ARTISTS TALKING

# 14 [18 February 2010]

Preparing ceramic shells for a bronze pour

On Saturday morning when I was loitering in the yard looking at lots of bronzes that had just been sand blasted, one of the foundry guys beckoned me over to asked me if I wanted to see them loading the ceramic shells into the kiln. "Si Grazie..."

They have a large trolley on rails that was loaded with about 4 large shells and lots of smaller ones packed around them. I was surprised that the large shells were the right way up, as I'd assumed they would be fired upside down to let the wax out. However, they explained that they had made holes in the ceramic shell to let the wax out. The smaller ones were all upside down.

They then raised vertically the large door of the kiln and I felt a blast of heat from the inside of the kiln which was already at around 650°C. The trolley was moved into the kiln and the big door came back down with a large metal drain pipe poking out stil. Within a couple of minutes the wax started pouring out of this and was caught in a very large saucepan which had to be emptied regularly.

They explained that the kiln would be kept at 650 till all the wax had melted, then it would be taken up to 900 for about 6 hours to fire the ceramic shells and then cooled slowly over the weekend. I should come back on monday morning and they would show me the rest of the process.

So about 8 am on Monday I returned, this time with camera in tow to watch the next stages. They were going to cast a large piece of the fountain they are currently working on. As it was so large they wouldn't be doing anything else with it. First of Enzo was having to fill each of the holes that had been made to let the wax escape - this was done with a dab of ceramic liquid and a little chuck of ceramic powder - followed by a quick flame throw to 'fire' it. For the large fountain - this took around 1 1/2 hours!

Meanwhile, Maurizio was getting the bronze weighed out and ready for the furnace, as well as the large container that the shell will sit in. This is lowered into a hole in the ground to make the pour easier. They waited until Enzo had nearly finished patching all the holes in the shell before lighting the furnace - they wouldn't want to have to keep the bronze at full melt temperature for any length of time. The furnace was loaded up with off cuts of bronze from previous cast's runners and risers, and eventually some ingots too.

When the shell was finally patched, it was hoisted up, and lowered carefully into the large container, which had disks of felt positioned under where the steel legs of the framework came. These legs also had rectangular pieces of rubber attached to them.

The container was then filled with sand from 2 large drums. I was then hoist out of the hole, and had a machine attached to it to vibrate it so that all the sand was well compacted.

The container was returned to its hole in the ground, and the top was sealed with a sheet of plastic before the vacuum pump was attached to put the whole container under negative pressure. More sand was then placed over the sheet, presumably to protect it from melting/burning from bronze splashes.

The shell was finally ready for the pour. All that was needed was for the bronze to get to the right temperature and for all the required people to arrive.

# 13 [14 February 2010]

Donna Scultura (Women Sculpture)

This morning I went to the opening of the women's scultpture show - an annual show they have of 4 prominent female sculptors working in Pietrasanta now in its 8th year - which they always schedule to open on Valentines day!

It started at 10.30 am - with a series of talks in the lecture hall off the cloister (this was also used last sunday for the Knut Steen award ceremony which I haven't had a chance to blog about yet).

As I arrived I met Shelley Robzen (http://www.shelleyrobzen.com/) who I had lunch with on my first day here and who I'm trying to meet up with again, and Immanuel Klein (http://www.immanuelklein.com/) who was here on the marble carving residency before christmas but is back here for a while longer. We sat in the second row and ended up beside Hakon Anton. 

My italian is getting better as I could get the general jist of all they were say (it was all in italian) - although I wasn't always sure who people were. 

The artist were:

Elena Biancini

Who does interesting figures in fired clay, and a piece I particularly liked of an egg hanging in the centre of a pyramid (appesa a un filo). She didn't want to say anything, and I can't find her online either.

Editt Davidovici

Of Romanian origin, she showed a slideshow of personal photos starting from childhood, including amazing snow sculpture in Canada and ending with a poignant photo of her son who recently died in a flying accident whilst training to be a pilot.

