arty fencing installation

a couple weeks ago deb and nelson and myself went to site to install the 4 arty fences. it was of course an overcast day with period of down pours of rain, but we had fun anyways.

the posts were already in place so we just had to line up each panel and drill them into place.

 

the leaf one installed looking at the front

and then the back of the fence

 

nelson leveling the caterpillar fence panel

the fence panel in place

 

they are really nice installed because the panel and image are not solid, the perforations mean you can see through the panel and the image is ghost-like

cherry blossom fence panel from the back

 

and from the front, you really get a feel for the transparency of the image and the perforations in this photo. 

the butterfly wing panel from the front. as you can see the park is yet to be completed, still some landscaping to do, but it should be done and open to the public in the next couple weeks.

adoption artwork installation

carrying on from my last post, we had the rocks ready to go and now we were setting up for the install.

and it all begins with digging the set down area for the rocks. which meant digging 3 large holes.

it was going well until we hit a very large tree root. thank god we had the help of nelson to get us through this.

 

after a long day of digging and chopping through roots we had our gravel bases ready

 

the next day we arrived on site early before the sun rose to meet the crane. this is the largest crane we have ever hired - 200 tone - we were very excited!

 

it took a couple hours to set up the crane,

 

and the delivery arrived mid morning with our 3 large rocks!

months of prep and planning, and designing came down to this morning and lifting about 13 tons of granite above the tree tops and through the air.

 

it was a stressful and exciting morning. but all went as planned.

 

there was a nice poetry seeing this heavy rock gliding peacefully and slowly over the trees

the crane team was great, and positioned the rocks on site easily.

 

loading up the third rock that will be used as a seat for the sculpture.

 

a view looking up at the memorial in place with the 200 ton crane in the background.

 

giant boulder of granite moving through the air

the boulder was placed near the final spot but due to the trees on site we needed to get a second smaller crane on site to move the boulder into its final position.

this was a bit unexpected, but in the end it necessary. the crane team made it happen and we were very happy to see the last rock in place

 

here we are trying out the placement of the seating rock before it is unchained with one of the crane company guys.

 

that was the end of a long, exciting day.

 

for the next few days we were back on site with nelson again prepping hte site and paving around the seat rock

 

we used granite pavers called sets to create an undulating ground area around the rock

 

a few scattered pavers are set within the grass, leading out towards the split rock units.

there are some pavers in the paved areas with text sandblast into them with words relating to the project.

 

as we left the site after a week long install all up. it will take some time for the site to recover from the installation process. the site is near the river in a parkland area, and it will be a nice place for visitors to reflect on their own experiences in regards to adoption histories.

 

here is the site about a couple weeks later, on a visit while walking the dog. the official launch in in 2 weeks, the first time to have the whole community that was behind this project on site to celebrate this accomplishment for their community.

i will post some photos from that event as it happens.

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