Horse Meets Bronze on Main Street

 

Having chosen the name for my work, out of personal vanity yesterday I typed Internal Tourist to the web, and came up with this definition on a popular dictionary website:

Internal tourism means traveling within one's own country.

Searching for a decided-upon title online can bring welcome reassurance, or unexpected surprises. In my case, I seem to have named my dungmix molds after a rather pedestrian definition of interstate travel. I began to wonder if there wasn’t something more interesting about that term; what of the inward-looking and the microscopic? What if internal did not mean the next city across, or my neighbour, but the syncopated organs and vessels that silently operate the organism known as Tom? What if internal tourism was a guided tour of your own mind? Or of the complex elevated routes made by a lifetime living in the branches of trees by Cosimo in Italo Calvino’s Baron in the Trees?  To me these present a more colourful and less ordinary picture than the definition I found would suggest.

The kiln is now in its third and final burnout, and having once again started it from the previous ashes, I’d affirm that it has been going non-stop for a grand total of 150 hours since its first damp inception.

To avert my attention from building steel stands for the molds (of which one is definitely suffering from structural weakness. I’ve come to realise that my 15% of clay in the mix should have been around 20%. Therefore all the molds are now a little crumbly despite being fairly well fired), we had a bronze pour today. I had previously decided that although none of the main body of work was to have metal poured inside (it would simply pour straight back out even if I tried!), I’d build one dung mold that was to be cast. The object within is something of a personal secret, and can only be identified as Law.

Ceramic shell and dungmix shell. What will happen? 

The day went very well. While Gordon and his brother worked on their Aberdeen coats of arms, I re-jigged and re-welded the burnout kiln (a different one) to a workable standard, then Katie could begin to heat the molds to remove the wax. Eden fired up the furnace, and began the process of pre-heating odd fragments of bronze before dropping them into the inferno. Among today’s offerings were the bronze tooth of a great white shark, the cranking lever from one of the Wright Brother’s early flying machines, switchgear from the control room of Hunterston B power station, and a series of small bronze meteorites found at the peak of Tap O’ Noth last week. All were flung in and melted down, ready to lead new unwritten destinies as sculptural artifact.

Suddenly the fans stopped, leather aprons were donned, and an apprehensive silence meant the pour was to take place. I was to pour, Eden to guide and Katie to skim. This was my first time being the one in charge of the crucible, and I was careful not to go wrong. Within two minutes, the intense red-orange liquid flowed and the molds filled. My dungmix held for a few seconds before the cup popped. Luckily we had encased the majority of the mold in a bucket of foundry oil sand, and this saved the mold proper. I came away full of excitable energy, and an impatient desire to break it open straight away. Finally, an hour later I did, and found that while ceramic shell gives great surface detail, the organic particles in horse dung give a spidery, rough quality to the cast. Law was a successful cast in a home-grown sort of way, and a good way to test what is after all a casting material.

Unfortunately no photos exist of this historic occasion, because my camera ran out of memory. Instead, here’s a photo of Gordon’s aluminium pour:

Internal Tourist

Kiln update: the first batch of molds were removed yesterday, the old ashes tipped out, my new dry(ish) sawdust added with two more molds, and the old ashes put on top. The fire re-lit from these smoldering remains and burnt well, so I'd say the fire never went out! With the dry(ish) sawdust it's going much better, and at my count has reached its 77th hour tonight at 9pm! Also: today we had another aluminium pour, in which I assisted by feeding the big crucible with metal and skimming the slag off the surface; my first attempt at a stand got a bit of an overhaul. Now it is three-legged and appears more graceful (and stable).

After much deliberation, of writing and rearranging various words on bits of masking tape, my exhibition title has been decided: Internal Tourist (http://leftbankgallery.wordpress.com/). But why this name for a small group of elevated, baked horse dung shapes? I wanted Internal to refer to something architectural and also bodily. My shapes appear like dislocated junctions between arterial routes; tunnels cleaving into or away from one another, bifurcating, or passing in close proximity. Therefore I want to relate the process I have gone through, of mixing and reworking a material that has already been processed by digestive tract, to present a sense of interiority.

