What size silks does Dale Salwak use is his silk fountain? Perhaps the sizes are changing as they are produced?

Thanks,

Martini

I believe he performs Neil Foster's version, which is not published. I know Neil ended with a 6 foot Abbott's Sunburst Silk, the rest were the standard 18" silks, but I believe, it has been a long time, he used something like 25 or 50 silks. It was a very large bundle and took a long time to prepare.

Dale Salwak has not revealed any of his material to my knowledge, maybe to his Chavez Students. You are more then welcome to take the Chavez Course in magic and work directly with Mr. Salwak in Las Angeles, California area. He runs the mail order lessons and personal instructions as well. He is a college professor.

As a side note, I don't think he would be happy with you asking a question like this on an open Internet forum. It is considered ill-mannered to as such things of magicians still performing professionally.

You would have to contact Abbott's for pricing, as it is not a standard item they manufacturer.

Neil Foster's presentation of "The Blooming Cabbage" was DELIGHTFUL.

Bill has said it.


Posted: Jun 22, 2014 01:31 pm
I had better clarify that! What I meant was: Bill has expressed not only his thoughts, but, mine, too.

One of the neat things about Neil's "cabbage" was that as each "layer" of silks bloomed, the colors changed--but "slowly". --i.e. Smileink silks became "pinker" and then a pale rose color and finally red. Ditto, all the other colors, they changed "by degrees", which added immensely to the effect. When the sis footer appeared, it overflowed the entire mass of silks, and "said": "This is the finish!!!" Neil was an ARTIST!

Thanks

Richard Hughes also sells some very nice silk fountains, in different sizes.

- Donald

Thanks Donald. I also make all of Dale Salwak's silk but I cannot talk about his specific sizes or such without his permission.

As the number of silks, it will depend upon the color progressions you want and how long you want the fountain to run. I have made them up with a 90" finish silk and all 36" silks. It also depends on how you are going to use it, how long you can pre fold it, etc. The longer it is pre folded the slower it will open. It will also slow down with different momme weights of silks.

There are a lot of variables.

Richard

Be kind to yourself. Remember that the longer the production last the longer the prep time before the show.

I have been having this conversation with several magicians for the last several months. And my questions are this.

Do you think the SIZE of the silks is important or the NUMBER of silks produced?

Then I ask what is the Largest/best/unusual Final Load you have ever seen?
Every one feel free to chip in here...

When it comes to size and number it is pretty much as wash 50% say size and 50% said number.

In the end (for me) it boils down to how am I going to steal the load and what is the final production going to be.

The more or larger the silks the bigger the load you have to conceal/steal.

As far as prep time I really don't care about that (within reason) if the outcome is worth it.

Richard I didn't know you made silk fountians. Since I am already talking to you about you Tubes maybe I should talk to you about your fountains as well. I will PM you my number...

Bob I still need to talk to you about getting some custom one hand release pouches made up...

Yes, I do make silk fountains. The largest I made was about 22" diameter when folded.

Number and size of the silks has a lot to do with the look of the fountain. They should be graduated for a larger fountain. The key is to have the silk slowly reveal itself as it unfolds. A lot of things factor into that slowness equation. The size of the silks, number of silks, weight of the silks, folding of the silks and the length of the time they have been folded.

Richard

Richard is right -- as usual. It takes a lot of thought to do a GOOD silk fountain and a lot of thinking must go into the preparation in color order, size of silks used, mome of silks and how they fall during the reveal and how fast or slow you do the reveal will tell your audience whether they are watching a trick -- or a thing of beauty revealed by magical means.

If you have a dove act -- you can have a set built to have a dove come pout opt the fountain -- and I had mine usually constructed so that long 2-4 inch steamers would be the last thing to come out of the bouquet center as a mini-flash climax. Getting the timing down to have two hands reveal the streamers from two blooms at the same time never worked for me of poor hand-eye coordination.

And just think of how many trick tapes, or soap operas you can with when folding these for the next performance.

Too many silks in a silk fountain makes for a boring trick. 10 or 12 silks is a good number.

You would do well to check out Duane Laflin's material. As far as I am concerned he is an expert when it comes to silk magic as well as other magic.

Daune is very knowledgeable but he is by no means the only expert on Silk magic. Peter White, Paul Diamond,Harold Rice, Bob Sanders, Jean Hugard, Joe Ovette, and many others have a best deal to offer.

I hesitate to only depend on one source on almost any subject. There is always something to be learn for using more than one source.

I didn't say Duane was the only expert, but he is one of the experts in silk magic. I didn't mean to imply that he was the only resource. Just that he was a very good resource when it comes to silk magic. Sorry if I struck a nerve.

I understand.

Richard, you forgot one other expert on silk magic; Richard Hughes. Just wanted to have a complete list.

My best to you my friend,

David Williams

Posted: Sep 20, 2014 01:02 pm Another few worth mentioning; Ade Duvall, Pavel and Marconick. I've got two of Marconick's books within arm's reach from my Lazy Boy.

Posted: Sep 20, 2014 01:03 pm Is Marconick credited with inventing the silk fountain? If not then who?

Darkwing- I'm not sure who originated the effect, but It was long time part of the act of Phoa Yan Tiong whose Chinese themed act used lots of silks. He may have predated Marconick on this and since they both lived in Holland after WW2,.....

It is well covered (as well as a bunch of other silk magic) in his trilogy of books that explained his entire act: "THE SEASONS"

I am going to go back to Hugard's Silken Socery as an earlier source of a silk fountain off the top of my head.

Phoa Yan Tong's book sound very interesting. I will have to hunt out a copy.

Yes, Marconick wrote up some good silk magic. Most of it was variations on established themes or methods but yet very innovative and forgotten by many.

Richard

Yes, Richard! You are right.... I think that was the first place I read it as well!

Your memory is better than mine!

J.Neal

Another comment on the fountain -- it's use often depends upon the pace of your act and where and how you position the bloom.

My personal preference is a slower bloom (accompanied by music) allowing the audience to see each color develop rather than pop into a short lived existence only ti be covered by another silk way too quickly. This latter presentation is usually accompanied by a ma,gician shaking the bundle with a 7.5 richter scale motion -- almost trying to get the trick over with rather than appreciating the miracle taking place at his/her fingertips.

My personal opinion is that fast paced TV and action movies have ruined a lot of attention spans in both audiences and performers. One thing David Ginn has always taught (since he works for young audiences) is that you have to train your audience on how to respond while you perform and make that training a part of your performance. Otherwise how do they (the audience) know how to react?

While we all work under time constraints on stage -- hw much time we give an effect is not governed by action movie rules IF we train the audience to join in the fun of our dramatic pacing -- often using fewer tricks and more emotion, whether it be comedy, wonder, astonishment, sentimentality or horror. We do this opening our act with things that lead the audience into the pacing WE want.

So, with the silk fountain, you have to ask yourself what pacing have you established up to the time you want to produce it -- and what emotion do you want to evoke as it unfolds. I prefer a minimum reaction of "my those are interesting colors I am seeing," A better reaction would be for the audience to feel they were seeing a flower bloom in slo mo. The best reaction I could ever get would be a childlike appreciation of the flower of many colors without questioning how it was done.

So, ion adding to my comments above as to size -- it still depends. Time, timing, budget and real reason to have the effect in your act will determine this. I can almost see a large size finish with a mechanical version of this coming out of a tube or column behind a performer with two smaller versions developing in his hands to music leading to a bow.