From Poplar to Sculpture

Progress Report by Valerie Grove 

Over the course of the past few months I have been closely monitoring the progress of 'Changing Spaces'. As well as regularly talking to Jonathan, I have made two studio visits and three sculpture site visits, all of which I have visually documented.

My three sculpture site visits have been very different. On the first visit I found a poplar tree trunk laying on the damp grass shedding its crumbly bark and soft wood along with a whole host of insect inhabitants.

By the time of the second visit it was obvious that the original plan for the sculpture (carving and inserting painted bricks) would have to be abandoned because of the unstable condition of the wood. When I arrived  at the site I found Jonathan already well under way with Plan B, which involved removing the most rotten parts of the trunk, wrapping the whole thing in wire mesh and stabilising it with steel straps.

Today was my third site visit and although the sculpture is not yet finished, it is now upright and in its final position. Getting it there was a complicated operation and involved  the assistance of several people and a mechanical digger to lift and move the sculpture, then lower it into position so that it could be placed upright in the hole dug manually by Jonathan last week.

The whole operation took about an hour and it would not have been possible without the actual physical and mechanical support of the team at the Waterworks Centre and the Lee Valley Park. At this stage it is very clear not only how much work has gone into creating the sculpture, but also just how collaborative the process has been.

I will do a final site visit to see the completed work shortly before the exhibition opens on June 16th.

Up close and textural

Here are a few images showing some of the textural detail in the materials. Some are from finished works and others were taken when the work was in progress.

Always Have a Plan B

One of the defining pieces of the project was going to be a 3 metre high, site-specific sculpture made from a felled tree but I had a major problem today.

I went to the site to begin working on the sculpture only to discover that the tree is now completely rotted. Although I noticed some water damage when I moved it into position a few weeks ago, the majority of the central trunk was intact and stable. Since then a combination of constant rain, muddy ground and insects have made it completely unworkable as sculptural material.

This was a real blow, and let me tell you, depression started to set in rapidly! However, over the last two years I have repeatedly heard the mantra that artists should be taking more risks so I am putting this experience down as an exercise in risk. From the outset the tree was an unknown quantity and I knew that I had to work on whatever I was presented with. However, the other mantra that should never be too far from the mind is 'Always Have a Plan B'.

The fact that this sculpture remains a major component of this project means I have had to think quite quickly and very creatively about how to overcome my little problem. What I have decided is to change the original, sculptural concept  of working on the wood itself and to encase the decaying trunk in wire mesh instead. The mesh will be pinned tightly to the surface of the trunk so that it takes on the form of the original tree while supporting the material integrity of the wood.

This protective intervention actually presents a work that engages directly with ideas of conservation and preservation. The rotting tree will serve as a habitat for different life forms connecting it very strongly to the  Lee Valley Park's work with the conservation of natural habitats. At the same time, the gradual disintegration of the rotting tree inside the mesh will ultimately leave only the tree shaped cage behind it, thus rather contradicting the idea of preservation. The whole process of this 'slow-release sculpture', however, will provide a visual embodiment of an entire natural cycle.

The whole process

Please give us a brief synopsis of the process of creating this piece of work?  
OK... this particular piece consists of three different components. Two of these - the bricks and the wood - were salvaged from the Olympic Park more than twelve months ago which is a good indication of just how long I had been thinking about and planning this project. At that time I was constantly on the lookout for things that I could potentially use although at that time I was still not sure that the project would ever see the light of day. So to be writing about this now as a completed work is a really good feeling.

The first stage was to get my bricks in a row...

It was very important to get the symmetry and scale of this work right from the outset so that the precision work that followed always had the right alignment.

The next stage was to insert the salvaged wood into the brick and put in some serious work to transform the rough wood to the extent that it becomes almost unrecognisable. I then attached the whole construct to a a base which had been sized to harmonise with the shape and scale of the brick and the wood:

 Once I had the scale I started to work on the surrounding textures and colours:

One other thing that I would like to say about this particular piece is that the brick is really quite special. It is 'London Brick' which has a long history. The London Brick Company was founded in 1889 and has essentially built London since then and it continues to do so. The bricks I use in this work were left over from the Olympic Park and much of the brick based construction in the Olympic Park and the Lea Valley Park as well, were manufactured by the London Brick Company. 

What about the wood? 
The wood has come from wooden pallets that could be seen everywhere during the construction as they are the bases upon which everything is delivered. So the pallets would have had bricks  or other building materials sacked on them. So I think this particular work really is a linear distillation of the materials and processes of construction.

 

Video tour of the Studio

Here is a short tour of my studio which gives a general idea of the work I have produced for this project so far. Not all of the pieces are finished but they are all well on the way leaving me free to focus on the on the sculptural piece I will be doing on-site in the Lee Valley Park. 

This video also shows just how much it is actually possible to do and to fit in a very small space! 

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