Beginnings and endings

A day full of art - but just so varied.

2016 Barry Smith - Transforming the concept sketch to production drawings - love my pencil

Most of the day was spent doing detailed drawings of a planned public sculpture. I had submitted a concept drawing for the sculpture and was selected to do further development. The plan being that the additional development work will lead to funding and then fabrication and installation - it will all take time. The sculpture is a stylistic representation of a buttress root of a large tree. The piece of work will be about 3.5m long and 2.1m high. Made from three 10mm brushed aluminium metal sheets (1.2mX2.4m).

As you can compare the photo below and the one above, you can see that the concept drawing did not have the technical measurements and engineering proposal required for the next step - so some careful calculations. I have discussed the drawings with the fabricators and engineers - so it is all looking doable. Detailed drawings now complete.

©2016 Barry Smith - Three sets of drawings for fabrication and installation

Today saw an ending but a joyous one - Lorraine who commissioned me to turn a few family trays into smaller pieces for the family came to collect the work. She was delighted; and commissioned a couple of other small bits.

©2016 Barry Smith - Lorraine's stash

On another ending note - yesterday I went to Redcliffe to pick up my work (including Artisan Lamps and watch part jewellery) from Jo St Baker's Studio-Gallery. Jo has decided to close the gallery part of her space - so I decided to bring my work home and work it out from there. Thanks Jo for carrying and promoting my work. Maybe the pieces will join my other work in Entangle gallery-shop.

©2016 Barry Smith - Lamps and other works return to the mountain.

And the big stash of stuff below has much potential for other creations - so another beginning. I gave a friend, who is moving house soon, a bit of a hand to clean out part of her shed. In return I got to cart away some useful bits. I spent this afternoon sorting out the useful from not so useful; and also a pile that can go to another friend. I'm always amazed how things can move around and be given a new life. The photos below show about half the stash - took a bit of sorting.

The dark has come in, it is raining and a thick mist also shrouds our mountain - so I think it is time to bunker down and drink a warming glass of red.

The frustration of rain

In my last blog I mentioned that we were in the midst of the blue – blue for rain. Well it has just kept going - I think we are over it just for now.

Over the last week I have been trying to get outside to cut up my rusted fireplace.

As you can see from the photo above I have roughly sketched a series of 4 folded (90 degree) triangles I want to cut out of the fireplace to form a garden sculpture where three triangles are step out from the biggest (about 1.5m tall with the two sides of about .75m). The fourth folded triangle faces towards the other three creating a square negative space out the front. This last folded triangle will only be about .5m tall. I imagine the whole piece will sit on a bed of white or bone gravel.


But you can see from the above photos I took of the fireplace from the western deck the rain keeps coming down and there will be no cutting for quite a while. The photo shows how the rain is sheeting down at an angle.

I have managed to get down into the garage and start modifying the bowls that will become the tri-bowl garden font. Hmmm!! Seem to have a 3 thing going at the moment.

Art imitates nature - tri-bowl garden font

On our morning walk today we came across these seed pods – great shape with three joined portions; and just gorgeous colours.



The pods reminded me of a font that I have been thinking about – a triple bowl affair where the water collected in the upper bowl can cascade progressive to the lowest bowl.



As you can see from the sketch the bowls would be mounted on tall square pillars of timber that are connected by 12mm continuous thread and all bolted together. The bowls would overlap; and the upper two would be slightly tilted so that the water collected from the rain can trickle from one to the other. Of course all bowls will be full at the same time but there will be a sense of flow – I don’t intend to connect a pump to it. As a font it is simply meant to sit in a quiet part of a garden to give a sense of peace and stillness.



You can see I have gathered three different sized and types of bowls that have been cut from salvaged plant pots. Two of the bowls are brass and one copper. One bowl has a lot of stamped markings on it. I don’t intend to work the bowls too much – just try to bring out their existing character.

Sketches

I have indicated in earlier blogs that Fiona and I are working towards a major exhibition in November that will focus will be on stillness, the sacred, peacefulness and celebration. I am currently working on a couple of pieces for a Maleny Artworks exhibition on vessels in September. And recently David Linton indicated interest in my ‘posts’ and would like to exhibit and sell them through his gallery.
Over the last few weeks we have been travelling a bit with work and rest so plane trips have provided the opportunity to do a bit of sketching for the various bits of work. So I thought I’d share a few of the pages from the sketch book.

The vessels for the Maleny Artworks exhibition will take the form of an inverted pyramid; and the hull of a boat out of the water for winter.


I quite like that my ‘posts’ are taking on different forms: temple posts; poetic posts; functional garden posts that might hold a small amount of rainfall etc.


A number of the November exhibition pieces will confirm my love of the cube and the posts – some will be functional but others just a bit quirky.