Da Lightsome Buoy, the selected sculpture. Fabrication of the 2m buoy will be starting now and the sculpture will be installed in September 2016. I will be working with
Milwyn Casting to make the sculpture, the buoy will be cast in 30 bronze panels using lost wax process.
Exciting !
Return to Shetland………..I am back for one week to start the fabrication of the sculpture, it is also ‘Up helly Aa’ week which I shall talk more about later, so not a week for getting much work done as it is holiday and celebration time. I have a temporary studio for the week, a very cold ground floor space at the Lerwick Port Authority building. The week is mainly taken up with meetings, and visiting the site and just being here again, equally important, to bring the ideas, materials and models up to the site to see how they fit, with the light, the weather, the surroundings….. it is not the same being in Suffolk and trying to make a piece for the harbour in Lerwick. Here is the studio space.
Bye Bye Shetland…..for now.
The end of the residency and back down ‘sooth’ until next year.
Taking in the Buoys
The last few days have been taken up with meetings and presenting my final 3 proposals for the sculpture. The first meeting was on Sunday to the community advisory group, made up from a mix of people I have met during my time here in Shetland. It was the first time I have made such a formal presentation to a community group as part of the selection process during a project. It was a very positive meeting and the responses were varied, interesting and valid. Just before going I read an article on Public Art and the effect of on health and wellbeing for communities, I like this quote from Alex Coulter, director of the arts advocacy organisation Arts & Health South West.
“We live in a world where everything gets caught up in its economic benefits or usefulness, and art just sits there as this other thing which is not about any of that. There are things in the world that we just stand and look at and wonder about, and are not there to do anything else. That is quite important.” And, somewhat perversely but evidently, that is important for our wellbeing too.
So the next day was a meeting with the project partners who made the final decision, it was agreed to go forward with one of the proposals, which also means I shall be coming back to Shetland next year and that is exciting.
Done… finished the proposals. Ready for the meeting tomorrow with the community advisory group, back out into the world. I shall have something more interesting to write soon.
