Valerie Katamso

An issue that I encounter in my community is graffiti. Although people may see graffiti as a form of “art”, but to others it may be seen as destruction. Graffiti comes in all different shapes, sizes, colors, meaning, etc. but specifically in my community I see gang affiliated graffiti. The graffiti is written in a ‘tagging’ style form. There is graffiti drawn in different colors and sizes around my neighborhood. I see it on building property, sidewalks, self storage boxes, roofs, etc. It can be drawn in any blank spots that are possible for graffiti to be written on. This has an effect on me because since my parents are the manager of the apartment, whenever there is graffiti written on the property of the building, the management has to go out and spend money to repaint over the graffiti. Not only does it waste money, but it also wastes time because it turns into a cycle because there is no way to stop graffiti from being written. Graffiti affects my community because in my opinion, it makes my neighborhood look filthy. Also, I feel like it's unnecessary and a waste of space. I feel like it also promotes violence because it’s a form of vandalism and it just promotes “territorial claim” which I think is dumb.
The impact I hope to make on graffiti with my chime is to promote a vandalism-free world. My audience for my chime is my peers, community, and the world. The reaction I want people to have on my chime is to clearly understand my idea of promoting a non-violence and non-vandalism community. I want people to take part of cleaning their environment and really start to take action to promote acts of love in their community. I will try to achieve this reaction with my chime by getting an item that promotes hate and create a heart shape so then it will create this reaction of fixing destruction into a form of peace.
In my chime, I want to use paint or ink, spray paint cans, and a metal peace sign. For the paint or ink, I want the smell of the paint to really stand out and be smelled when people pass the chime so they could remember places where they see paint--grafitti. To make paint, grain pigments are premixed with resin, one or more solvents, and additives to form a paste. Then the paste mixture routed into a sand mill, making them smaller and dispersing them throughout the mixture. The mixture is then filtered to remove the sand particles. Instead of being processed in sand mills, up to 90 percent of the water-based latex paints are processed in a high-speed dispersion tank. There, the premixed paste is subjected to high-speed agitation by a circular, toothed blade attached to a rotating shaft. This process blends the pigment into the solvent. Finally, the paste must now be thinned to produce the final product. Transferred to large kettles, it is agitated with the proper amount of solvent for the type of paint desired. (madehow.com)
I want to use the spray paint can because I want this to be the base of the whole chime and I want this to be product that the chime will be made out of. The first step in manufacturing spray paint is to prepare the liquid concentrate in large metal or glass tanks. This process involves mixing the liquid ingredients such as solvents, corrosion inhibitors, and pH and viscosity control agents with large impeller type mixers driven by electric motors. The dry pigments are mixed with some of the paint concentrate to form a slurry that is poured into a ball mill. The drum is then placed on a pair of rotating metal rollers; as it spins around, the balls tumble in the drum and break apart the pigment particles. The pigment slurry is passed through the roller mill as they rotate against each other. The pigment particles are broken apart by the action of the rollers until only the smallest particles passed through the spacing—the larger aggregated particles are broken apart. Once the pigments have been properly wetted, the slurry can be added to the remainder of the liquid concentrate in the batching tank. This mixture is then stirred until it is homogenous. Once it is known that the batch meets the appropriate specifications it can be transferred to a filling tank. The filling processes used for aerosols is highly automated. The empty cans travel down a conveyor belt to reach the filling equipment. Jets of compressed air blast away any dust or dirt that may be in the cans before they are filled with the concentrate by the filling heads. These heads are a series of nozzles that are connected to tubes that transfer the paint from the filling tank. A piston mechanism controls how much liquid is injected into the can. After filling the cans proceed down the assembly line to a gassing device that injects liquefied propellant into the can and then immediately crimps the valve against the rim of the can to seal it shut. After gassing, the cans travel through a trough of hot water so they can be observed to check for leaks. After passing through the water trough, the cans are dried with more compressed air. At the end of the assembly line an overcap is fitted over the valve to protect the aerosol from accidental activation. Finally the cans are packed into cartons and placed on pallets for shipping. (madehow.com)
Lastly, I want to add a metal peace sign to the chime because the idea behind my chime is to stop vandalism and promote more peace in our community. (I couldn’t find a website that explained how to make a metal peace sign but I’m going to explain how metal objects are made) In order to make metal you first soften hard metal by heating it in the flame of a torch to make it more malleable and easier to work with. Then it must be annealed again throughout the metalsmithing process. Then, metal can be cut with a jeweler’s saw, tin snips, other cutting pliers, drilling attachments on flex shafts, disc cutters, or metal punches. After cutting metal, the edges should be filed with metal files and/or sanded with steel wool to remove sharp edges and dangerous burrs left on the metal. Then, you need to form the metal and this involves turning flat metal sheet into three-dimensional shapes for metal jewelry, using methods like dapping/doming, raising, fold forming, chasing and repoussé, swaging, fluting, etc. Most all of these methods require hammering metal into or against a hard surface like a bench block, mandrel, anvil, stakes, or in dapping blocks. Metal will work-harden during hammering and will most likely need to be annealed to continue. Next, metal can be joined via cold connections (such as riveting, weaving, with screws or tabs, etc.) or hot connections (soldering and fusing). Soldering involves creating a permanent join between two or more pieces of metal using solder (a metal alloy) and a torch. The final or near-final steps in metalsmithing are finishing steps like sanding, filing, polishing, and buffing, to create smooth, comfortable, attractive pieces of hand-crafted metal jewelry but also to add the desired finish on the metal surface, such as a matte or shiny finish. Finishing tasks can be completed by hand or by machine, or by a combination of the two. At some point during the metal jewelry-making process, you might choose to embellish your metal designs by adding textures and patinas. Texturing metal can be achieved by hammering with texturing hammers, hammering against a textured surface, engraving, etching, rolling metal sheet through a rolling mill, reticulation, etc. Metal stamping is another “bonus” metalsmithing technique that allows for personalization of metal jewelry by stamping on words, letters, designs, or simple patterns using steel stamps and a hammer. (interweave.com)