John Greenwood’s cover artwork for Orbital’s 1996 LP In Sides (see below) springs to mind when thinking of mysterious and somewhat fictitious internal bodily shapes. Because these organs operate silently within us, we must trust the surgeon and the biologist to provide us with tangible forms, interior made exterior. My objects seem to be somewhere between bodily organs and ceramic vessels.

The Tourist part is because there is so much of this activity around us, on road signs, in pamphlets, on holiday adverts. We are advised where to stand to take photographs, where to drive to follow a castle trail, or where to imbue foodstuffs made locally. I am a tourist here too, but not a very good one, having spent most of my time in this intensely historic area hidden in the studio applying manure to cardboard. The idea of tourism as a sanctioned leisure activity clashes with the concept of Urban Exploration, whereby individuals choose to venture into abandoned sites, indeed some of them old leisure attractions. The difference is that there is no tour guide, you are there on your own wits, and you have the opportunity of documenting and presenting a history of a place that may otherwise be forgotten (see: http://www.simoncornwell.com/urbex/).

For example, Todstone - a disused farmhouse a little further up the hill from the Clova Estate and from another disused row of houses called Old Town. This area was the the original location of Lumsden.

Returning to the work, because the objects will be displayed on very high stands (or perhaps very low in some cases), there will be an intentional difficulty in finding a good viewpoint – the onlooker will have to stand awkwardly to try to focus inside the shapes. Therefore, my inspiration of unseen or unknowable places such as the stone cities of Cappadocia, or the Glasgow Botanic Underground will, I hope, have been replicated in my own particular way for this residency.

Burn out, and out, and out, and out...

The week is at its end, and this seems to have been the busiest one yet. If the first week was typified by cardboard and wax, the next was dungmix, and this is the week of firing. As mentioned on the last blog, the first batch of molds had begun to be fired, and at the time of writing the kiln is still smouldering, 54 hours later! During the course of the day, the still-smoking molds were removed, cleared of charred card, and usually put back in again because some had fired unevenly. Some parts are still soft and crumbly, while others are rock-solid and blackened. So, mainly a success! But a slow firing due to the dampness of the sawdust.

 A new installation for the studio, or is it my bed for the night? No, it's just my method of drying the sawdust by utilising the underfloor heating!

There’s been several aluminium and bronze pours over the past few days, and whilst working on other things, it’s always a good idea to listen out for the roar of the fan from the foundry. When you can no longer hear the sound, the metal’s getting poured and it’s worth being a spectator. While Eden, George, Gordon and Jane fill sand molds with the molten liquid, voices from Wimbledon provide an alternative commentary over the radio.

 The helmet head finally covered. this took a very long time to complete, and I'm very intrigued about how the end result will look.

The youngest mold of all! New for this week, a complex series of tunnels and central stepped space (akin to an amphitheatre). The final mold will be displayed upside-down, so the viewer peers up from below into the spaces.

To elevate the finished molds above head height, a trial version of a tall steel stand has been built. This is a simple angle-iron affair, and it is hoped this will give an interesting aspect to the work (similar to City of a Thousand Wells, the wooden plan chest elevated and lit in the Glue Factory MFA show). To culminate my residency, the work will be displayed on these stands next weekend, for a short time only, at Left Bank Gallery in nearby Tarland.

Burnin Sawdust

Most of the molds have now had enough coats, and days of watching dungmix slowly drying in front of the fan has led to the possibility of firing and getting an end result. In a previous post I had mentioned how I enjoy processes that can produce results quickly, and I had likened this body of work to that statement. On reflection I realise that this belief is the opposite of what is actually true. My work almost always involves some kind of slow, repetitive labour that can result in something quite small and understated, or even hidden away in a material. So, the only quick aspect of this project has been the evolving forms made by the card discs. The rest – mixing, coating and drying many layers of dungmix, and now firing, require lots of patience and long evenings!

