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Artist in Residence
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SEPTEMBER JOURNAL
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Thursday, August 31 - Wednesday, September 6, 2006
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This week was my first full week back at my job teaching in the Department of Art at the UW in Madison. It is my second year now, and I am probably more nervous than any student I encounter. I still am amazed to be paid to teach people about art, and it makes me feel very humble.
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But I did finish the last chunk of die grinding and that work is now done from top to bottom. |
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Over the weekend, the first box of ceramic flowers arrived from my master ceramic mold-making friend in Sheboygan - thank you Monty. He has confided to me that he has begun dreaming about flowers and will be happy when this is done. This box has over 200, and there will be a bit more delivered in the next few weeks.
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The pieces are about 3 1/2” long and glazed a very light yellow color. I think they are beautiful.
I began experimenting with mounts for the piece. I have to admit that when I am working on something, I have an idea or a feeling about how it will be, but I don’t really know how things will work physically or aesthetically until I put my hand to it. It’s like my imagination is leading my mind, which then has to find practical physical ways to make ideas and images a reality. It can be exciting, and frustrating, and it is rare if I don’t learn something new.
I had been thinking that the way I drew the groups of flowers wasn’t right. I had thought there would be four large groups of about 60 flowers each. When my husband began describing these groups as “chest hair” and I laughed out loud rather than disagreeing with him, I knew I had to reconsider. As often happens, my inspirations come from observing nature, and a few weeks ago I was surprised to see an unusual kind of lily springing up around my town that had no foliage, just groups of flowers on lean stems.
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I have learned that the Amaryllis belladonna appears to be without foliage, but actually blooms well after the foliage dies back. I like the poetry of this and the lean structure, and have begun some new studies. I am considering nine groups of flowers around the shoulder of the piece, rather than four, with each group comprised of six or seven stems of three to four blossoms each. I feel this arrangement will have a little more structure and elegance. |
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In terms of actually connecting the pieces, I had imagined brass hardware soldered to the bronze structure and brass threaded rod epoxied into the flowers, so the flowers could be physically screwed into and out of the frame for moving and maintenance. After trying a few, I realized that hard soldering (which is a silver soldering process using an acetylene torch) might not be best. I have to heat everything to around 1600 degrees to melt the solder, and have less control about the placement of the hardware. So I have ordered some specialty bronze hardware that I hope to weld to the vessel, rather than solder the components on.
When I am doing these kinds of studies, trying to figure out placement and such, I end up using a lot of masking tape…but do not be alarmed! |
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Thursday, September 7-Wednesday, September 13, 2006
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While waiting for the bronze hardware I ordered, I cemented pieces of threaded rod into the ceramic flower forms. This will allow the pieces to be easily removed from the vessel for maintenance or repair.
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Rather than making my own threaded rod, I bought screws from the hardware store and cut them into pieces, taking care to grind the ends so they can still feed smoothly into the bronze nuts I ordered.
I am using a marine grade slow-set paste epoxy to fix the threaded rod. It took some experimenting to find a good way to get the paste into the tiny cavities within the slip-cast flower forms. I found success with squeezing the paste through a cone of paper - just like frosting! A syringe or calk gun would have worked as well, but I had materials on hand to treat it like really thick icing. |
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Working like an assembly line, I mixed the paste epoxy and scraped it into a cone of parchment paper, then squeezed the epoxy into the cavities within the blossoms. |
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Then I inserted the threaded rod and smoothed the epoxy at the end of the blossom with a brush dipped in thinner. I worked on about 20 pieces at a time, so that I could fill the cavities, insert the threaded rod, and smooth the exterior epoxy before the paste began to set. |
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This is about 100 blossoms, half of what I will need. |
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On Monday I received the special bronze nuts I ordered from a boatbuilding company. I was using brass nuts in the samples last week, but they had to be hard soldered rather than welded, which was more time consuming, made placement difficult, and didn’t allow me to build up the ends of the stems with welded material.
I made one more group to finalize the composition of the blossoms. These images show three nuts welded onto bronze stems. While working I have to take care not to melt the threading or welding the nuts onto the steel screws inserted within them to protect the threading from slag. After welding, I ground and sanded the stems smooth. |
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Here is the final approved arrangement. This shows one of what will be nine groups of blossoms, each comprised of seven stems bearing three flowers each. |
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Thursday, September 14 - Wednesday,
September 20, 2006
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You are looking at a weeks worth of work. Between teaching, four days of travel, and preparing for my upcoming workshop with students at East High School, this is all I accomplished on the project. I ordered some ½” bronze hardware.
