Pause and remember bench seat

Over the last couple of days I have completed the cutting, sanding and oiling timber for a bench seat that might go into a grief garden - if the garden gets approval from the local authorities. The photo above is Fiona testing the bench for height in her sartorial yard splendour.

Yesterday I cut the supports in three graduated lengths to give a stepped look; but Fiona and I felt that it detracted from the simplicity of the bench. So today I recut the supports to the width of the seat. I think it is a better look.

A few process photos follow. The timber is very hard and heavy hard wood - first life as fence posts for a horse property - hence the holes etc in the timber. The cut ends of the timber have been sealed with timber wax.

While I had the sander on the go I gave the base for my negative space leaf sculpture a sand and oil - really brought out the grain.

If the bench seat eventually goes into the garden I will need to bolt it together and cement it into the ground. It will be raised about 50mm on a cement base. And Fiona and I will rout the words pause and remember on the front edge of the seat.

World Peace???

At breakfast Fiona reminded me that today is International Peace Day. On this day we try to be a little more conscious about having peace in our lives; but also send out some peace vibes in the hope that we can all live a little more cooperatively and respect and accept our differences.

We thought we might do a blog each earlier today just to keep the day a bit more in our own consciousness; but also to simply get a few vibes out into the ether as well. So if you read this blog today or in the future may you go well and peacefully.

I thought I would post a few photos of carved bits and pieces that are on our block to remind us to think peace.

Story board

Some time ago I reported that Edith-Ann (EA) and I have been collaborating on the construction of a piece of public art in the form of a large concrete, metal and paint pigment art path at the Hinterland Business Centre. Some early photos below.



The work on the six story panels is complete including sealing the whole work; and EA has been hard at work landscaping the edges of the path with a stone drain and stone garden with much assistance from Carol as ace stone fetcher and cleaner.

The finishing element of the art piece will be a story board that shares the meaning of the six panels. I agreed to cut down, join and sand and oil two large planks recycled from a huge heavy iron bark timber table that belonged to a friend of EA. In the photos you can see the story board is ready and it is big – 1.8m long by 600mm wide by 50mm thick. It seriously takes two people to move it. But you can see the timber is beautiful.

Fiona has been enticed (conned??) into writing the story in calligraphy. She will do six story panels. Her experience with the David Linton piece demonstrated it was possible to write with ink directly onto the timber as long as you allowed the timber preserving oil to sink into the timber and gave it a very very fine sand – it resulted in a surface that the ink could adhere to without bleeding into the timber grain. Of course you then have to do a couple more coats of the oil to preserve the ink. Fiona said the fine cracks in the timber and the surface totally wrecks the calligraphy nib - so it becomes one nib per timber work.

We will keep you posted on the finished piece as the official opening of the path is not too far off.