Film Crew

Cathy Sayers and Neil Tugwell of Vision on Communications spent the afternoon filming me at work at my studio. They filmed me splitting a block of marble and we also put a couple of sculptures on the turntable in order to film them rotating. I was just out of shot pulling on a rope in order to make the turntable turn. Rather comical somehow. I expect the film will look very professional and you will never imagine that there could be anything so low tech going on. We have to choose an appropriate piece of music to go with the film. Tricky, as it must convey the right feelings. We spent the day looking skywards as rainclouds skudded past, waiting for the sun to peek out. Rather miraculously it did and all went well. I attach Cathy and Neil’s details below.

www.visiononcomms.com

Bigger stack with a twist

This piece is coming on well and I am looking forward to standing it up. It has been several days since my last post as I have been attending an exhibition Out of Nature in Herefordshire. All sorts of sculpture on display in the gardens of the magnificent Newport house. I was asked to give a talk about my working practices. I followed Satish Kumar in talking as he opened the exhibition; always a hard act to follow. He speaks brilliantly! Mine was ok although there is certainly room to improve, I find that standing in front of lots of people makes me a little nervous and as a consequence muddle all that I want to say. Carving this new piece is easier for me than public speaking. I must consider what kind of base to put it on.

Starting the sub soil base

I had fun today cutting little wedges out of a length of angle iron. This is just the beginning of a sizable structure made of steel which will lie underground in order to hold the sculpture upright. I then welded the sides of the wedges together again once I had bent the steel to close the gap in the wedge. The shape of the steel has a curve in order to lie underneath the stainless rods. I then drilled holes to allow the stainless rods to poke through. At the close of play I was trying to file away the edges of some of my drill holes that were not quite in the right place: most annoying, and I fear I shall be filing for several hours tomorrow. Meanwhile Jordan has been constructing the barn windows. The oak lengths needs planing and jointing together in order to receive the double glazed units. I somehow managed to order too few pieces of oak and we will have to wait whilst the timber yard cuts me some more.

 

A new blog and a new series of sculpture

This is all new to me. Writing a blog. Perhaps it is like starting a new series of sculpture. Difficult. Actually the hardest part is the starting and then things start to come more easily. Anyway we shall see. This is a good time to start however as I have just had a delivery of marble and onyx from Portugal and am beginning to work on it. The blocks are all lying around on pallets waiting. I have a page full of drawings but I am sure that the stone will lead me in new directions once the work is really underway. I have been organising this series for a while and am really ready to get going on it.

The block I am working on is marble. The block under the drill is green onyx. The colours underneath are amazing and all hidden at the moment by dust and years of lying around.