Am I nervous about finishing this project on time? Yes! Will I get it done on time? Well…check back in to find out.
Installation will take place the first week of October, so I have about a week and a half left. I still have much to do including: figuring out if I can use this hardware to make the flower mounts detachable from the vessel itself to aide in moving and maintenance, fabricating all the flower mounts, finishing the flower mounts, preparing and epoxying threaded rod into 100 more flowers, fabricating a false foot to allow the vessel to sit at ground plane without the visual distraction of seeing how it is anchored to the concrete pad beneath it, giving the piece a light patina, and arranging shipping to the arts center.
Maybe I am more than a little nervous, but there is nothing like a deadline to motivate!
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Thursday, September 21 - Wednesday, September 27, 2006
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This week was more productive than last week. The new hardware has allowed me to create the blossom bearing fixtures in a more thoughtful way. They will be completely removable from the structure instead of being welded to the vessel itself.
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After bending and cutting all the parts I needed for the fixtures, I welded three small nuts on each stem. These will receive the threaded rod that is epoxied into the blossoms. |
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They look messy at first, but they clean up fine with grinding and sanding. |
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I welded six stems together to create a radial pattern with a hole at the center, and welded one stem to a length of threaded rod. ½” bronze nuts were welded onto the shoulder of the vessel where the fixtures will be centered. |
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This way, I can attach all the blossoms to the fixtures before to the fixtures are attached to the vessel itself. |
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The radial ring will rest over the nut with the center blossom screwing into the nut and securing the whole assembly. I just need some bronze washers to weld to the center stems, that way, they can secure the assembly while simultaneously concealing it. |
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Another part of this residency is now coming to fruition. I am working with a group of students at the East High School in Oshkosh. On Friday, September 22 we worked together exploring form and pattern in nature through line drawing. On Monday, September 25 we began to create line drawings with wire. I will go again this coming Friday and with some welding equipment so that our wire drawings can become three-dimensional. Some of their drawings and sculptural pieces will be on display at the Paine Art Center and Gardens October 10 through the 15.
Some images from our 9/22 class: |
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Thursday, September 28 - Friday, October 6, 2006
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The last week. Friday was spent in Oshkosh with the East High students creating wire sculptures. I brought a small welder with me, and the students and I worked together welding outdoors – some of their pieces will be on view at the Paine October 10 – 15.
Back at home, I began work on a sub-foot. This structure will be welded to the foot - during installation it will be secured to a concrete pad and covered with bedding material, allowing the Paine to present the piece within a garden setting without a visible concrete pad.
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I welded thick bronze washers to the sub-foot to accommodate threaded bolts and nuts used to secure the piece to the concrete pad. I also welded bronze washers to the threaded flower stems, allowing the center stems to both cover and secure the flower fixtures. |
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After epoxying threaded rod into another 100 flower blossoms for the fixtures, I was ready to color the piece. |
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The bronze will naturally patina with time, but I wanted to start with something more finished than the raw bronze material. So I colored the whole piece in my driveway late Sunday night. The next morning, I sanded the surface lightly to even out the color and then oiled it. I also colored the flower fixtures in the same way. The color of the piece will still change with time and exposure to the elements. |
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With 200 flowers epoxied and ready to go, my next step was to screw them into the flower fixtures. I used a lock tight gluing agent on the threads of the flowers to keep them in place more securely. They can still be removed for repair, but not as easily. |
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Here is the finished piece before I welded on the sub-foot. I wanted a few pictures of it before it moved outdoors and became dwarfed by nature! |
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Finally I welded on the sub-foot. |
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On Friday, movers came early to pick up the piece. Of course I was still fussing around with details and still die grinding the joints near the sub-foot. I had planned to move it myself, but it was bigger and much heavier than I had thought about! These guys moved it with ease. You may also have noticed from the pictures, that I have been getting rather thick about the middle, in fact, I am due to have a baby boy in about 2 months. Lifting large heavy objects is not as easy as it once was. |
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And presto! On Friday Aaron and his staff installed the piece, now in place at the Paine gardens. |
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