Just over a week to go before my due date and I did 9 hours in the studio today – a bit foolish perhaps – but I had a surge of energy so I thought I would capitalise on it.
Well, I’ve been a bit quiet on the blogging as I’ve been really busy. A few weeks ago I got a call out of the blue from an art consultant telling me I’d been shortlisted for a commission by his client – a law firm. Initially my heart sank as he said the installation deadline was mid august and they were looking for a 2m sculpture – sounded a bit impossible with a baby on the way.
However, they were very interested in my ‘Dream of society as flawless as Diamond’ series, and were looking to get a large version of that.
http://www.briony.com/works/dream-II_1.html
As it is a modular work, which involves a single repeated figure, most of the work is in production, so I decided it was definitely possible and I’d always wanted to do a big version of it, so I there was no way I could say no.
I’ve been having fun designing a new work using a 3D modelling programme – Google’s Sketchup. It is free and fairly easy to use, but I have had the advantage of my younger sister’s help (she is an architect so expert at 3D visualisations).
The presentation to the selection committee is next Wednesday, so I’m now pulling together all the material for the presentation – quotes, timescales, images etc…
So – in the studio today James and I started to make the maquette of the sculpture – 1/10 size – out of brass rods soldered together. Its quite complicated and definitely a 2 person job, 1 to hold the rods at the right angle while the other solders them in place. I am so getting used to having an assistant, I’m loving it and might just have to make it a permanent way of working…
We were simultaneously also working on 2 moulds we had started on Friday. Unfortunately my pregnancy brain means I’ve done a few silly things, such as thinking I could get away with 5% catalyst in the rubber so that it would go off slowly (for the first coat), when in fact it didn’t go off at all and needed to be taken off again! I should have got some slow catalyst instead…
But it was all salvageable, just means it will take a bit longer. I’m casting a portrait of a boy (a private commission I’d agreed to before I knew I had the residency) and my first new work: Embriect. It would have been great to get it cast before my maternity leave, but it will have to be one of our first jobs when I start back.
On Friday when James and I had started the moulds, I also had the Kings Place photographer in documenting my residency. He is a really nice and interesting man and was very easy person to have in the studio. But I do wonder if it contributed slightly to my errors with the moulding.
I also had a great conversation today with a sculptor who was helping advise me on my proposal. I remembered to make the most of the RBS (Royal British Society of Sculptors) of which I’m a member and they put me in touch with him. He made me think of a few things I hadn’t considered (notably whether I should get myself VAT registered…) but also encouraged me to have confidence in myself. He had been on the selection committee for the Bronze Casting residency which I got last year, and said nice things about the way I had presented then.
Anyway, after working from 9-6 in the studio today, then an hour’s commute home, pick up my son, got him into bed (I think – although I’ve had one “mummy I hurt myself” attention call) I’m now collapsed on the sofa writing this whilst my dear husband is cooking dinner in between work calls and blackberry emails as he’s had some emergency at work as well.
All this will change when the new baby decides to come – hopefully a bit after my due date…
