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.