Market Gallery Residency - day 5

My first task today was to complete the birch plywood boards that I've been working on. I glued 12mm birch plywood around the edge of the triangular shapes to give them depth. I chose the birch plywood because I like the grain and the layers. Last week I prepared some large triangular structures and had left them in clamps to dry, so today I needed to trim the edges using a very handy piece of equipment called a fez tool. This enabled me to take a thin slice off the outside of the boards so as to create a clean edge.

With the help of my wonderful friend Kev, we transported the boards to the Market Gallery.

I had intended to either collage or print onto the surface of the boards, but now realise how much I like them in their current state, and completely covering the grain would hide some of the characteristics of the wood that I admire.

When Laura arrived to help, we began to remove the pipe mould from one of the pieces I had worked on yesterday. 3 hours later and we still had not managed to get the plaster out of the tube. Even resorting to sawing the mould and dropping the cylinder proved
 unsuccessful.

Lesson learned - don't cast from large pipes unless you have a good system for getting the plaster out of the mould! This has made me seriously reconsider how I am going to change the process of making these type of sculptures, or indeed if I would rather work on other ideas.

I noticed that passers-by were stopping to watch us making, and I hope that this curiosity continues and people enjoy watching the development of work. One man, Des, came into the space to find out what we were doing, and mentioned that the cylinders and colours had made him think about sticks of rock. He also kindly offered to lend his electric saw to help out with removing the mould, an offer I eagerly accepted!

I decided to remove the mould from the funnel cast that I had begun yesterday. I am very intrigued by the outcome of this test, and am going to explore the possibilities further.

Laura raised a very pertinent point when considering the colours used. She picked up on the fact that the colours are those related to the two main football teams in Glasgow, Rangers and Celtic, and the Orange order that exists in the city. I am very conscious that it is not my intention to comment on this situation, but think this can be avoided if I am using a wide range of colours and so the green, blue and orange shades are distributed amongst lots of different colours.


We then began casting a couple more funnel sculptures, one in which I dripped plaster into the mould and want to build up layers of drips, and the other combining dripping with pouring the plaster into the bottom. These different ways of making the sculpture will effect the appearance of the sculpture.



During the casting process Laura, (who had never done this before) commented how she was fascinated by the way the plaster soaks up the colour, and this is something that could be videoed.