Significant progress on thew pathway

 

I'm pleased that I found a few days of dry weather to progress my work on the art pathway.

As you can see from the photo above and photos below I have not only glued all pieces in place; but also filled gaps around sculptural element and some cracks between the pathway pavers and the artworks; and I cleaned all the panel. Cleaning involved hand sanding all the metal elements. Turned out to be quite a physical job on hands and knees - but with the outcome..

I applied some black acrylic paint to see how the cement surface would take up the paint. As you can see from some of the photos black is way too dark - but I also want to see how it ages over the next couple of months. 

It may turn out that I will need to do the touching up with a much lighter grey paint. So when I get back from Scotland  I will finish filling in gaps and cracks and do the painting touch up - the job will then be finished.

Big milestone

 

I have a contract to repair and restore a piece of public art that is made up of 10 footpath art panels with inset metal elements.

Quite a number of the metal elements were missing - a few had been rescued. I had to cut the missing elements from stainless steel with my side grinder as no metal fabricator would take the fiddly job on. An image of some of the pieces I fabricated follows. 

I was not able to glue earlier as there was rain and moisture on the path concrete for three weeks straight - frustrating.

But the exciting news is that after three weeks of being ready to glue the pieces into place I managed to do the glueing yesterday afternoon and went back and  finished in the early hours of this morning. One of the repaired sections with newly glued element appears in the early morning sunlight in the opening photo.

Some of the other glued elements can be seen in the following photos. There is a bit of excess glue in some places but this will be removed in the next stage.

If the weather is fine next week I will return to do repairs on cracked and chipped cement - this is the third stage. The four stages are: fabrication, glueing, cement repair, and paint touch up and clean. 

You can see why I was super excited to get the glueing done and why I saw it as real milestone!!

I had a tricky cutting morning - but I got there

 

I've agreed to carry out a repair and restoration job that requires the making of stainless steel sculptural elements that have gone missing over time. Each of the missing pieces is unique in shape!!!!

I followed up with several metal fabricating companies - but in the end all declined to do the work - too fiddly I think. So it was up to me. Today I set myself the task of cutting the pieces with my trusty side grinder. Not an easy task to get a straight edged grinding disk to cut curves. Over time I had collected almost worn out disks so that I had a stash that were of a small diameter and therefore could be persuaded to slowly cut curves. 

The trickiest piece was a hollow circle but as you can see from the opening photo with some patience I got there.

The photo below shows a couple of the pieces marked up on the metal.

And then some progress photos.

Cutting hard 3mm stainless steel is not for the faint hearted. The rough cut pieces will be finessed, ground and then sanded to a brushed finish.

Ready for pick up

 

The two posts I was asked to create are now ready to be picked up by their owner- an image of the two posts together can be seen above.

Fiona and I are in the middle of a hectic period of work closing our large public studio-gallery space and creating new studio spaces at home. This includes heaps and heaps of sifting, sorting and setting up in the new spaces. Whilst we have been able to reuse much of the furniture and storage cupboards etc - the smaller spaces have also required us to buy and build some smaller IKEA pieces which we have assembled over the last couple of days.  All this is code for the fact that we are not getting much-any time to create - so we probably won't be blogging on our work much over the next few weeks.

Following are some additional photos of the two posts - particularly the taller post - images show the different faces of the post. The taller post continues my reflection of the local creek that looks after the platypus and provides water to the local catchment area. Creating the taller post used up my stash of rusty bits - I added some salvaged-gifted brass strips to this post - first time I have added patinated and worn brass to an assemblage.

I think both these posts have worked out well and should take good vibes with them into their new home.

One finished, one progressing

 

As you can see from the above and following photos I have finished one of the posts I been working on. It looks good with the patinated copper bowl on the top - though it could be used without the bowl.

Following are a couple of process-progress photos.

I have also made quite good progress with the taller destination post - some progress photos follow.

Fiona and I are doing a lot of tasks to do with the closing down of our public studio and transitioning to smaller home based studios. Lots of sorting, selling, giving away and moving those pieces we will be keeping to continue our work. This means there is not a lot of time for creating - but we grab the moments we can.

Copper bracelets and leaves

 

I had a few metal tasks on the go in the workshop over the last few days. The two I finished were copper cuff bracelets I was asked to make; and finishing off a stash of patinated leaves made from offcuts of the blackened rim of the copper laundry boiler I was gifted.

The copper bracelets are twisted thick pure copper wire. I was asked to make two but made three to provide choice. The bracelets were to be 17.5cm around external edges and about 1cm wide. Three very shiny bracelets are in the opening photo.

Some process photos follow.

The bracelets were polished with a wire wheel as I did not want there to be any polish residue on them - they are to be worn for therapeutic purposes.

I had enough metal offcuts from the rim of the boiler to make 7 medium sized (16-17cm long) patinated leaves and 12 smaller (13cm long) leaves.  I did not remove the original patina or the dark fire stain on the underside of the rim. I like how some of the leaves have a beautiful dark sheen.

A few process and other images follow.

The leaves will go into the studio shop for the closing down sale next weekend (29-30 November, 10am-3pm, at DEP 10/74 Maple St Maleny). 

A few things on the go

 

Over the weekend I was doing bits and pieces of work on four different projects. In this blog post I will share just two of those: a pearl shell pendant commission; and a bench seat for the new orchard garden and path in our village.

From the fairly fragile pearl shell I was given to work on I managed to cut out two 4.5 cm round pendants - as you can see above - with jump rings and cord. The pearl shell had a family-sentimental link - so I nervous about shattering it.

A few process-progress photos follow. Cutting out the pendant disks with a 4.5cm tube diamond drill was a bit nerve wracking; as was drilling the jump ring holes in with a 2mm diamond bit.

Both pendants were given a grind and then polished with a very fine jewellery polish on my polishing wheel. The two pendants will go to their new owner in the next day or two.

I had been gifted a 1.65m long by 40cm wide by 60mm thick plank of eucalyptus. After a short discussion with the person gifting the plank it was decided I make a bench seat that could sit adjacent to the path on the top side of a newly established community orchard in our village. Folk walking the orchard path will be able to pause and just draw in the beauty of the orchard as it matures. I drew up the following diagram for the seat - it is to use not only the gifted plank but also salvaged timbers from my stash.

Over the weekend I cut up all the shorter components for the seat with a hand saw.

Early next I will more batten screws of differing lengths I will assemble the bench.