adoption memorial

a couple months ago deb and i began a new public art commission. its is a commemorative public art memorial for past forced adoption. we were working with relationships australia in consultation with a local community group who have been affected by forced adoption practises. needless to say it was a very serious, and troubling topic. we met many lovely people during the process and heard many sad and incredible personal stories along the way.

for such a serious subject we approached the design of the memorial to be one with some substance and weight to it, literally.

we began making trip 2 hours north to a local quarry to find the right bit of black granite for the job.

this was way back at the beginning of the year, and we would be driving up to the dry quarry in the heat of the day, and walking around looking for the perfect stone.

we made quite a few trips, looking for the right one.

 

this one was on hold for us for a bit, but it wasnt quite right

 we got to know the guys working at the quarry and they got to know what we were looking for in a rock.

one day we got he call to come up to the quarry, they thought they found the rock we were looking for. this is deb checking out the rock while it was still in the pit, looking at the natural break in the stone. exactly what we were after.

here is the beautiful stone after it was brought up from the quarry, with a lovely natural front face. the concept for the artwork was simple, to take a solid bit of rack and crack it into 2 pieces, force-ably separating the 2 bits that had been together for thousands of years.

 

to separate the stone we needed to control the break, so it broke as we wanted it to. to do this we had the quarry drill a line of vertical holes along the point we wanted it to break.

then some metal wedge shaped things plugs called feathers were put into the holes and gently tapped into the rock. as the wedge went further into the rock the pressure causes it to crack.

 

it happens slowly and you can hear the rock cracking as it goes.

 

the rock now in 2 pieces.

 

from here we had some more work to do on the rock. we ended up working a couple sides of the rock. 2 sides we kept looking natural and just exfoliated the surface a bit more using heat.

the third side we wanted to polish so we had it wire cut and the began polishing it by hand .

 

you can see in this photo the rock in 2 pieces at the stone memorial place where we hired some space for this project.

 

then deb and myself spent over a week in front of this rock grinding the surface. the whole surface is marked up in yellow and then you grind it off (so yo know what areas you have done)

we kept grinding and grinding.

 

these are the diamond pads we used going from 50 grit up to 3000 grit.

 

this is the 300 finish. we were so proud of ourselves for getting to this point.

then one of the stone workers came and did the next step which was polishing using a compressed pad of camel hair and a polishing agent.

 

this really made the surface shine and is what the industry calls "sealing the rock"

 

it was a nice last step on the side face

now you could see your reflection in the rock! so much better than we imagined.

 

deb and myself at the end of the polishing, happy as

 

the last thing to do was engrave a sentence that explains the memorial onto the polished surface. now it is ready for install.

installation phase next time

GRIT

for the past 6 years there has been a collective group exhibiting in the port adelaide area as part of the fringe festival. deb and i have been a part of it each year. this year the theme of the show was GRIT.

but instead of exhibiting in a gallery space, we ended up exhibiting in the old packing shed of the old flour mill. its a great old space, that just needed some work to get it ready for a public event.

the old walls, peeling with paint are beautiful

 

and some of the shadows and surfaces were artworks in themselves

Aside from cleaning out debris and left over stuff, there was a hole in the floor, with random stuff in it. instead of cleaning it up and filling it with timber Deb and i decided to make an artwork installation

with a thick piece of glass, it safely shows visitors what lies beneath

although that does mean it is very very hard to sell.

then there was this bit of floor along the edge of the room. It was not safe to leave it like this with the public entering the space

 

so Deb and i took photos of the grim and dirt and dust in the gap and then covered the gap with wood. We printed the images from before and had them printed to scale and installed a photo collage on the new timber

 

it looks really great, and was a nice artwork in itself

 

again hard to sell.....

 

and one other bit of floor that needed fixing, again we documented it before covering it up and then created a poster to show what it looked like before.

 

but all those artworks happened once we were in the space and inspired. our original idea was to use the grinding grit we normally use in glass cutting and polishing and make a giant gritter ball.

 

it really is better in person, but the grit sparkles, and of course the disco ball motor keeps it turning. not bad for a over sized beach ball, paper mache and some grit and glue!

more on the rest of the exhibition can be found here.

oh and we won an award, more on that here.

SWAP

tonight there is an opening at the wheatie pub for the annual gate 8 workshop south australian living artists exhibition. this is the annual show that our studio has at our favourite pub each year. 

the idea of the show is that we each pulled a name of one of the artists in our studio out of a hat.

 

then we had the challenge to make a piece that is influenced, or is in the style of that persons work.

 

i got deb, so i started brainstorming on MDF with tape about what i might do.

i decided on using some balsa wood, and spray paint, and made a piece called 2D3D.

 

 the exhibition was installed the other day. and funnily enough i think the 6 pieces sit pretty well together. strange since the work is so different and we all made work that wasn't our own.

the names of the artists for the show have been combined too, on the left we have  Jesra Loha and on the right Debka Jeene

left is Katloz Fresimo and on the right is Cheb Chones (the C is silent)

 

on the left is Loje Simlou and on the right is Racch Hach

here is the overall look of the show installed at the pub. should be a good opening tonight.

wonder wall

back in january port adelaide had a festival on called wonder walls. more info on it here.

but basically a bunch of mural, or street, or graffiti artists we organised to paint a bunch of murals on some walls around the port. 

there were quite a few walls done. i did not make it to the festival itself but went with a few friends a couple weeks ago to check out some of the finished work. they are very impressive. with 2 large murals being commissioned, on an unused building pretty close to the center of the port. it has made that building which most people think of as an eye sore (even thought i quite liked the concrete building before) into a bit of a landmark now. i really like this piece with the rat and what i guess to be band musician.

on the other side of the same building is this mural. with aboriginal language written in the background.

here is borris and kumi in front of a mural that i also really liked. this one is kind of off the beaten track a bit. i like the realism of it.

and i really like this one. the style of the painting is very different, and the feeling a bit whimsical.

 

again the walking tour borris, kumi, john (in the background) and otto

the view down the street, gives you a sens of how big these murals really are and how much work and time went into organising the event and making the artworks happen. i like this idea very much and hope to see it in action if it happens in this area again next time.