A two months production time, from a project on paper to 230 cm high outside sculpture, is agreeable a very short time. Fortunately, we can make use of modern technology to take a shortcut to the traditional process of creating a full size piece. After the scanning of the 45 cm model, a computer will enlarge the 3d scan and cut it out of polystyrene blocks. I will then insert a metal structure into the cut shapes and sandwich them together again.
The polystyrene shape will then be covered with quadaxial fibreglass matting and Jesmonite, made up of two components, a liquid acrylic compound that binds a gypsum powder (not unlike that used for plaster casting). The resulting mixture acts much like plaster for 24 hours, then hardens to acrylic-like properties. This is a laborious act and will need lots of layers and filing/sanding back.
Here some pictures of the scan:
A huge thank you to Nick and Jeff from CNC Polystyrene, part of Honeyring Ltd., who have kindly agreed to sponsor my piece by helping me with the 3d scan of the model and cutting it on their huge CNC milling machines directly into a bloc of polystyrene.
Have a look at the projects they have completed in the past! Quite impressive!
http://www.cncpolystyrene.co.uk
The drawing stage is followed by the model making. Loads. This stage helps to solve formal issues and to understand the technical challenges. It’s easier to solve these on a small scale !
Hello, I’m back.
I had to concentrate on another project last week, but which does not mean that the Broomhill project remained idle. A lot of things happened.
So lets start from the beginning as I promised to illustrate the artistic progress.
Some time ago I found this ancient metallic tool. Disused. In a box among many old tools at a flea market. It had such elegant flowing forms, a perfectly ergonomic shape that just fitted naturally in my hand. The seller explained it was used to straighten up teeth on crosscut saws. So far for sustainability in the ancient days! Today, your saw blade is a bit shaky and out of shape? Throw it away and buy another one!
I was mesmerised by its beauty and started to draw it from all the angles. Once I’m familiar with the form of an object I’m interested in, I draw it enlarged, two or three meters high. That’s when the metamorphosis process kicks in. Sub-conscience takes over, lines become simpler but also emphasise the anthropomorphic qualities of the object…
About Finding objects
Or do objects find us?
I am interested in making visible what I sense to be present behind the surface appearance of things, by going past the obvious. Influenced by my upbringing on a farm in Germany I strongly respond to form, texture and colour of organic material like wood, soil, rust, bones. A notion of ‘nobleness’ in disused tools and decaying matter retain my attention: a rag of yellow nylon jumper, washed up by the sea and encrusted with clusters of algae, bears an uncanny resemblance to giraffe hair. An uprooted tree sits on a reversed metal bucket, eaten away by a rusty hole. These manmade objects in their liminal state of being reclaimed by nature serve as a metaphor to the cycle of life. Human intervention disturbs the environment, but in the end nature has always the last word. The supremacy of the human is an illusion.
Finding objects is subject to chance, the chance of an object being in the right place at the right time. But it is not as random as it seems, only those items with a colour, a texture, a form and an emotional content that struck a cord with our preferences and conception of a theme retain our attention. In my case these are predominantly objects with an archaic feel, in between two states of their lifecycle. They have an inherent presence and noble nature under a weathered surface.
