Began work today! On the smallest of the ten pieces that will comprise the sculpture, but still… Sanding back and filling screw holes in preparation for primer. It rapidly became clear that it won’t be six days’ work but more like the next two weeks, solid, but it’s ok. Luckily there is some extra time built in. Now I have a power sander and some non toxic wood filler, which should help.
Today I got my first view of what’s been going on in the workshop in Roskilde. My first impression: wow, it’s big! Of course I knew it was going to be big, but it takes a moment to adjust to the new scale of things. The steel had not been delivered yesterday, but the steel yard people promised it would be delivered later today. Really hope so.
Meanwhile, the structure is taking shape. I am still a bit worried about how the surfaces will look. Inevitably, being so big a number of plates of plywood have to be used, and by using the ‘coated’ plywood, what you gain in smoothness is offset somewhat by the more obvious joins between the plates. Will have to hope that once they are sanded, and the paint goes on, it will start to look better than the shiny plywood coating which is so highly reflective that you can see every subtle shift of angle. Still: I feel a hell of a lot better having seen what’s going on. Seeing a Rick Astley sticker on the back windscreen of a van lifted my spirits: silly, but a nice distraction from the fact the steel hadn’t arrived. The workshop is right in the lea of a magnificent waste disposal plant: a modern cathedral to rubbish…
Yesterday I went to the scrap metal yard, early. Fortunately for me, they always have HEB beams in stock and I was able to measure to get those that were closest to 10cm in depth (10.2-10.3cm) I can only hope this will be close enough to fit inside the timber frame. When I called Mikkel the carpenter, he was still asking if I could get more like 9.5cm which is somewhat worrying. I was trying to explain they come as standard and I can’t really just get what I want. Anyway, fingers crossed. Today they’re not actually working on the frame, but the steel will be delivered today to Roskilde. I will go tomorrow morning with the paint and other materials and inspect the progress so far.
I also spoke with the site manager for the exhibition yesterday. He told me they’ve begun installing some work already: namely a huge jetty, circular I think, which is something like 30m in diameter. That sounds quite a job too.
Meanwhile my glaze samples in the studio are only just drying now, after ten days. I’ll only have five days for the rear of the main structure to dry before opening. I can only reduce the proportion of stand oil to solvent a bit and hope that the outdoor conditions with sea breeze will accelerate the drying sufficiently…
The first big wobble came today. I got an unexpected call from Mikkel, lead carpenter on the project; unexpected because I didn’t know they would be working today, on the weekend. The wobble came because I came to suspect he wasn’t really working on the assumption that the steel beams that will support the structure internally may well be more than the official 10cm deep. I had measured them when I went to order them at the scrap yard and found most of them to be 10.4cm deep. This information I relayed to Mikkel at the time, along with my concerns that if he was using 10x5cm timber to build the frame, we might find ourselves unable to insert the steel beams once we arrive on site for the installation. I asked him at the time if he needed to have the beams in the workshop before building the structure and he told me no.
Now he is telling me I need to get smaller beams (though the beams were recommended by the structural engineer, he told me the size needed and spacing) or to make sure I get the ones that are 10.2cm or less. So I will go to the steel yard tomorrow, hoping that there are some beams that are less than 10.4cm deep, and that I can get them cut and delivered this week. Otherwise, we have a fairly major setback already…..
Today I got word that the carpenters have started work on building House of Cards. Massive relief that they are underway, with three weeks to go before it is due to be collected by the exhibition organisers. Next week is only a four day working week because of a Bank Holiday here and I still have to paint, graphite, glaze and allow for drying time before dismantling and wrapping for transport. Only a little over a month until installation. Still, like all things you anticipate nervously, it feels good to be underway.
Having met an old photographer friend today…
and talked to her about the project, I have decided I should launch myself into Twitter. I’ve avoided it up until now feeling that life is busy enough, but she convinced me that it is good for spreading the word so to speak. From my newsroom shifts at the BBC while at art school, I know it’s also an important tool for journalists now, an important source of information. Time to stop burying my head in the sand…
