Steampunk Treehouse

I just got back from Burning Man. It was an amazing experience, because this was the first year I participated in creating a large-scale sculpture. My high-school buddy Max pulled in on this project, and I am eternally grateful. Together with about 40 other people, we built a 30 foot steel tree with a Victorian treehouse in it and various steam whistles and effects.

Sean Orlando is the man with the vision, and he brought everyone together. One of the most amazing things about this project is that even though there were so many people involved, and the project was of such a large scale, there was basically no drama. People bought into Sean's vision, pitched in, and made things happen. Things just got done. A lot of the other large-scale projects had problems with budget, or volunteers, or just getting things done in time, but not the treehouse.

I didn't really do anything artistic on the project; I just did basic metal fabrication. I worked on the frame for the trunk, the skin on the trunk, the roof, and the branches. I really learned a lot about working with metal on this project. Some of the things I learned are:

• One of the hardest things about welding is getting everything in the right place.


• The other hard thing is the positions you have to get into to properly weld something.


• Make it fit right.

I'm a little bit regretful that I didn't step up to own some tiny piece of art in the tree and make it my own, but not that regretful. I just showed up and did what needed to be done to get the tree finished in time, and I had a blast doing it.

I'm really excited to do more art, and more metal fabrication. I'm also really grateful to have met the other steampunks in the crew. It's a really amazing group of people and I'm just glad to be able to spend time with them.

You can see more about the treehouse at http://www.steamtreehouse.com/ or at http://www.flickr.com/search/?q=steampunk+treehouse