Art walkway creeps towards implementation

©2013 Barry Smith - Section of template for Walkway cutouts - coated with shellac

Over the past two years Fiona and I have worked with another local artist (Edith-Ann Murray), local store owners, an architect and a builder to design and bring a covered art walkway (about 32 m long and 3m wide) into reality. Initially it was envisaged that this placemaking piece of functional art would be funded by joint private and government funds. However, after almost 1.5 years of design and technical work the relevant government funding program was disbanded by a new government. But the store owners wanted to proceed though with a more modest walkway; and additional artistic elements could be added in stages later. We have moved from a cantilevered design with various additional art elements to a more standard post design. More will be revealed when the walkway is in place.

The walkway will have about 47 sheets of 3m x1.2m  Corten steel (rusts very nicely thank you). About 23 of the sheets will have cutouts that reflect a native plant that grows along the banks of the local Obi Obi Creek. The cutouts will be about 800mm by 600mm in size.

Today I have been working on the template that will be given to a local resource-recycling centre who will cut the Lamandra Longifolia influenced design and cutouts into the Corten sheets using a hand held plasma cutter. The design process is shown in the photos below.

©2013 Barry Smith - Lamandra influenced sketch on 2mm thick grey-board (800mmx600mm)

©2013 Barry Smith - Stylised Lamandra template in grey-board

©2013 Barry Smith - Quite nice lines cut into the grey-board under the template

©2013 Barry Smith - Collection of cutouts

©2013 Barry Smith - Stylised Lamandra cutout template - 2 coats of shellac

The cutouts will be covered on top by a sheets of 8mm Perspex - bolted in place.  The aim is for light to flood through the cuts outs creating a dappled light pattern on the cement path below. And people walking under the walkway will see the patterns in the sheets above - negative space light. At a later stage we hope to etch the same pattern into the cement path.