She works in marble and I thought her most powerful piece was called 'fallen angel' and was dedicated to her son. It was like a wing and head of a bird or gull with an amazing line and curve - and had a tear of polished marble about where the birds eye would be. However, I did think that the tear spoilt it slightly - it was just a bit too cliched and unsubtle in a very subtle piece. I wonder if she could have kept it but tonned it down a bit, or maybe it wasn't necessary.

Jaya Schuerch

http://www.jayaschuerch.com/

She spoke of the amazing experience she has when she first arrived in Pietrasanta in the 80s and learned in various marble studios from old craftsmen who had been carving since the age of 14... Sadly a lot of these studios are closing down or moving out of town, as their son's don't want to face such a hard life and the price of real estate in central pietrasanta rockets. 

After having moved studios a number of times, her need to have a stable and 'bello' place to work, drove her to set up a studio where artist and artigiani can work: Studio Pescarella http://www.studiopescarella.com/

(This is just outside Pietrasanta and I'm hoping to go visit it soon)

Later in the actual exhibition I talked to Jaya - which was very interesting. Amongst other things, she encouraged me to invest in hiring a professional photographer to take shots of my works - if you can't send the work, its great to send good photos, and its very important to have good quality catalogues... 

I'd told here that I had only been here 2 weeks and how my head was a bit really from trying to take it all in, (I feel like a sponge). She said that I'd probably start crying a lot in another couple of weeks - most people do - or rather the women tend to cry a lot and the men take to drinking too much!

Virginia Tentindo

(I couldn't find a site of her work but this give a good overview) http://gumucio.blogspot.com/2009/11/el-erotismo-de-virginia.html

Of argentinian italian origin, her work seem very influenced by past latin american civilasations - with strange hybrid creatures and weird erotic scenes. (The little boy next to us exclaimed 'bruto' and 'monstro' - its ugly, a monster!) . She has a studio in the Bateaux Lavoir in Monmartre in Paris (where Picasso worked)

She showed a film of her work and studio with a voice over text by Julio Cortazar (Argentinian novelist). Unfortunately they didn't have the sound connected up to the PA system, but as I was only a few seats from the laptop I managed to catch some of it.

Igor Mitoraj appeared at the exhibition to see Virginia.

After the talks, we all gathered on the steps of the church (Chiesa di S. Agostino) and the doors were opened dramatically - such different traditions to the UK.

# 12 [12 February 2010]

La Fusione

Here are some shots of a bronze 'pour' - or as they say here (far more exciting) 'La Fusione'.

I took these shots earlier today. They were doing 2 large pieces that were buried in sand, and then a lot of small pieces, that were taken out of the kiln just as the bronze was taken out of the furnace.

They had told me in the wax room to come down to watch this pour, as it was a very beautiful one - when the bronze goes in the small ceramics, you can often see it coming out of the holes.

# 11 [9 February 2010]

"Gli Artegiani" at work

I have also been learning lots of techniques from the foundry guys - some hard to explain, but highlights are:

- use of heated sand-paper dipped in 'petrolio' to smooth the wax

- how to use heated rasps on the wax

- making wax plates / boards on marble slabs - 4 batons of wood measure out the space, then the slab and batons are oiled and the molten wax poured at a steady pace into the space

- soldering wax together (very similar to metal techniques) - using a hot tool and a bit of wax shaped into a rod

- how to use small pins to strengthen small soldered joins (heat and insert cut end of pin first, then use pin end to insert into the other half of join)

- moving over the large extractor fan when making lots of smoke (large soldering and using large heated tools)

- how to pour the molten brown wax into cool water, then with oil on your hands kneed into a ball of very maleable wax - they do this with the hard brown wax to build up barrier walls on moulds. It can almost be used like clay

- using a wonderful old metal syringe to inject molten wax into a small mould (although I haven't been alowed to wield the syringe that I'm coveting!)

and probably many others that are already becoming second nature!

# 10 [8 February 2010]

The Wax

So, in my first week at the foundry I have been experimenting with working directly in wax. I'd discussed this with Helaine Blumenfeld over christmas, and we agreed this would be a good way to settle in to the foundry at the start of the process, that wax might be an interesting medium for me, and with the aim in the next week or so to create something that I could then take through the whole lost wax process.

