Pouring and Bathing

For the last couple of days I've been quite busy, so I apologise for the lack of posts during this time. I'm going to try to blog every other day again, to motivate myself to concentrate more on my project.

On Thursday I had an interesting day at Butley. I began the day by helping to strap about ten small moulds, that were being poured later that day in front of a large group of children. Each mould had three to four mini sculptures inside, that had been made by the kids as part of a project that an artist at Butley (Alice - http://www.aliceandreaewing.com) was undertaking with three local schools.

After strapping the moulds I then helped to move all of the moulds and equipment into the foundry. Shortly after this all of the children arrived and they were shown around the studio spaces and talked to about the bronze casting process. When they all eventually left I was fortunate enough to pour the last three moulds. This was an exciting process, which involved having to wear a leather apron and a plastic visor to reduce the amount of heat that you're coming into contact with. It's definitely an experience that interests me.

On the following day I was at Butley again, but working for Laurence this time, rather than Alice. I started by opening up the moulds that had been poured on the previous day, which was easy, as they were so small. I then went on to dig a hole in the ground so that the transportable kiln could be put into a new space. This was very painful, as I had to hack at the floor with a pickaxe first before digging up a mixture of cement and rubbish that then had to be transported to the skip. I then had to help move the kiln into its new space, which was also hard as it was quite heavy.

After moving the kiln I then helped to clean out one of the baths that's used to clean moulds and wash up buckets. First I had to empty the bath of water, which is relatively easy, but then one has to grab a spade and shovel out the cement like mixture that has formed at the bottom. This material smells terrible, making the whole ordeal much more unpleasant.

After that was accomplished I had lunch and then was allowed to get on with my own work so I created a small wax sculpture of one of the triangular ideas. I felt that it had worked well, so I decided to make a larger scale one, but unfortunately I had to leave before I was able to finish making the mould. I do hope to experiment more with the triangular sculptures before I fully integrate them into the work that I'm making. 

Unfortunately I didn't manage to do any work yesterday or today, as I took full advantage of the sun and went to the beach yesterday. Today though I started to play an interesting game called Gone Home. It's a game where you slowly discover what's going on in the world by reading little snippets of information that have been left around the environment that you're exploring.

I also finally got around to placing my sculpture from Wensum Lodge in my garden. I put it in a shrubbery area, so that when the seasons change the sculpture will slowly be revealed as the plants around it reduce in size.

Tomorrow I'm going to Butley to work, which will be very exciting as the wax pieces that I invested a little while ago will be being poured. So in a few days I'll have some work in bronze.

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