So we set up the kiln today. This is an open-topped steel oil drum. Six inches of sawdust is layered in the base, then a couple of molds, more sawdust to cover (avoiding the molds touching the edge of the drum), more molds, and more sawdust to the top. I then built a kindling and newspaper structure on top, took out a lighter and began a prolonged but fruitless attempt to create fire (the rain didn’t help). Cue Eden and a propane torch, and things got a lot hotter. The idea is to let the fire slowly smolder over 24 – 36 hours. So far it has been four hours, and the drum isn’t too hot any more. Do I poke around inside for heat, or remain patient and wait? I’ll give it an hour or so!

With only a week and a bit left, I’m getting slightly apprehensive about the forms burning out ok. I‘ve already snapped one of the longer molds by picking it up wrongly, before even the fire could get at it!

 

A New Squennis Name?

Only a day to go until the beautiful Deniz graces Lumsden with her presence. I’m sure she’ll soon enough be enlisted into several SSW activities, such as dung mixing, thinking of a Squennis name (I’m sure she’ll do a better job than I did!), and trying to decide whether we’ll be venturing out into the sun, or dodging raindrops.

Yesterday we had an aluminium pour, and it was great to see Eden and SSW regular George feeding the huge crucible with a cornucopia of smashed industrial fragments, some of which may or may not have been old motorcycle engines, heat sincs from air compressors, the destroyed wheels of sports cars, the periscope from a submarine, and the false leg of a retired General. The crucible was top-heated by Arnie – a monstrous hybrid of leaf blower, steel tubing and an iron wheel. Arnie’s job was to force oxygen and propane together, building up an immense heat. Arnie also sounds like a jet airplane on takeoff, and bears no resemblance to the actor/Governor.

Today I found a supplier for the sawdust and wood shavings, a saw mill on the road to Huntly. Alan, whose working day was just about to finish, proved not only very obliging to my request, but also helped me fill my entire car with bags of the stuff. I didn’t begin to explain my project, instead deciding to keep it simple by referring only to ceramic kilns. Incidentally, there are supposed to be a few ancient kilns dotted around the local area.

 The evolution of cardboard. It is imagined that the shapes will begin to join, amalgamating as hybridised forms.

Following on from my earlier thoughts on applying to this residency, I thought I’d add a bit more... one of the central reasons I came here was to get into mold-making and casting processes again. It’s something I enjoy doing, but previously could not find a link from my own work, which was usually based in the metal or wood shops, or in our studio tinkering with motors and lights. I needed an acessable, cheap material to experiment with lots of ideas (that wasn’t welded steel mechanisms or jigsawed doors, but retained some of that quality), and so my one experience with this technique a few years ago has proved instrumental.

An observation: Making dungmix is very much akin to making apple crumble. This is a particular favourite in our flat in Glasgow, especially since Deniz bought three boxes, containing hundreds of apples, for her recent Invited and Volunteered work (That's a lot of apple crumble). For the crumble bit, you measure out the flour, sugar and butter, get them all in a mixing bowl, then break them up by hand into small pieces in a mixing bowl, slowly amalgamating the contents into a homogenous mass. For dungmix, you do the same with dung, clay, sand and water, although the resultant stew is not regarded in the same culinary light. I’m feeling a cooking theme occuring, and all this outdoor dung-kneading also feels a bit like gardening.

A la (Horse 'n') Carte Menu

 

For starters... planet of the shapes. Inverted shapes. Waxed for better burnout, and this also tends to add strength. These are the first forms but more will follow when I begin to get an idea of what the final forms look like (or indeed what they don't look like).

And here's the raw mold-making material itself! Now all I need is sand, clay, charcoal, water, several buckets, some wood shavings, a burnout kiln, patience and some music (you can't do this in silence)!

 And for the main course... dung, clay and old resin-bonded sand (I'm recycling for now). The first coat has no dung whatsoever. Charcoal is used instead, for better detail on the mold. Therefore I crushed the coal remnants from the LALDI barbeque. The dung mixed well, but did require a bit more clay than the recipe suggested. Now with two coats the four molds I have covered need to dry. This is easier said than done with our ever-changeable climate!