I had developed some ideas I wanted to experiment with. These were related to recent reading I've been doing - Collapse by Jared Diamond (a fascinating account about why certain civilizations failed and some were able to survive - when faced with changes in climate and overexploitation of their environment) and Six Degrees by Mark Lynas (a graphic account of what we think will happen with each degree of global temparature rise).

So my ideas are around man's interaction with our environment: erosion, deforestation and climate change. I think other ideas influenced by the recent Haiti earthquake - plate tectonics, volcanoes and earthquakes, seem also appropriate given the nature of wax and bronze casting.

I have included some images of my first wax experiments.

At times it has been exciting and rewarding, at others a bit frustrating. Back in england I had been playing with ideas of erosion using plaster, which really lends itself to this. Wax is different, and can have a slight tendency to look plastic when I melt and drip it. But I've discovered a point when cooling from melted that I really like using. And i've starting finding some ways of working the wax to create forms and textures that are begining to work.

In parallel to the wax texture experiments, I have also been casting some small tetrahedron men in black modelling wax, and starting to put them together. I thought it was going to be too small to cast in bronze, but the foundry have said we can try.

Helaine came to the foundry this morning to see my first week's work, and especially liked the 3 experiments I've included in the images here. Her feedback was really interesting and useful (this was on top of a great chat I had with her yesterday afternoon at her studio).

One of my experiments was a large relief map of Italy that I had done - I felt I was referring to the renaissance tradition of the bronze baptistry doors in Florence, and to the influence of italy and being here on me. However, I wasn't sure where I had gone with it - it became very decorative, and I think I had got too attached to this. I then wanted to try to work into it a man's presence, but it didn't seem possible.

Helaine responded by remembering what Knut Steen had said to her when she was starting off (and had lots of energy and ideas):

"Its a great idea, but its not a sculpture"

I am really excited and energised by the process of this residency. It is very hard and probably not necessary here to capture what I have started to learn from my 2 chats with Helaine. However, I feel on the verge of a breakthrough, that I am beginning to see things differently. 

One of the things I'm begining to see differently are my ideas - I think I'm being too literal with how I put them into practice, that I'm too tied to them.

Often I have big ambitious ideas - that I start to form, then there is so much work going into creating this initial vision that this absorbes me totally and I haven't left room to requestion it, letting it change, be spontaneous and develop. My humanosphere has been an example of this, but perhaps this has also been a result of my change in work process since motherhood. In a lot of ways it has improved, I feel I've been procrastating less, getting on and pushing through with work, but I think I may have lost a bit of the re-questioning and looking that is so important. 

Helaine picked up a pair of my figures and placed them on my small island - it looked amazing, and we both smiled. In some ways this was what I was intending with these different experiments, but somehow I hadn't thought to bring them together yet!

With this small action she has set me off in a new exciting direction of experimentation... 

# 9 [5 February 2010]

Yesterday’s fair in town was great, I learn the following:

- When buying a sandwich I’ll get asked if I’m married 

- Its ok to carry round a 3 foot axe, as long as the head is in a plastic bag

- Shinny black puffa jackets are *the* fashion item – I saw a family in which not only the 5 year old, but also a 1 year old in a buggie, were wearing matching shinny black puffas to go with their mother, aunt and grandmother!

I also bought olives and dates and dried apricots and a melon and a big plait of Garlic, and the local speciality buiscuits – which are like mini crispy pancakes. But I resisted getting a vegetable grater/slicer, a quad bike or a robotic donkey who waged his head from side to side energetically.

They work 10 hours a day in the wax room in the foundry: 7-12 and 1-6, it’s a long day. I supposed it is ok if you are doing the work most of them are doing; quite relaxing touching up of the seams on the waxes. I don’t think I’ll be able to do 10 hours of creative work a day, but it might be interesting for my stamina to try! Most of the other departments finish at 5pm – maybe because they do more strenuous work… I saw them do another ‘pour’ today – or as they call it ‘La Fusione’. It is amazing, the colour of the bronze and the sound of it as almost glugs down into the moulds.

