings of my new works.