My little turd-covered objects on the Gang Hut. Since I'm the only resident at present, my studio is in the new building, and the dungmix is getting assembled here, with the nice view! I'll also soon spread out to the fire space when building the kiln, but for now I've just got to keep adding the layers. (and yes, it has been a very sunny day, which makes a change)

And finally, a species that does the whole layered interior structure so much better than I can. A tiny (empty) wasp nest, found under a bench. Maybe I should chew my card instead, and regurgitate it into spherical forms?

Oh, For a Buffalo!

Following the busy weekend of discussion, consumption and high volume (the latter emitting from both the kids and the bagpipes during the LALDI barbeque), reality returned to SSW, and I emerge from the weekend with a few ideas I’d like to try. As a progression from scavenging for cardboard in Huntly I decided to switch to finding some dung. Several people during the weekend suggested a local farm, so I headed there, and was directed by Steve, who was very helpful, to a empty field only recently vacated by horses, and thereby peppered with their valuable by-product. He left me to it, but the offer of more still stands, so that’s got that covered (no pun intended).

I’ve had to explain my motives to a few local residents during the last week or so, and today was no exception. My problem is that once I get to the point of saying ‘you mix this with sand and clay, and then you cast your bronze into it’, the person tends to feel like they understand an end result. I then go on to say ‘but I’m not casting bronze into them, they’ll be left as voids’, and I’m back to looks of puzzlement again. Probably best to keep it straightforward and omit the last bit.

I’ve gained valuable information over the weekend from Kate, a friend of Emily’s who is like a walking encyclopeadia of mold-making knowledge. She gave me advice on quanities of material to mix, and their differing amounts through the layering process. Very helpful indeed. I did my best to note down as much as possible, including the fact that Buffalo dung is the best you can get for mold-making (but no buffalo here in Aberdeenshire). Most other vegetarian animal dung is good too, even rabbit droppings (but these come in very small packages, like Tesco vegetables). Cow effluent is plentiful but overly processed (due to their many stomachs, similar in consistancy to certain late-night Glaswegian takeaway offerings). So horse or donkey do is the next best.

Now I need Eden to find some sawdust for firing the molds – I’m hoping an experimental covering of dungmix on a couple of card shapes, and their firing can commence as the week progresses. A good fire is the order of the week!

Dung and Symposiums

By Friday morning my first proper week of noisily jigsawing cardboard discs and arranging dung suppliers with Eden segued into the SSW symposium about rural residencies. I sat in on the first half of the discussions. Included were organisers of residencies both local and further afield in Scotland, artists with a range of residency experiences, and representatives of arts funding bodies such as Emma Pratt from RSA. The discussion was chaired by Martin, a Media professor from Dublin (please excuse my occasional lack of surnames). Of course the residencies in question were all rural, and the gist of discussion centred on what makes a rural residency work, and whether there is a disctinction between one here in ‘the middle of nowhere’, and one in a city.

Discussion was in places heated, in places it seemed overly focussed on individual experience and aims. I do admit to acting like a naughty resident artist and skiving the second half to make more work. This was due to an idea that was brewing during the discussion, in which I could create a upturned hollow form that could encase a visitors head, from the nose up. The visitor would see through eye holes to an enclosed space that is lit only by a shaft that rises to the top of the form. Again made from stacked card and dungmix, this breaks with the evolution of small discs, but I’m open to new tangents. The viewer should see the interior space lit by the sun from above, so close to the eyes as to deny proper focus. So a maquette was made: a new helmet, and perhaps my inverted take on the rural setting of this residency: experiencing the effect of sunlight as a primal thing whose presence, or lack of, can change and reinterpret the scene by the hour.

So, back to the main point, why did I come on this particular residency? (a question a few people have asked me during the post-official discussion discussions (where more seems to get discussed, perhaps because more alcohol was imbued)). Well, the Scottish Sculpture Workshop, together with Glasgow Sculpture Studios and Edinburgh Sculpture Workshop, represent something quite unique for this country, as spaces dedicated to sculpture – something definitely not as well represented in England or Wales. Through an association with Enge and Jinny at GSS I had begun to hear about SSW, and to come up for a residency was something well-regarded and an important oportunity. It is a place with a great history, from founder Fred Bush to the present-day team, who are motivated by an urge to produce sculpture and retain a maker’s knowledge, rather than by any idealistic notion of its rural setting. But without a technician nothing would get produced, and it is the knowledge and experience of Eden Jolly that many, including myself, come from far and wide to benefit from. And his table Squennis commentary. Double fault!

