Grinding, Grinding, Grinding...

Grinding and sanding. That's pretty much all we did yesterday. A few re-welds and more grinding. Will take a break for a few days while some finishing supplies are ordered. Then some sample finishes will go up to the artist. Once that is settled we will have a bunch more to do with finishing. But for now a break and shop cleanup to get ready for the semester.

Another Day

Today we worked mostly on getting the ribbon of skin on the outside of the bench. This was tough work and required a lot of tedious welding and cutting of shapes out of the stainless (Got to love the cut-off wheel!). With the skin on we now have a ton of grinding and finishing work to do. I called the artist, Martha Ferris, to see if we could find out if we could get an ETA on when the mosaic will be delivered as we really can't finish the job until we have that in hand. The tile manufacturer sent drawings that specified a 1/8" lip over the top of the tile (the tile and backing board already take up over an inch of space its self), to me that is a pretty sharp edge of metal that would be sticking up into the back of your leg, so we want to get the edge right to the perfect height but need the actual mosaic to do it. In the mean time we can get lots of finishing done and surface treatment started.Right now we are putting in some long hours and working on weekends as we want to get the bulk of this done before the students get back into the studio next week, that's when life gets really crazy! (But in a good way.)

For more of the process go to my Home Page or click the "Home" button below.

Monday's Progress

Today we did some additional welding on the structure for support and added a side 'ribbon'. I was relieved that the 'bench' felt strong and knew that this would help us in attaching the 15" of 16 gauge stainless that acted like a ribbon encircling the entire 29 feet of the alligator. But first we had to weld together two of the 10' long sections for the long, nearly 13' outside curve on one side. Stainless is a bitch (yes, I said it again) and warps like crazy when you weld, cut or even grind on it. So, you have to work slow and give it lots of time, never over-working any one area at a time. James did the painstaking tack welding along the 15" seam, until the whole thing was welded and then of course it needed to be ground out so we could put it through the roller to give the steal a bit of a curve to it. After all of that we then started to weld the side to the bench frame. This was hard and two of us had to work in unison to get it done. Part of the curve has a pretty tight radius and it was work to force the steel to go where it did not want to in order for us to weld it. James is a great welder (I am notorious for putting holes in sheet metal) and he is patient and easy to work with. Together we got it done and done well. It went together fairly easy and all our planning worked to our advantage. Now even with just one side attached to it the bench feels strong and stable. After a bit of extra tack welding we called it a day.

For more of the process go to my home page, or click on the "home" button below.

More Progress...

James and I continued work on the "alligator bench" on Saturday. Grinding and preparing top and bottom panels, building the jig for welding, building another jig for cutting uprights,and welding top and bottom together. Next week we do cross bracing and more supports and then start to weld on the side panels. I am pretty sure we have done the easy stuff. Stainless steel is a bitch. I'll be happy when we are finished.

UPdate, 2011

So it's been a busy year so far. Holiday madness is finally over. I was up in DE, NJ and NYC visiting friends and family for nearly two weeks, I do this every year. I love to travel, but sometimes feel as if I am away from home and studio for too long and then have to work hard to recapture my creative mojo, so-to-speak. This year not so much. I ordered stainless a few days before Christmas and when I got back it was waiting for me. Right now I am working on a fabrication project for artist Martha Ferris who is also doing a project for the Mississippi Museum of Art garden project. She designed a bench with a mosaic on it. I am building the bench in the rough outline of an alligator (though without legs) out of stainless steel. Someone else is doing the mosaic and I will install that later.

I am a great planner and can get just about anything organized, but I knew I would need help with building so I hired my good friend James Davis to work on the project with me. I also want to get the job done fast as I have a couple of other projects waiting in the wings that I need to start. So far things are going well and I am learning a ton of stuff from James. We have two full days of work in and now have a good plan for the final construction. It's hard for me some times when building new things, you can make a lot of plans for how you think you are going to build something but eventually that changes as you work out problems. I like to have everything figured out beforehand, and that just doesn't work in art making.

James working on cutting some stainless steel for the aligator bench.

As far as my own commission for the Museum goes right now I am working on the new location in the garden. I did a bunch of drawing and plans that were sent out just before the holidays and will soon probably have to do a model of something similar to what I presented earlier for the original location. Right now I want to get the alligator bench done and then my mind can be free to work on the Garden Boats.

Update

The meeting went very well with the Museum. Yay! They really do love my work and in the end I will make 9 pieces for the garden for a two year loan and then they will keep three for their permanent collection. So far that is what we have worked out and I am pretty happy with outcome. In addition they were very happy with my model and graphics and in the end the model stayed with them. Drawing of water garden area of sight. Image copyright by Madge Bemmis Architect.

I did get an email yesterday about possibly changing locations. The landscape architect is worried about the young trees blocking views of my work in the original location and wondered if a spot right in the water garden beds might be more appropriate and visible. I kind of like the idea. I love gardening and to see them with in that context would be super. In the end they are leaving the decision to me, so that I, "...feel that the setting honors the concept of your art". Pretty cool I think. I am waiting for some images to be emailed so that I can look at the whole picture and make an informed decision.

In the mean time I an working on layouts for the bench that I am fabricating for artist Martha Ferris for the same art garden. Soon I should have funds in hand to order the stainless for that project and get it going.

Today and over the next few days I will be practicing my tig welding on some other projects as I work out some possible designs for my the pieces in my commission.

Still Working

The museum project is moving along, at least I am pretty sure... I have received digital renderings from the architect, Madge Bemiss, and have a spot designated for my work. I was asked to take my preliminary drawings and merge them into the renderings so we all could begin to get a sense of the scale and space and what the sculpture will look like installed. I am not savvy on the fancy 3D computer programs (yet another skill to learn...) so I did some drawings in Corel and imported the renderings as a background. A little tough to do much manipulation but I was still pretty happy with them. After looking at them for a while I decided the drawings were not giving me enough information so I made a real 3D model and after placing a standard 6' (actually 6") figure next to the works I decided the sculptures in the model were too tall. So I did a few additional quick sketches, scanned them and sent them off to Madge and the museum this morning.

The model is proving to be challenging and fun. The scale images of the sculptures were done out of steel, very small pieces, and tig welded together, not so fun when the studio is only 34F. I then made the background/landscape out of MDF. I only made three steel maquettes and then a handful of simple shapes out of rods and wood that are to be used for placement and height arrangement. The base of the model has a number of holes so the pieces can be moved around and the rods and top pieces can be interchanged so that I can look at every conceivable possibility for arrangements. It has come out pretty well and after taking another look at it Sunday evening I cut down the pieces some so they are a bit lower.

I have another meeting at the museum today and I guess I'll find out more about it then. Maybe I am jumping the gun with making the model so early, but then again it is a working model and I have learned a ton from making it.