The little known bin dance.

We recently had our friend Jeff stay with us to catch up but also sort out some stuff we are storing for him. We got a collapsable 3cubic metre skip for the heaps of cardboard, paper etc that needed to be disposed of.

Well  it was getting pretty full so after a night of rain I decided to do a little dance on it to pack it down. It worked - we fitted a lot more stuff in. Note the clouds and misty rain in the background.

Fiona took the above candid photo of me doing my dance. I thought it was pretty funny so thought I'd share it. And of course I was dressed in sartorial splendour for the occassion!!!!

Unpredictability of recycled metal

My Friday aim was to mage a second larger bowl out of the zinc coated brass from the spray backpack; and to make some fold formed leaves with inspirational words inside.

As you can see from the photo below for some reason the silver plated brass I was using for the leaves just did not take to being annealed and worked.  The metal seemed to become brittle and just snapped. As i have indicated on earlier posts the metal that has been used over the years as the base for the silver plate varied greatly in quality and it is hard to tell the difference until it is being worked.

On the other hand the zinc plated brass worked a treat. This bowl is about 250-300mm wide and 50mm deep. It is quite thin metal so I line it with a second heavier bowl to give it strength. The end result is the soft rippled edges - almost like paper or the petals of poppies.

Barry Smith © Zinc plated brass bowl with spiral

I also like the great contrast and highlights I got using this metal - but alas the big pieces are used now. Smaller pieces can be used for small bowls and Bazola bits.

One of the larger bowls will be part of an outside font; and the other an inside font or offering bowl. Both will go into the March exhibition.

Smile for rust lovers

Fiona's dad keeps an eye out for bits of rust and metal for me; but also rusted related things of interest. He dropped in this gem of a cartoon by Leunig that was published in the Sydney Morning Herald Weekend Edition Jan 1-2 P.21. Thought the rust lovers out there might get a smile out of it. Should we just leave the rust alone - that is the big question?

Fiona has started this cleaning program which went underground today - down into the studios. I felt compelled to follow suit this afternoon. Mind you given the state of my work bench I just had no choice.

Still the bench is clear for a bit of beating of metal tomorrow.

The 30kg anvil is one of my favourite pieces of equipment. I managed to give most of my metal working hammers a bit of a buff as well- so I am all good to go.

Shiny days

My time in the studio over the last couple of days has been spent on making bits for Bazola; and polishing bowls and leaves. The Bazola bits have gone Noela's way so that she could make a commissioned pendant.

Barry Smith © Bazola Pendant bits

The bowls  will become  part of incense or offering bowls for our March exhibition.

Barry Smith © Incense & meditation

Barry Smith © Foldformed bowls

And the leaves are there just because I enjoy doing them.

Barry Smith © Copper foldformed leaves

It is good to be able to play with shiny stuff given the number or grey and rainy days we are having at the moment.

A little time doing art

Fiona shared with me that she had read that no matter what artists should spend a little time with their art each day. It means more than just reading about art or someone else's art. It means going to the studio and either starting, continuing or even just planning something - getting the creative juices going. I am going to see if I can do that in 2011.

For Fiona and my joint exhibition in Studio 4 Gallery in March one of the series I am working on is offering and incense bowls. Yesterday and today I have worked on the small incense bowl below. It deviates from my normal round bowl - it is oblong in shape. Again it is not big it is meant to be a niche or window ledge piece. It is about 100mm high and 150mm long.

Barry Smith © Incense Bowl - Japanese Temple

I wanted it to have a bit more of a Japanese Temple influence look about it.  Fiona took a photo of me holding it to show how small it is; but also to show that it has the look of a Japanese Temple gate look about it. It was a bit dull and stormy outside when the photos were taken.

Barry Smith © Incense Bowl - Japanese Temple

As usual it is really strong as I used my new diamond drill to drill through the stone and the bolts that hold it together are glued into the based rock.

