Refreshing installations

 

As we get to the end of our time at the cottage we have been doing quite a bit of gardening and sorting in the yard. This has included adding to and moving some of the larger stones and assemblages around. 

We were gifted a very heavy stone with lovely contrasting lines. The stone was dropped off in the front yard by a local fiend who made it look so easy to load and unload. Together F and I found it quite the challenge to move it into its new home. The opening and following photo show it installed next to the Cabinet of Curiosities assemblage

We moved a couple of large stones to the corner of the before installing the striped stone. As you can see from the photos below this encouraged us to move F's assemblage post and the stone cottage on the post - see below.

We tidied up around the post near the fence; and the wee arch piece collected a peace weathergram.

A few bits of rust and a board with rusty bits was added to the bin enclosure.

Moving and adding to installations seems to give them a new presence.

 

Creating a wee sculptural 'courtyard'

 

We have turned the area below our kitchen window into a small plant and sculpture courtyard as you can see from the photo above. You can hardly call it a courtyard but that is how we refer to it. A good place for birds, butterflies and bees.

The installation that completed the courtyard was the making of the post screen-fence you can see below. The posts were rescued by Fiona earlier this year when land developers were pulling out a very very old farm fence as part of a land development. They are now installed into our garden with all their history and quirkiness.

A few other bits in the space can be seen below - yes there is a bit of rust to be seen. We love the quirky nature of the insect house that sits atop of the dead tree trunk with its rusty wee birds.

Looking down on the courtyard space makes us smile.

Artist at work

 

Today was a gorgeous sunny day in Armadale - as you can see from the photos below of inquisitive locals. 

It was a day for gardening and outdoor art including Fiona doing work on her charred post - the opening photo of Fiona adding to the charred nature of her post.

I was on hand to pass tools, offer a bit of assistance and take a few photos as you can see below.

I really love what Fiona is doing with her charred post; but I will leave that story up to her.

Layers series - accidental modern art

 

Fiona and I took a bus to Bondi Beach to view the graffiti art wall along the beach promenade. Whilst I enjoyed many of the works of art I so enjoyed the fact that there were layer upon layer of works that had been done over many years. This was very obvious on a few panel where the paint was peeling off - sometimes right down to the original cement wall. 

This blog post is simply a celebration of artists, layers and history. Each segment of peeling paint is, to me, an art piece in its own right - accidental modern artworks. 

I hope you enjoyed these fragments.

More garden sculptures

 

I have been putting the finishing touches to a few more garden sculptures including: Window..., Bending and Cube with rust.

The photo of Window... is above and some detail below. The piece is 95cm high and the base is 45cm wide. A heavily rust encrusted 10-12mm thick 90cm long and 30cm wide piece of iron set in a weathered piece of harrwood - lots of beautiful rust and the piece has gravitas. 

Bending has 7X20cm copper leaves on aluminium rods set in a weathered piece of rose gum timber.

Cube with rust is a 20cm cypress pine (termite resistant) cube with a continuous groove coloured with black Japanese ink; and attached pieces of found rust - mainly using copper nails. Below are a couple of photos of the preparation of the cube.

Below are a few images of the finished cube - shows all six faces I think. The blue on one face is where the supplier had written my name on a 3m length of timber. The square washers will rust quite quickly as they are untreated iron.

All these garden sculptural pieces will be for sale at 25% off at the DEP studio sale on Saturday 19 November.

Worth celebrating

 

During the week Faith and I installed the other two posts to make up her trio installation as you can see in the photo above. Whilst the first post looked good on its own the trio seem to speak to each other.  

Fiona came down to check out the final positioning and in time to take a photo of Faith and I celebrating the installation.

Of course all three of us were able to complete the celebration together. Some additional photos of the trio follow.

The timber colour and rust colour will improve as the trio ages in place. And we have yet to find some other rusty cogs or objects that may or may not be placed on top of the remaining two posts.