From conception to completion, the whole process of comissioning a sculpture

I was recently contacted by Veneta Aldous, the lady who 10 months ago bought the piece 'A Walk In The Park' as a memorial to her grandmother. (See page three, Human Figures). She felt that he was getting lonely with just his dog for company, and thought perhaps he needed a girlfriend. After much discussion and exchange of photographs we came up with an idea for an old lady sitting reading a book, and sized slightly smaller than the original piece. Made in a similar style, as veneta liked the textures involved but felt more presence in the body would look good.

 So I set to work, the piece was to be made using the 'Overwelding' style mentioned on the Methodology page. First I made an armature of metal bar for the legs, prior to welding over the whole surface, a lot of welding.

metal sculpture

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Then I took a deep breath and fired up the welder, see the results below, one leg cleaned up and the other still covered in oxide deposites. A fair result.

sculpture

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The next stage was to make the body. For this I used steel strip with the aim of preserving some of it's texture with weld in between the strips. Firstly, again I tack welded the structure together attached to the legs to get the shape I was looking for, then removed the body to overweld the surface. At this point I realised that I had got what I wanted. I was looking for an obviously female form but wanted to avoid Madonna's road cone bra look.

steel sculpture

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The next thing was to fire up the welder and coat the whole surface as before, this was more difficult as I was making much wider runs of weld, but once again I got exactly what I was looking for. (Thanks Big Al for the wire)

human figure

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Following this it was time for arms, hands and feet. this one of the more difficult parts of the process, as I feel it is these parts, especially the hands that give a piece of sculpture a sense of identity, and a feeling of being a person rather than a thing. When I had completed this stage I found that it was referring to 'Her' rather than 'It'. And was feeling uncomfortable grinding lumps off her.

human sculpture

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Her hands and feet were made in the 'Overwelding' style, while the book was made out of thin sheet steel pages welded together, and folded open as you would read a paperback book. I knew I had achieved a good result with the book when almost everybody who met her was having to touch the book to see what it was made of, and then would recoil slightly when they felt how hard it was. This is an effect I like achieve, having the texture of the material belie its real characteristics, ie Steel is a very hard, cold unforgiving substance, yet working in this style I can get it to feel almost soft and warm; I think it is lack of defined edges and surfaces produced during the Overwelding process that gives this effect.

Our next photograph is The Old lady at a recent exhibition I was invloved at Longleat House, her we can see her finished, reading her book and enjoying a glass of cider. Job Done.

female sculpture

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

We decided in the end that I would treat her with a clear lacquer rather than rusting her so that the delicate textures in her would be preserved.