I also had a great lunch – I met Julia Vance (www.juliavance.no): a great Norwegian Sculptor who comes from a lettering background, and now works in marble. She still uses letters a lot in her work and it has an interesting aesthetic that seems to be all about proportions, spacing and balance. She took me to ‘croce verte’ (green cross, I thought she was taking me into the local hospital!) which is a place where they do cheap lunches for the needy (and artists). You have to become a member, which I might investigate. You can get a 3 course meal with water and wine for 9€s. As we arrived she met another Norwegian sculptor Håkon Anton Fagerås (www.fageras.com), along with an Italian Guiliano Corelli (who works at Shakti Studio, where you can just use/rent the space, near Hakon's Studio). We had a great lunch (I had Macaroni di Mare and Insalate) talking a mix of Italian, English and Norwegian.

After lunch Hakon invited me to the marble studio where he works. It is run by Marco Giannoni and they do a lot of work for artists. Hakon is working towards a solo show in Oslo in March, and had just finished a stunning sculpture of a man balancing. The marble had such an amazing quality – it was a little bit grey but luminous and soft, and he had left the surface with the marks of the chisel, which meant just a very slight texture, and a trace of how he had worked the form. The pose was simple yet very powerful. 

At lunch we had been discussing the different emphasis of conceptual artists (who work in the realm of ideas and leave everything to the artigiani), vs artists who care and are involved with the detailed aesthetic and form and the decisions that arise as a work progresses. This seems to be a topic that comes up a lot in Pietrasanta, as many artists have their work made here – for e.g. Marc Quinn (who actually seems to spend a lot of time here), Damian Hirst, Kevin Francis Gray (who has his work done a Marco Giannoni’s where I was).

But my first trip to a marble studio had a big effect on me, it was almost as if ‘marble’ had caught my eye, flirted with me, and I kind of felt excited and exhilarated by what it might offer. I definitely would like to have a little ‘go’ at marble whilst I’m here. I know I’m here for the bronze casting, but in a city so full of talk of marble it would be a shame not to make the most of any opportunities I can find.

I then had a great afternoon back in my cosy wax room, finishing off my Italy relief and starting a new experiment in ripping and dripping wax – but I must go into my first week’s wax experiments in more details in another blog post.

# 8 [3 February 2010]

First impressions of Pietrasanta

So, its Wednesday morning and I’ve finally had a chance to catch up on sleep and reflect on the last few days. Today is a festival – the patron saint of Pietrasanta – so the foundry is closed and this beautiful town is apparently full of stalls (I’ll be off out to explore after this post).

The journey down was ok but quite tiring. My brother was a star and came with me to share the driving. We had snow and freezing conditions, the salt spray from the roads made the windscreen filthy. I’d cunningly forgotten to put the antifreeze in my windscreen wash so we had to stop occasionally to clean the windscreen so we could see where we were going. But it was a stunning route through the alps and the Gottard Tunnel.

We arrived Sunday afternoon and Valentina very kindly met us at the Autostrada exit, to show us the route into town as it was the first day of Carnival and there were street parties and people in fancy dress all round Pieatrasanta. Amazing to arrive in a stunning medival city, and see people wandering around as furry animals, or children with hats almost twice their size.

After Valentina showed us round and we’d managed to empty the car, we wandered around the central square which had an exhibition of large marble sculptures which was coming down the next day, we had a drink at a bar on the square then an amazing 3 course meal at ‘il gato nero’ – i.e. starters, pasta, and main course, I looked longingly at the pears poached in wine, but just didn’t have any space for it.

The next morning I had fun driving my brother to Pisa and getting lost, but managed to make it back to meet Valentina at 11.  After a brief chat to the guys dismounting the sculptures in the main square (I loved the fact that the main guy had a belt with buttons controlling a crane, which he still continued working as he caught up with Valentina) she took me to the foundry.

