When you think you’re finished, you just have weeks left to go. Small paint touch ups, tweeks to the stem, pod and stacked glass. Just all the little fiddly bits. No real visual changes, just small things. We’ve been working on how to attach the sculpture to the ground securely. This will vary according to it’s setting. This brought up challenges on just how to move it. It’s about 4 feet wide, 4 feet long and 5 feet tall and weighs over 150 lbs.
This project was supported by the North Carolina Arts Council, a division of the Department of Natural and Cultural Resources.
Here is the whole sculpture put together and photographed. It was a bear to move. I tried to make it so it would break into 2 or three parts. The bolts and nuts will come out but the pieces wouldn’t separate. So, I am going to remove the connectors and weld it back into one piece. It still needs a protective coat of paint on the rebar. The stainless steel leaves should be OK in the weather. We learned a great deal. A bobcat (you know the one you use to lift things not the one that bites you in the ass) is on our wish list because, damn!
Now that it has bloomed and become a “sculpture”, it’s time we named this puppy.
Today was a good day. We took a drive and saw some new scenery and one traffic jam. Way cool traffic jam. Worked this afternoon and made progress and changes on the pod and stalk. The large leaves are now stainless steel not rusty tin roofing. The pod is shorter and wider. The cedar has two coats of spar varnish. It is now waterproof and very red. The stem is 1/2” rebar rather than 3/4”. The 3/4” seem out of proportion so 1/2” instead.
This is the initial shaped pod. It will be on a steel stalk extending from the leaves upward. I have since covered it with several coats of spar (very high gloss exterior grade) polyurethane. This has given it a deep reddish color. The stacked glass bloom sits at the top of the pod. The stalk will be made from 3/4” rebar.
I have the upright overlapping circle that I began with. It will not be used in this sculpture. I had it propped up for welding and like the way it looked. So, when I finish the present piece, I think I just might start right in on a new sculpture, Single Helix. I may “skin” this one in either steel or stainless steel so that you don’t see the framework.
This morning (after our 2nd Covid19 vaccine shot) Susan and I took a trip to Biltmore Metal Recycling looking for steel and inspiration. You can never tell what you will find. We found some really cool things that were way bigger than we could move. Oh well.
The interlocking vertical circles could be expanded as either a geometric series of shapes or it can be enhanced with additional organic elements. I have decided to move in the organic direction. An organic center “stalk and pod” should help balance the geometric quality. The question is how to design and make the center stalk/pod. I am planning on it to be made up of a steel, stainless steel, glass and cedar. Bending and cutting stainless steel for leaves will be the first step. The next hurdle is how to assemble the stalk, leaves and pod.
The original idea for the base is done. This is the real sculpture from the SketchUp design. It was OK. The shapes were interesting, the size was right. It was not the complete design. The SketchUp design did not include the mast that was in the original maquette. I had the base standing vertically as I was working with finish welding. I really liked the way it looked standing on edge. So I made another one to interlock with it.
Here is the full sized upright circle, inside and outside. There are some adjustments to be made to the cross connections. I am thinking about putting some stainless steel sheets inside of the two circles for a change in texture and reflectivity. Then it is on to the horizontal open circle that will form a section of the base (see the SketchUp model blog) . I want you to realize as you look at the blog series about this sculpture that the camera adds 60lbs to my images. Not only an I thinner, but I am taller as well. And more handsome, the camera does something about that as well. For some reason, the sculpture’s proportions seem to not be effected by this. Go figure.