Blog Notes.
This work was one of the last pieces that I have made in my old studio at Martelsham Suffolk. It is now in the Exhibition at Pretty’s in Ipswich .This piece is made on the whole from found objects mainly steel off cuts found in scrap yards and on old farm premises. The inspiration for this came from a number of sources, but mainly from books and films that I have seen over the years. When working on these kind of pieces I nearly always find that the materials dictate the finished object.
The fun and there by the art of any structure must come from a combination of materials, feelings, and of course inspiration, the latter being in my opinion the major force, without it, all is just work.
Looking back on this period of my own work I, am minded to refer to artist that are always in my mind when working, these are the likes of Gormley, Caro and Smith to name just three of the movers of my internal engine of thought. I always think it would be splendid to have a few workers available to expand the work and take it to it next level. The picture below is of A Mayan God of War. And is the kind of influence I mentioned earlier.
Some of the other works in this series are pretty diverse and I will introduce them as we go through the blog.
But for a short while we will digress from the ,me, me, approach and revert to how this change in working materials and practice has come about and where the new found interest in reconstructing old materials is moving me.
Firstly it would be a good place to state that none of this metamorphism would have come about without the help and advice of my Tutors at UCS .There are times when working on a piece you have a feeling that perhaps you are heading in the wrong direction and this has happened a number of times both in found object sculpture and plaster and wood mediums .Some of the earlier work did get away from me completely and without the encouragement of those around me I really think that I would have abandoned sculpture altogether. There is an awful lot on the different ways artist approach there work and I, am afraid that mine seems to come in manic spurts of energy, first there is the collecting of the constituent parts the” scrap” and recycled materials, these I lay on the floor of the studio and leave there doing drawing and taking pictures of the bits I think will fit together in the finished work.
Example of laying out.
When the moment comes for construction it comes none stop I do not seem to be able to leave work until it takes on the persona of the original thought, only then do I take the time to re-construct the piece, and then paginate it if possible or add some paint, but mainly I leave the piece outside to weather and then brush and polish the parts that need it.
