Challenges of the project

There are several general challenges to this project but these are the kind of things familiar to anyone who is working to produce a body of work within a specific time frame. As usual reality has a habit of intervening and taking up time allotted for the studio. However, I know (more or less) the artistic and material parameters of most pieces I want to do for this exhibition and the preparation and planning is on track which is really the most important aspect of any project. The biggest challenge of all involves something I have never done before!

The piece which I know is going to be the most difficult to tackle for this project is a 3 metre sculpture that I will produce from a felled tree. The tree is from the Lee Valley Park and will form the basis for the first site-specific sculpture that I have ever worked on. This is a challenge that is beyond anything I have ever attempted before and as you can see from these images, the first challenge was moving the tree from its original site to the sculpture site! 

Planning is definitely the most important aspect of this piece because it will be done on-site in public view over a period of several weeks so I need to have a really clear idea of how the work could evolve. I am really looking forward to getting stuck into this aspect of the project but at the same time it is a little scary. I am hoping to create a sculpture that is artistically engaging and appealing to the public and also remains in complete harmony with its own environment.


The really exciting thing about this piece of work is that it will remain in situ after the exhibition. So it will become a permanent sculpture  in the Lee Valley along one of the main public footpaths leading to the Olympic Park.  I will post images of my progress on this sculpture as it emerges.

Art in progress 1

Q) What are you working on at the moment? 

Stage 1

I'm at the studio a lot at the moment working on the new pieces for Changing Spaces. The studio is really full of stuff that I have been collecting over a long period for this project so I am having to work around it where I can  and take it outside when I can't!.

These pictures have been taken over the last 3 weeks and give a sense of how the objects progress from their original state and how the work comes together. The centre piece of this particular work is an old valve pipe from an industrial heating system. The valve pipe was found discarded in an abandoned warehouse building near the Lee Valley Park.

Stage 2

The pipe is probably between 40 and 50 years old. I have kept it intact so it is more or less in the shape that I found it although it is of course repainted. The base that provides the support and frame for the transformed valve is constructed from corrugated board and plywood.

This piece of art in particular reflects very directly the industrial landscape which dominates this area. It also plays around with the idea of regeneration - of turning something old into some new.

Stage 3