The Fonderia Artistica Mariani is amazing. Having visited a few dark and dusty foundries under railway arches in London with slightly ‘heath robinson’ techniques, I thought I had an idea of what a foundry was like. Mariani’s is housed in a 2 storey factory type building, with windows on both sides upstairs and high ceilings, which make the wax rooms on particular lovely light rooms in which to work. Everything is highly organised and tidy. It is full of works in various stages of completion, all neatly arranged either on shelves or the floor.

First we went upstairs to the wax rooms – in the first room I entered, large rubber moulds were open, and about 3 artigiani were painting on layers of wax – an first outerlayer of softer moddeling wax in red or black, followed by a thicker harder brown wax for strength. In the next room, the wax sculptures were out of the mould but now suspended in a framework of steel bars, and they were having runners and risers added, and in the third room, all the seams and imperfections were being removed. This third room is where I am starting work (but more of this later).

Downstairs we saw sculptures now encased in the ceramic shell, standing in lines like white ghosts waiting to go into the kiln for firing and melting out of the wax. Then in the next room I saw them doing a pour – the amazing colour of the bronze as it goes in. Nicola, the son of the owner who was taking us round, showed me the sheets they use to record all the details of each pour – including the weather and humidity. It all seems far more scientific as they continually strive to improve the technique. I’m wondering if I could do some work linked to their processes…

Then we saw the two rooms where they bronze pieces were worked – a room for small pieces where artigiani were grinding and polishing pieces, then an amazing room full of giant sculptures being put back together after having been cast in sections. The final area was for patination, where I saw a huge head which was a bright electric blue (copper sulphate I think) in an intermediary step of the colouration process.

As I’m out of time and space, I will tell you more later.

# 7 [29 January 2010]

I'm leaving in the morning

So, after 3 months of preparation, and the feeling that life has been on hold for a while, I'm leaving tomorrow morning for italy.

I still feel like my head is full of admin and practical things, and I'm looking forward to being in the apartment in Pietrasanta and taking a breath and reflexion before I start at the foundry on monday.

So - I decided to drive to Italy so that I could take lots of tools and toys and things with me. Decamping half my studio along with the nursery has been a bit of an epic task. I have all the bags, including for my mother who'll be joining be later, pilled up in the corner of the room, so tomorrow morning I'll pack up the car and leave by 10. Eurotunnel around midday, France by 2.30 local time, then about 6-7 hours driving to somewhere near the alps called mullhouse for an overnight hotel stop. Then on Sunday another 6-7 hours to Pietrasanta. This residency it definitely turning into a family affair: I've persuaded my Brother to help me drive down there, as my husband is left 'holding the baby' on his own. Its very kind of him, and unfortunately he has to be back in london for work on tuesday so he'll be flying straight home on monday lunchtime!

Useful things for others planning a residency in Europe:

EHIC: european health insurance card, can be ordered easily online from here: http://www.ehic.org 

Car insurance - some companies only have 60 days or european travel included as standard, but a few have 90, so its worth shopping around. I've had to cancel my existing policy and take out a new one, which I had to do before I left the UK. I haven't found any company prepared to do more than 90 days (and my residency finishes in about 92 days time) so I may have to drive the car back, then fly back for the last week...

I have been posting ads online, and pinning up posters, but I still haven't found someone to sublet my studio. I one person going to see it on monday, so fingers crossed... I've also decided that someone needs to set up a website or mailing list for artist studio vacancies, as there is nowhere (as far as I have been able to find).

The places I have posted:

Arts Admin mailing list (needs to go in the lonely art section): http://www.artsadmin.co.uk/contacts/edigest/edigest-post.php

http://www.cida.co.uk/

Artelier - the artquest studio swap service

I tried posting to artnews (http://www.artsjobs.org.uk/) but it didn't appear on the newsletter, so I guess they won't post studio vacancies.

Also tried to post here, but never got my account approved:  http://www.creativespaceagency.co.uk/noticeboard

Anyway, last minute packing calls, I will try to post again once I get to Italy.

