Faux Tesla Coil Project Complete-Pictuires and Commentary

The found object.

My Faux Tesla Coil project has been completed.  I am really excited to see all the components I've been working on put in their places.  I wish I was able to get a better picture of the diorama than I am posting.  The only place I have to put the diorama to photograph it is on my work table.  I don't have enough room to step back and get a good focal point.  I end up being either too close to it for the long range lens or too far away for the shorter range lens.  I hope the shot of the full diorama will give you the idea of the piece while the close ups will give you the detail. 

Regular readers may remember that this project started as a "found object" experiment.  I challenged myself to find something at the thrift store and turn it into a piece of art.  What I found was a decorative metal stand.  Its origional purpose is unknown.  Something hung from it, but I could not tell what it might have been.  When I saw it, the metal spheres on the top of the stand reminded me of the spheres of a Tesla Coil.  That was the start of the project.  What came afterwards was a mixture of research, inspiration and imagination.

For inspiration, I looked through a book of vintage Halloween images. I remembered a postcard from the late 1930's that had caught my eye.  It was a picture of a cat whose fur was all puffed up.  The card used electrical bolts to represent the static electricity.  Since a Tesla Coil is all about electricity, it seemed to fit in with my theme. I decided that the cat and electrtical bolts needed to be a part of the piece.  Rather than making the cat look like the card, I decided that the bolt would strike near the cat giving it a scare.  If you have ever seen a Tesla Coil in action, you know that this idea fits in nicely.  Other Halloween images also played a part in developing this piece.  Halloween images of anthropomorphic vegetables were also popular during this time period.  I chose to use a pumpkin figure rather than a human figure not only because it fit in with visual themes from the time period, but because the other-worldly appearance of a Tesla Coil seemed to fit in with something not quite human.  Besides, the whole mad scientist thing has been done.

I researched how to build a Tesla Coil.  Although the Tesla Coil in this project is only an artistic representation, I wanted to have a basic idea of how to build one and how they worked.  Tesla's Wardenclyffe Tower was another imspiration for this piece. Tesla built a huge tower with a large sphere on top (four feet in diameter). It is an historical piece of information that many people haven't heard of before. I felt it needed to be represented in the diorama, even though there is only a passing resemblence.  I also considered adding a second figure and a Faraday Cage to the diorama,  but I'm not sure that many people would know what it was.  (A case of "Never mind, it's science.) However, in such a small space, it was just too crowded to include it.  It was a geek versus art dilemma. 

My other area of research was historical research of the time period in which the Halloween card was made.  Intuition told me that there was a story behind this card and that I would find it if I took the time to look for it.  I found that it was a time in which electricity was in two out of three urban homes, but that commercial electricity was just coming to rural areas.  The Rural Electrification Project was starting to help bring electricity to remote areas.  Electricity was very much in everyone's mind and was a topic of conversation.  I believe that this event was the inspiraton for the Halloween card.  I also learned one other historical fact that made its way into the diorama.  This was the end of the vaudeville era.  Motion pictures, powered by electricity, were the entertainment of choice.  The impact on traveling shows was tremendous.  Although many shows were limping along for a while, the handwriting was on the wall for this type of entertainment. 

The research helped me to imagine a scenario for my diorama.  I envisioned a traveling show that was trying to find a way to keep going for a while.  I imagined that bringing an electrical show to areas that did not have electricity would have been exciting and drawn crowds.  Although the Tesla Coil had been invented had been invented almost fifty years before, it most likely would been a curiosity for people who did not have electricity.  A Tesla Coil show is still a spectacular event today.

I also had to imagine how a show might have brought in electricity to an area that did not have it in order to do the show.  The generator was the obvious answer.  But then I had to ask, "what type of equipment would the show have used?"  "Would a financially strapped traveling show have a shiny new gas generator or would they have chosen to use older but reliable equipment?"  I decided that they would have used older steam equipment.  I wanted the steam equipment to be somewhat eye catching.  It was a traveling "show" after all.  In the time period that the equipment would have come from, some pieces of high end equipment were so ornate that they were themselves works of art.  So, that is how the steam generator, dynamo, and transformer found their way into the diorama.

The cat and the lightening strike are whimsical pieces.  I wanted to pay homage to the Halloween card that served as inspiration.  I also thought it added a little levity to a creepy piece.  Pranks and scares are also a part of the Halloween theme which was brought in by the anthropomorphic pumpkin and by the orange and black Halloween colors.  I think that the cat and lightening bolt added to the story.  Electricity can be frightening and dangerous.  The near miss of the electrical bolt is a reminder of the dangers of electricity.  The visual humor of the distressed cat reminds us that at times we have to laugh at our own fears.  (No cat's were harmed in the making of this diorama.)  I leave it to the viewer to decide whether the electrical bolt was a prank or an accident. 


All in all, I am pleased with my "found object" experiment.  I challenged myself to take some object and turn it into a piece of art.  Since I am so fond of Halloween, it is sometimes difficult to remember that it did not start out specifically as a Halloween piece.  With a different piece of found material, the outcome could have been completely different.  (My previous diorama started out as Halloween themed and ended up as political commentary.  Scroll back through older posts to view it.)  I enjoyed the challenge.  It lead me into unexpected and interesting directions.  It made me stretch my imaginative abilities, and I think that it has helped me gain new perspective on what it means to create art.