Rustnstuff: 01/19

Wednesday, January 30, 2019

Beauty abounds

As you can see from the last photo in this post the morning started early and overcast; and then there was gentle misty-rain. The blossoms were refreshed by the night and early mist-rain. It clung to the petals, leaves and edges.

The sky was gradually lit by the sun touching the clouds which in turn were reflected in subtle tones on the surface of the water in the rusty fire pit. The water not only cradled the clouds but also a fallen leaf.

Orchids in Graham's orchid house have also welcome a bit of cooler weather and dew-filled evenings.

And all of that emerged from a grey cloud filled morning

Sunday, January 27, 2019

Personalising Daily Leaf Words

I had been making a stash of Daily Leaf Words to replenish my stock. Which I did as you can see from the photos below.

I was asked if I was willing to make a Daily Leaf Words set using words chosen by a commissioning person. I said yes as I have done this in the past including doing leaf words in languages other than English. I was also asked if I could make the leaves and bowl slightly larger. Again of course I can - that is the personalising aspect of commissions. The photos below are about that commission.

And of course along the way one makes a few Peace Leaves and an extra bowl just in case the one destined for the client doesn't turn out as well as I like.

All in all a good outcome from my work over the last few days.

Friday, January 25, 2019

A few small installations and other changes on the block

Much work is being done on the block this January including: a huge amount of pruning; sorting and culling wood; sorting and culling rusty stuff; and creating a couple of sculpture terraces.

Sorting the rust bank lead us to creating a couple of frivolous bits to install on the terraces amongst the trees - things to discover as one walks along.

Sorting the old timbers in the timber stack lead to the creation of a couple of 450mm cubes made up of 9 450mm lengths of 150mm square timber offcuts. We have installed one cube near the new wooden stepping stone rock-river crossing and a second one down near Graham's orchid house. Again another couple of interesting texture pieces to be discovered on one's walks.

After removing our coffee plantation - decimated by killer weevils - and about 150 yucca plants we have almost finished creating our two gravel covered sculpture terraces . Each terrace is about 3m wide and 20m long. The dingo machine operator carted the 12 cubic meters of gravel while Fiona and I raked it into shape - fours hours non-stop - we hit a wall that day. We have installed turf at the end of the terraces to give them a soft contrasting finish. Now we need to finish the job by installing more coir logs and jute matting; and fixing the gravel to the almost vertical sections of woven coir matting.

Fiona and I just love the fact that the block nurtures us; and through our creativity we nurture it.

Wednesday, January 23, 2019

Walk on a soft cool morning

This morning started very gently with soft suffused light in the valley; and gentle dew drops on the flowers. It made for an uplifting walk made more energising by the beauty of nature.

The day proceeded to get very hot so it is good that at the end of the day I can reconnect with the morning.

Sunday, January 20, 2019

Beautiful salvaged timber

We recently took delivery of quite a large stack of timber to be put to use in a variety of situations on the block. All the timber was milled by a young furniture maker friend who has worked with me on a number of sculpture projects that involved timber posts. The logs are usually from trees that have fallen during storms or when folk are getting trees felled because they are endangering their property. Great to use this salvaged timber.

We got about 50-55 squares of timber milled into 45cm and 35cm shares by 7.5cm thick. We plan to use these as 'stepping stones' across two crossing points of the rock river - but our stepping stones will be wood. We have installed (embedded) the stepping stones into the rocks across the top of the Rock River - a bit more finessing by Fiona to be done.

We also ordered seven 20cm square logs at 2m long. In fact 10 were delivered because several had faults in the timber. And most logs were 2.5m-2.6m long and extremely heavy because they are hardwood. In an effort to get the stockpile under control Fiona and I waxed sealed the end cuts of the 'stepping' stones and carried them down to the lower terraces in readiness for installation.

I then proceeded to cut up the 20cm square logs into manageable and mainly fault free lengths - this involved cutting the weak spots out. We decided to turn the offcuts of this process into 20cm cubes for an installation on the new sculpture terraces.

We also decided to turn a couple of the logs with weak spots into bench seats which you can see stacked behind the 20cm cubes in the photo below. All the cut ends of the logs and cubes had to be roughly sanded and wax stalled as I went along. The wax sealing reduces the ends splitting. I just love the stack of cubes including two ratty 25cm cubes from the old logs. We will have over 30 cubes to play with - some are good timber whereas others are pretty ratty.

The cutting process is now complete; including trimming and waxing a couple of 25cm logs that have been in my stash for a couple of years - they are the logs at the far right.