Artist Profile: Ed Dohnert

One of the things I like to do with this blog is to highlight obscure artists that you probably would never have come across otherwise. One such person would be engineer/artist Ed Dohnert. He doesn't have a website, but Miss Lily and I are trying to convince him to start exhibiting his work, at the very least online, if not in person. While Ed does not, in fact, consider himself an artist, I would have to disagree. He creates meticulous motion machines with an eye toward a Victorian aesthetic, and uses various wood and metal pieces, found objects, and more - shaping them to suit the need of the design, as well as to please the eye.

Below are some photos of one such machine. Apologies for the poor quality of the pictures:






The above machine works by pulling the weighted ball on the pulley system at the bottom of the machine. The weight of the ball, as it descends, causes the gears, wheels, cogs, levers, and pistons etc. to rotate or spin, which pulls the smaller metal balls around the track course. Once Dohnert gets his website going, he plans on putting videos of his work in action, as well as high quality photo portfolio.