ARTISTS TALKING

# 1 [21 December 2009]

I initially started working with cardboard (220-300gsm), about 12 months ago, in an effort to create a twisted column.  I was unable to decide, at the time, what material to use. White cardboard sprang to mind as ideal for, at least, the experimental and maquette stages.

I felt this was the case because cardboard is fairly easy to manipulate with simple scoring and folding.  The folded edges can be crisp and the plain white finish is ideal for my, somewhat minimal, purposes.

After a substantial amount of experimentation I found a form I was happy with and intended to scale it up as a finished piece (from MDF, in my mind).  However, as this was for my degree show I realised that the amount of working out and 'engineering' that a large scale construct would require was not within my capabiity at that time.  Nor was it possible within the time scale allowed.  Consequently I decided to make multiple cardboard columns and increase the visual impact with numbers rather than scale.

After the completion of the columns I had realised that cardboard was a useful material for me to use at the planning and maquette stages of my projects on a continuing basis.  This is mainly due to the strongly geometric nature of my work.

# 2 [21 December 2009]

I began making new, small, pieces from cardboard, having decided to simplify the forms and continue working with multiples.  It also seemed to me that cardboard objects would be relatively easy to scale up and recreate in, perhaps, mild steel or aluminium (if finances were ever to allow that) at a later date.

Simultaneously, I was directed to the research of Nassim Haramein, in whose theoretical model of hyper dimensional physics the tetrahedron plays a pivotal role.  At this point I decided to begin work on a project using tetrahedrons as the base form; it being a more interesting form than, say, the cube, which I have experimented with slightly.

I constructed several classical Platonic tetrahedrons, of various sizes, and some which I elongated on one axis and I began experimenting with with  composition.

Eventually I found a combination which seemed to be visually interesting and worked quite well.  I think it's something to do with the asymmetry of it.

As an indication of what I mean about scaling up, I've included a picture with a borrowed architectural miniature to give the impression.

# 3 [24 December 2009]

Time to make a decision about different materials for a larger scale version.

At this point the ideal, powder coated mild steel/aluminium, solution is financially unobtainable.  Consequently I chose an easily available and workable material; MDF.

I was also willing to forgo some of the stricter rules governing the dimensions of objects I usually apply in my work, in an attempt to concentrate on obtaining the form I wanted from my chosen materials.

MDF presented a different set of challenges from cardboard.  No longer is the issue mapping a 2D net which will form a 3D object.  It has now become the manipulation of 3D materials (10mm MDF), and how those elements accrete to form something else.  Esentially it was woodwork...and I'm no carpenter.

Nevertheless, this was not complicated woodwork.  All that was required was a chamfering of the edges of the triangular elements that would make up the final forms.

The Platonic tetrahedrons were fairly simple; all the chamfers would have to be the same.  The elongated tetrahedron, though, would require a different angle on the 'base' (equilateral triangle) from that joining the sides to each other (isosceles triangles).  At this point, it all seemed quite simple, theoretically.

It was time to begin in earnest.

# 4 [26 December 2009]

The first element.  Also the smallest, and 'the purple one', as it has a purple exterior face.

This was the simplest element to make, as no cuts were involved for interior colour effects.

This element would also set a precedent for the general process required for the production the two additional elements.

What may be regarded as the biggest issue was the fact that the required chamfer angle could not be acquired by simply cutting the panels on a band saw; the bed didn't tilt enough.  The solution was to sand the edges back to the desired angle.  This demonstrates one of my reasons for working with MDF; easy to manipulate in this respect.

The result was fairly successful.  There were some small gaps along the edges, but I'd anticipated that and simply filled them in with car body filler and sanded them down.  To be fair, I did that quite a few times before I was happy enough to start applying paint.

Painting this element was a straightforward task with lots of white emulsion, some masking off and some spray painting.

The edges of the purple painted area could be sharper.  That is, however, a salvageable state of affairs.

So far things seemed to be progressing well.

# 5 [2 January 2010]

The second element.  Also known as, the medium(ish) sized one, and the yellow one, as the exterior colour and interior colour effect is yellow.

A slightly more complex element than the first as there is a triangular aperture in one face.  (See photograph in earlier post).

The chamfering process with this element was identical to that of the first.

The aperture necessitated cutting a section from the panel, trimming it, and then replacing the required portion and fixing it in place.  Of course, there was filling to be done so that the joints would not be visible once painted

The next step was to paint what would become the interior faces of the panels white, and the one with the aperture yellow (over a couple of coats of white).  The panel with the aperture provides the colour which affects the interior of this element.

All that remained was to put it together, at which point I discovered some glaring inaccuracies in my construction.

At one point the chamfered edges were not flat, but slightly concave.  This meant that the panels fitted roughly together.  Before I had spotted that I had trimmed one of the panels...quite a bit.  Consequently, when I evened out the edges I had a substantial gap to deal with.

I solved this with a good quantity of two part epoxy filler of a marginally more solid state that car body filler.

The next step was the same as the first element, fill all the other edges and sand down.  Then do it again until I was reasonably happy with the result.

Once this was done I began on the exterior paintwork.  Again this was a process involving lots of white emulsion, some masking off and some spray painting.

A couple of coats of white paint brought out some imperfections that I couldn't live with, so there was some more filling and sanding and painting.  Eventually I reached a satisfactory result.

Things were definitely beginning to take shape.

At this point I began thinking that I'd not yet considered how to join all three elements when finished.  Certainly I wasn't going to arrive at a scaled up version of the cardboard maquette as gravity and  much more weight now played a major role in the piece.

# 6 [8 January 2010]

The third element.  Also known as; the big one, and the orange one, as it has an orange exterior face, and the interior colour effect is orange.  Spot the pattern...

Of the three elements this was the most complex.  Two panels required apertures cutting and the chamfer angles required recalculating due to the elongation along one axis.

The apertures were relatively simple, using the same process as the second (yellow) element.

With this element I chose to apply some Sacred Geometry; that of the angles governing the isosceles 'faces' of the element ('base' angles 72°, apex 36°).

This meant that the equilateral panel and the short sides of the isosceles panels would have a different chamfer angle from the long sides of the isosceles panels.

Again the panels were cut and sanded back with an adequately successful result.

This element also needed the interior faces painting white for reflected colour and for an easier time applying the paint to provide said reflected colour.

At this point I suspected that there wasn't enough internal surface area for the orange paint to provide the desired effect.  I was wrong.

Yet again there was much filling and sanding and some painting with white emulsion.  It's amazing the blemishes a couple of coats of white paint will bring out.  As a result there was some more filling, sanding and painting, followed by a touch of spray painting.

The third element was finished.

All that was left was to group them together in some way.

# 7 [13 January 2010]

Composition.

Due to the increased weight of the MDF elements, as opposed to cardboard, a replication of the maquette composition was pretty infeasible.  At least without butchering one or two of the elements in some way, as I did, to an extent, with said maquette.  Consequently I simply opted to arrange the elements in various formats which held themselves together in a stable, coherent whole until I found one which worked visually.

To give an idea of possible scale I took a trip to a local model railway shop and bought a pair of 'citizens' (Businessmen-'A') to place near the piece. That was an adventure in itself.  The citizens are 1:24 scale (2 3/4" - 3", or 7ish centimetres, high).

After a fair amount of placement and replacement I finally found a composition that I feel works quite well, but I've been wrong before and I will be again.

I have to say, I'm beginning to prefer this piece without its scale citizens.

# 8 [14 January 2010]

These are some shots of Contraction 1 from various angles.

Comments are appreciated.