Production in full swing...

Thought I'd post a couple of pictures of what I've been up to since my last post. 

I've been creating the Etch resists ready to apply to the copper and brass which will adorn the cylinders.  It's important to be really organised to make sure each cylinder is the right size and shape.

Here's the stacked up metal ready for etching...

An exciting day when I took delivery of the stainless steel welded cylinders with their protective coatings.  It's all coming together!

More soon, as the production continues.

Creating designs for the cylinders' surface pattern.

 Here's a sneak peek at my final design proposal for the surface etchings on the metal cylinders using artwork created by myself, and students from two local schools; Leftwich Primary school, and Hartford High school.   More images of the fantastic work produced by students can be found on the image bank here...  https://www.flickr.com/photos/129716078@N08/albums

Breakthrough moment!

A breakthrough moment with a prototype metal cylinder hanging for the first time! 

Designing the etched metal cylinder surfaces

For the past couple of months, I've been using the artwork produced in the school workshops, combined with some mono-prints and salt related imagery of my own, to produce the artwork that will eventually be etched on to the surface of the metal cylinders.

Much of the design work is done on the computer, by manipulating, resizing and layering images which will produce different qualities of texture when etched in to the different metals; copper, brass, white brass and stainless steel.

Making progress...

I've been working hard on creating prototypes of the metal cylinders which will be eventually hung in Barons Quay.  I've been working on how the cylinders achieve the layered compositon, with copper, brass and white brass etchings layered on top of one another.

The challenge is to keep the cylinders as light as possible, whilst being structurally sound and maintaining the high level of craftsmanship I always strive for.

 Contrasting metallic colours.

 I was excited to try etching textural salt deposit - like images on to the stainless steel cylinder.  It's really beautiful the way the shiny metal contrasts the etched matt grey image.

Northwich Workshops

Public Engament Workshops

As part of the Barons Quay project, I wanted to engage with local schools to contribute to the project's IMAGE BANK, which you can see here; https://www.flickr.com/photos/129716078@N08/albums ,which stores images that will be etched in to the metal for the final Artwork. We started each day with an advance 'sneak peak' tour of The Lion Salt Works, to eductate and inspire the students through looking at the salt mining history in Northwich area.

Leftwich Primary 2/6/15

The first workshop was run by local artist Beth Barlow. She planned a very active and engaging workshop task; creating homemade puff paint, for the students to get invovled in!  We created a large scale collaborative artwork that I could then photograph and upload to the Image Bank, and whcih will be used as a design within the final Artwork.

Hartford High 3/6/15

The second workshop was run by myself and two handy helpers. The aim of this exercise was to create textural salt desposit imagary. We layered up materials such as strunched up paper, foil, spong and string to create a large collaborative collorgraph, which we then inked up and took a print from.

For the second task, we wanted to  create structural images, again to use in the final artwork, using cut up pieces of paper, collaged on to acetate, so it could then be layered on top of the collograph print made earlier in the day.

A huge thank you to all the staff and students involved, to Lorna at the Lion Salt works for fantastic tours, and to Beth Barlow, Fay, and Rosalyn for their hard work over the two very productive days!

A visit to Northwich

Just back from a packed two days in Northwich, meeting with some really interesting people. I've been organising a series of events for my public engagement programme, which include art workshops with school students in June, at the soon to open Lion Salt Works.

Meeting with local Artist Beth Barlow, who will be creating and facilitating the primary school workshop, I got very excited about the prospect of using glue and ink to create collaborative drawings with the students, drawings which could appear, etched in to the surface of the final commission, through their inclusion in the Barons Quay Public Art IMAGE BANK.


I visited the Barons Quay site in the centre of Northwich, and work is under way to transform this land, reclaimed by filling abandoned and dangerously unstable salt mines with a concrete composite, in to a new public and retail space.

Hearing from Danielle, who works for Fusion21, about her work to engage building and construction apprentices from the local area, I realised how much effort is being put in to ensure that the development work benefits the local community. 


On Wednesday, I took the opportunity to see an exhibition of local Art at the Weaver Hall Museum in Northwich, organised by members of Visual Arts Cheshire. Whilst there, took pictures of industrial relics outside the museum:

 Detail of a marine steam engine, once part of the 'Anderton', one of the last two steam powered ships built in Yarnwood's shipyard in Northwich, in 1945.

Detail of the tyre of a CAT 988s  used in Winsford rock salt mine, the oldest salt mine in the country, and also the oldest working mine.  The salt union extracts one million tonnes of salt from Winsford mine each year. Most of the salt is used for de-icing roads in winter.

I find industrial relics and architecture fascinating. I'm always drawn in by how the object or building's form relates to its function; looking for spouts, chutes, ladders.... to give a clue to the relic's past use.

Designing, testing and planning

 Experimenting with paint colours for the wall behind the artwork.  The warm greys seem to work much better with the metal colours than the cool greys.  The warm metal colours make the cool greys appear more lilac, and this clashes with the metal itself.  A bright calico colour seems to work best (far left)

 I've been working on some calculations to do with bend allowances in metal.  If you're bending pieces of metal, as I will be doing in the cylinders, at the back joint, it's necessary to allow a little more metal width, to account for the bend.  Working with inches and thou. and converting to mm kept me concentrating for hours......

Here, I've made three life size models of three of the metal cylinders, in cardboard.  This is really useful to check proportions are right, and that the relative sizes work together visually.

Logisitics! Working out the exact sizes and placement of each cylinder....

For the past few weeks I've been working on the exact layout and sizes of the metal cylinders.  This involves creating an image, to scale, plotting the ideal layout, then working out how big each cylinder is, and then, how big each part of the cylinder will be.  From this, I can calculate the exact size of metal required, that will be etched and then rolled up in to a cylinder shape.

Here's a spreadsheet I'm putting together to record all the exact sizes.  From these sizes, I will be able to work out how much each cylinder will weigh.  I'll pass this information on to the Architects and Builders involved in the project so that they can build a bar on the interior wall for the cylinders to hang from.  The weights will make sure that the bar is strong and secure enough to hold the weights of the cylinders.

 

Here are some CAD (Computer Aided Design) visualisations drawn for me by Dave Weaver, who works in one of the other studios at Centrespace, where I'm based in Bristol.  I've been working with Dave to come up with a structure to hold the metal cylinders together.

Images courtesy of Dave Weaver 2014.