New work: Switchback Jack

I have finally finished the commission from The Brewery Arts Centre in Kendal! Yeah! It is a mountain biker made from plaster, bones and bike parts.

I got this commission to give myself time to make art I normally wouldn't make. In my case it was making something big. The nice thing of commissions in general is that it throws up boundaries which I have to overcome and normally I learn valuable things from it. I often use these experiences in other artworks. So it has been the same with this sculpture.

The main experience is how to work with plaster. Plaster is a strong and stiff material, but breaks easily if it moves. I think I'll use it more often to fill bigger volumes in new work.
I have also used a new texture on the sculpture; the mountain biker has dead leaves as a finish layer and I am already busy with a sculpture in which I have used the same thing.

It all took a lot of time and I think half of it was thinking and staring at it to make it strong enough while retaining the visual effects. I wanted to have the shapes and the mechanical character of the bones in 'Steady Eddy'...

....and the movement of 'Flow Joe'

The more I progressed with the sculpture, the more limited I got in flexibility in the choice of bones and bike parts and ended up asking 5 different bike shops if they had a old handlebar and to drive an hour to the only place where I knew there would be leg bones of the right size. I made the head from a skull that came from Grizedale forest.

This and many other sculptures can be seen from now in Grizedale forest cafe in the Lake District. Here is a link to the exhibition information: http://www.breweryarts.co.uk/art/current-exhibitions/exhibitions-at-grizedale-forest/

A typical Freakinstyle holiday

So I have been away on a holiday avoiding all the regular things I do; no Sculpting, cleaning bones, cycling, rock climbing, watching films, Facebook, phone, Twitter, Email etc. Sadly, I had to skip running too because of a back injury. One big part of my daily routine is missing: finding stuff to use in sculptures or finding stuff in general.

Somehow how my mind is always set to find things that are out of place and therefor finding cool things. I have always done that and as a child I didn’t really know what to do with it. Now that I do I can actually use them so they become more than just a things that take up space. I do have a rule to prevent hoarding: If I haven’t got a great idea for it within 6 months it goes in the bin. That way I keep a clear view of what I have and learn which things work better for me in a creative way.

So what did I find?

Lots of shells as you can see, just like any other tourist spending time on the beach, but nice to know that locals were a bit surprised about the amount of good ones I found. This is 1/3 of the shells I found. Now that I have the feeling broken shells would work better for my sculptures, they probably end up as decoration in the bathroom, because I don't like to broke things that are nice.

I also found a toy soldier, old oil lamp, lots of tiles, a skull of a small bird and a vertebra that I can’t place.

The oil lamp I'll probably use as a oil lamp or to put a candle in, the tiles I broke in small pieces to create a mosaic at some point. The skull and vertebra I'll probably use in the more normal freakinstyle way.

BUT the best thing I found was just 100m away from where people are enjoying their beach holiday…

.....a Dolphin! I think it is an adult Common Dolphin.

When I was wondering around, I spotted the vertebrae sticking out of the sand and from 15m I saw it was a section of vertebrae from a Dolphin. I have found one before in the UK, nu skull unfortunately. 

Off course I immediately started digging! I soon found the tail and discovered it was completely entangled in a piece of a fishnet. This happens a lot; Dolphins getting caught up in fishnets and the fishermen cut them out of the net and throw them overboard as pointless collateral damage.

Till that point I didn’t expect to find any more than the spine, but when I found the first neck bone I knew I had to dig more around and hit the jackpot! Well, for me at least. I found the skull, but without under jaw or teeth. The teeth are very small and imagine they drop out easily. There was still flesh on the skull and reburied it in a safer location.

Discovering something like this would be exciting even before I was a sculptor! I still don’t know what to do with it, but it makes a nice holiday story!