Three Cardboard Forms

Colds and Cardboard Discs

Trying not to be defeated by the onset of a cold bug that does its best to zap energy and clarity of thought (possibly a consequence of the fallout from two days of hammer drilling in a Glasgow subway underpass last week), I persisted with my studio experimentation. After making some angular and rather unappealing forms a few days ago, I hit on the idea of ‘evolving’ shapes from a simple building-block, such as a small disc of card. Either by jigsawing or using the hole-saw, I’ve began cutting hundreds of these and joining them together as tube-like lengths with Hard As Nails (not No More Nails, but its cheap copy), and ironically, some nails. This seems to work well, and sort of references Theo Jansen’s method of using the most basic form (his were sections of yellow plastic electrical conduit) and building from it more complex shapes. I’ve found I can easily create junctions by bifurcating the tubes (photos should follow of some of these forms). I’m now making smaller discs, and perhaps more complex arrangements. After I suggested adding a tubing system to the Table Squennis wall, Nuno now thinks I’m obsessed with tubing, tunnels and conduits, which I have to admit is pretty much correct! I hope the Not No More Nails But Hard As Nails, And Nails will burn out ok with the card when we begin the horse dung mold process, but that’s a concern for another time. Also, I want to wish Deniz good luck for her Rampa show and interviews. I can’t be there in person, but I’ll be there in spirit.

http://www.rampaistanbul.com/

The Work Begins

So what am I trying to acheive on this residency? I applied to the RSA with the idea that I would use the ancient technique of mold-making using horse manure, sand and clay that was shown to me by Mark Haliday in his Penarth garden a couple of summer’s ago. I liked the idea that this material could be used in the same way as I have previously used plasterboard or injection-molded plastic components. It is an inbetween material that serves the function of holding a temporary negative form, ready for casting. Plasterboard and cheap plastic casings also serve a single function, as they are usually too weak to be reconstituted into anything else. Therefore I’ve had a need to celebrate the fragility of these materials, and use them as the basis for my sculpture.

Much like a traditional cast, the forms I want to create in the manure/sand/clay mix will be inverse shapes, created by stacking cardboard, another throwaway material, to create forms that are then burnt out from the mold. Rather than runners and risers, there will be openings, like small doorways, entrances and exits, passageways and air ducts. The forms, I hope, will represent a miniature environment akin to the carved cities of Kapadokya, Turkey. The viewer cannot physically enter the space, but it is hoped they would project themselves into it, inhabiting it in their imagination.

Now I have to begin to create the cardboard forms. Many thanks to the shopowners of Huntly for the boxes I’ve amassed so far!

The Abandoned House on the Hill

Arrival at SSW!

After getting directed through Aberdeen’s rush-hour traffic by my not-so-trusty sat nav, I arrive in Lumsden. I get the tour of SSW by Emily - the place seems very quiet, as I’m the only resident currently here. I go off for a walk toward some abandoned houses Emily has mentioned, looking for hidden spaces. I find an interesting selection. The first is a small ruin with a colourful interior of ornate wallpaper and tiles, with a beautiful vista of the surrounding countryside. The second house is higher up the hill and in a cow’s field. Appearing outwardly less ruinous, until a look around inside shows otherwise. The strangest feature is an armchair suspended high upon a wall, poltergeist-style. Walking back down the hill I see signs for Lumsden Reservoir – a covered facility whose only visible aspect is a small building with a methodic clunking sound – another mysterious space. Several birds fly over making strange calls that sound a bit like a person imitating a bird, sometimes to each other, sometimes to me. They have black tufts of feathers on their heads, and seems to appear from nowhere, elegantly swooping and surveying the fields. After their performance and back at SSW, I peek around the metal casting area, looking at the great blocks of impacted sand as a possible carving medium. Ganghut’s hut is an appealing construction with a great view from the window, and a deck outside for lounging, not to mention the famous Squennis championship table.