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Sunday, March 2, 2008

Eric Freitas' Clocks

Growing relentlessly in the mind of Eric Freitas lies a realm of dark mechanical curiosities and horological contradictions. In this world gears are harvested and mechanisms are alive with the organic repetitions of nature's machine. Balancing carefully between creative conception and logical execution, this world would slowly be brought to life.

So starts Eric Freitas' biography on Etsy. The work, incredibly, outshines the statement.

Beautiful, wierd, hand-machined -- this not just art attached to an existing quartz movement, but a fully realized working pendulum clock out of brass and rice paper. The particular clock's inspiration is based on the calligraphy of the numbers:

This is my fifth fully mechanical clock. All of the parts were machined by hand, and many of them carry a design congruent with the calligraphy used for the numbers. In addition, a strange and uncontrolled style is introduced to offset the structured nature of the gears. No.5 has a one second pulse and a 'dead beat-style' escapement. The seven swivels out of the way to expose the winder, which needs to be employed about once a week ( 8 days ). Adjusting the timing of the pendulum is easy, and if done correctly this clock will be accurate within a minute or two a week.

Another one (quartz rather than mechanical) I'm not sure I'd ever want to see strike midnight:


Eric has 2 clocks for sale on Etsy -- the first one above and a more economical one based on a quartz movement. For a full history of his work -- many are no longer available -- you'll want to view Eric's flickr stream.


Isn't it clever and elegant how the numbers become the decorative elements here?

His workmanship is utterly amazing.

Thanks to the blog at Coilhouse for pointing these out.

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