A flight of letters?

I have completed my A Letter a Week 2010 (ALaW) art challenge; and have now signed up for ALaW 2011. I turned my second alphabet into a flock of birds.

Barry Smith © Flight of Letters

Barry Smith © The whole flight

The birds were created by bending each of the 7cm squares of rusted metal on the diagonal; bending some wings tips upwards; and creating a head by bending the tip of the diagonal bed downwards. Each bird is drilled in the centre of the diagonal bend; a piece of recycled wire coat hanger was flatted at the tip to allow the 'bird' to stay in place without sliding down the wire and pivot and be taken off for transportation; and the wires are placed in holes drilled into old rusted wood splitting wedges.

2011 &one for Velma

So much has happened in 2010 and we have all experienced so much in our life journey - not all good but we are here and we have hope. So may we all depart 2010 with a sense of survival and achievement; and enter 2011 with hope and expectation.

Fiona and I don't do Christmas cards but we do New Year cards so we have designed our cards to reach out to our friends.

But today is Friday right!!! So there had to be some creative work going on.

I tested out my diamond drills today and made a small offering bowl - not an incense bowl - this one is in honour of Velma - a small bowl to collect the dew or to make offerings in. It is small  - 110mm high and the bowl is 90mm wide.  The bowl is made from a failed tri-fold bowl - so this piece has had three lives already. And of course you are stuck with the mountains in the background

Don't try this at home

I had a meeting with one of our leading local sculptors (Craig Medson) today to discuss the possibility of him doing a piece of placemaking sculptural art in the footpath between our local IGA store and our local community credit union.

We are proposing to have a Bunya Nut (about 1.5 m high) carved in to faced sand stone set into the path. The Bunya Nut is sacred to our local Indigenous people and one of the symbols of our town. The sand stone has been recycled from a local gutter that was laid down in 1902 but was recently ripped up as part of the redevelopment of our main street.

Anyway I wanted to take a small sample of the sandstone to our meeting.

However it was soaking wet after being out in the rain. Solution dry it in the oven - can't use conventional oven as I don't have enough time. Well do it in the microwave - place on old pillow case and set at high for 5 mins. The good news is the rock dried.  The bad news is it became so hot the pillow case was scorched.

When I took it outside it started smouldering and threatened to catch fire - fortunately it was still raining and was doused.  So the lesson learnt. Don't dry your rocks in a microwave - hence the saying don't try this at home.

The good news is Craig said he would do the piece of work.

Rain, Rain, Rain

What a crazy weather world we live in. When I check out Velma, Suzi and Tammie's blog photos all I see is white, white and more white - and I think cold. At the moment our corner of the world is caught in an ongoing rain depression.

The outside has just been filled with greys and whites and wind and water.

So as you can imagine there is not a lot of outside work going on at our place. We have knuckled down and done work-work today - but slipped a little art work in. I managed to finish my last letters for ALAW 2010 today and posted them. I will create my Flight of Letters sculpture over the next couple of days.

First roast

Hoping all have enjoyed Christmas; and are now relaxing and recuperating on Boxing Day and regaining energy for the journey ahead - I know that is what we are mainly doing. Still I have to tell a coffee story that relates to our good friend Jeff.

Barry Smith © MVR coffee

In past posts Fiona and I have shared the fact that we have grown a small plantation of 30 coffee bushes on our block.

We harvested the cherries.

Pulped them to get the beans out. Soaked the beans to remove the slimy outer cover. Dried them in our dehydrator. Took the husks off to get the green coffee beans out.

We have now roasted our green beans in this fully automated roaster that Jeff gave us as a gift for helping him sort some of his stuff out.

We ended up with great roasted beans; and ground them ready for brewing.

Brewed the coffee in our espresso pot.

Barry Smith © Brewing MVR coffee

And made coffee that we shared with Jeff. And amazingly it tastes really good.

 Great coffee that has only travelled 50m.