Briony

# 6 [21 December 2009]

Little things, big things and problems of unknown size…

I have been working on my Enzyme project – and am getting quite excited about it. However, I’m also aware that I don’t want it to take over totally so I leave room for other ideas and experimentation with all the bronze casting techniques. With a view to this, I want to limit the size of the enzyme sculpture – but this is a little bit more complicated as I can’t go too small on the figures or they won’t be castable. I think the limit is 3mm for the bronze to flow properly.

So – I did some research and calculations. A carbon-carbon bond is between 120 – 154 picometers (pm). Picometers are what they use to measure atomic dimensions.

        1 picometer is 1/1,000,000,000,000 m (pretty small!)

Most small molecules are measured in Ångströms (Å) which is 100 times bigger than a picometer, for e.g. Water is 3Å.
Proteins and Enzymes are measured in nanometers (nm), which is ten times bigger than an Ångström. So:

        1Å = 100pm
        1nm = 10Å = 1000pm

A typical globular protein is about 4nm. So, if I made my carbon-carbon bond about 12 cm long (roughly the scale used in my diamond inspired sculpture), then my total sculpture would be 4 meters – which would be quite an undertaking! That is assuming I can find a suitable enzyme that is only 4nm – some might be even bigger than this.

So it I want to reduce the scale of the total sculpture, I could try reducing the scale of my carbon-carbon bond, aka my figure-figure distance. The man in the middle of my tetrahedron has arms & legs of 3.5cm from the centre of the figure. This is probably the limit of how small I can go, as the wrists on this are about 2 x 3mm, and the tips of the fingers are 1mm. I will probably have to wait till I’m at the foundry to find out if I can get away with this. Even so, this would give me a 7cm carbon-carbon bond length, thus a 4nm protein would be about a 2m sculpture – still quite big! Hmm, worrying…

# 5 [4 December 2009]

The Interview part 2: Project for Pietrasanta (cont. from previous post)

I then presented my proposed project: to represent an Enzyme

This is an idea for a work I’ve recently had. Enzymes are proteins that are the ‘do-ers’ in all living things, they make all reactions happen – from the breakdown of food, to muscle movements, to reproduction. They are so elegant, have simple forms which includes an active site. This is like a lock, that the ‘key’ (the substrate – i.e. the things that gets changed by the enzyme) slots into like a key fitting in a lock. They are also so varied in shape and size. I showed them an image of an enzyme.

The work has 2 elements which allow me to explore the 2 techniques:

•    Molecular construction – i.e. the chemical that fits in the enzyme, to be represented as small figures, like the carbon dioxide except more extensive – to be modelled in wax – that  will help me to learn constructed bronze

•    Main shape – a large abstract-like form (except it is actually the exact shape of a real enzyme), to be modelled in plaster – that will allow experimentation in texture and patination

Getting the most out of the residency
I once overheard Alexa Holt (of Cove Park) say that a particular artist “knew how to approach a residency” so it had been very successful. I never got to ask her what she meant… How do you approach a residency?

My plan: clear structure, with space for reflection and creativity

Capturing knowledge: how to record? Notebooks + this blog

Getting most out of Pietrasanta – already speak Italian, revise before arriving.

Getting most out of extra time (away from family responsibilities and building career activities) – Ideas diary (daily personal diary, Mike Tyson-esque drawings/sketches of ideas for new work)

Conclusion
I know a lot of people (including my family and at the organisations involved) will be working hard to allow me this opportunity, so I’m prepared to work very hard to make the most of it.

I had presented to a panel of 6 people. They then asked me quite a few questions but were very nice and interested throughout, and they also told me a bit more about what I might expect in Pietrasanta.

I then packed up my maquettes and headed home on a bit of a high after the adrenaline of it. I felt I had done myself justice and it would all be up to who else was up for it. But then I started worrying that I would be up against more experience and talented sculptors, and it all seemed a bit unreal, even more so after I got the call the next day saying I’d got it.

I have since been working on the preparatory work for the project, and I’m off to Oxford next week to look at Enzymes! More of this in another post.