Monday, November 29, 2010

POP! Once upon a time, I made sculpture...

Once upon a time, I was a sculptor. I just found this old letter about a big piece I did for Pierce Flooring in Bozeman made out of a sustainable flooring material!

The finished piece... POP!

Mike and crew at Big Timberworks cutting the Marmoleum like a giant salami on their biggest band saw.

The volunteer crew laminating slices together.

Suzanne Ford applys 1100 feet of electrical tape to the edges to make a clean, finished look.

Mason Griffin and Kate Howe spend the first of 15 hours straight on the genie lift installing.

Kate and friends tour the piece the night of the show.  I must say, I was really pleased to hear rave reviews from everyone I spoke to.  The piece will be a permanent installation at Pierce, a lovely surprise as it was commissioned just for the show.

POP! 2007, 3" x 380', marmoleum and electrical tape, commissioned by Pierce Flooring
Thank you to everyone who made this piece a reality!
Kate and Tom enjoy the piece from below, looking up through the double "vortex" at the center of the piece.  The line quality from this vantage is very "Seussian" (like Dr. Seuss), fun and a bit dizzying!

It took a giant bandsaw, 130 hours of labor for fabrication and installation, a crew of vounteers, 400 feet of Marmoleum, 1100 feet of electrical tape, 680 yards of monofilament, 260 feet of aircraft cable and fifteen hours straight on a genie with a man with really strong hands to get this thing to fly.

THANKS TO: Big Timberworks for cutting it, Mason Griffon for working tirelessly installing it with me, Lonnie Ball for being our man on the ground and shooting photos, and Suzanne Ford, Claudia Krevats, Ginger, Virginia, and Maggie Miller, as well as Debbie and Bonnie for fabricating with me for days in the warehouse. I could not have made this piece without you.

It took six of us almost eight hours straight to laminate the 100' strips together back to back, the strips were then seamed end to end with a special seaming iron.  While the project initially was designed to be 1300' long, we had to stop at 400' due to time constraints.

The finished piece.
All in all, it was a great show, with this piece becoming a permanent installation, and the sale of both paintings I had on display (one at the show to Pierce, and one which sold from my studio before the show).  I am honored and thrilled at my work being such a hot ticket suddenly!  Thanks to all for your encouragement and support.

Stay tuned for the first week in December when a massive new piece goes in at the Community Food Co-op in Bozeman, with materials for the piece being donated by Refuge.  Co-op pieces are donated by myself and the incredible building supply stores locally.  It is a huge effort, entirely volunteer!

2 comments:

Jongira said...

Reading this... I forgot it was a old quoted text... and said (to myself)... "how cool is that, to have a community-involved, collaborative process, making a new installation art"... then I remembered it was just a quote from times gone by... but how excellent was it, to have done that! Beautiful.

Jongira said...

Afterthought: You still ARE a sculptor, you just sculpt different things now, your body, your life, your spirit!