The steady sound of whirring sewing machines, kettle boiling, cheesy house blaring out of a pirate radio station and twittering ladies soon disappeared into the background as I headed out of my studio and down into the exhibition hall. Today was the first day of the set build. Scared doesn't come close.
Scaffolding had arrived as planned and as ever the free chocolates were much appreciated. A calorific breakfast ensued. Next on the arrival front was lorry after lorry load of rubbish, kindly donated in a sort of back scratching exchange by my housemate Biscuit, who was conveniently clearing out an underground car park he was currently part converting in a recording studio.
I had scouted out his place a few weeks before as he told thought I might be interested in some of the rubbish he was currently shifting. I had ear marked a small mountain of cardboard and some a ton of old polypropylene HedKandi banners which had somehow ended up at the car park. Not quite sure how I was going to use them yet, but was thinking that it might be very useful to have lots of plastic material for one of the sets.
Next to arrive was Keane and Peter, my set builders. Keane had brought just about every conceivable tool imaginable and carry-able in his over laden transit. With a grin on his face and a roll up in his mouth he eagerly began to unload and set up a workshop in the space. The scary load on my shoulder had just been lightened by the power of 2. Still a shit load to do, but happy knowing I had dedicated people both of whom knew the right end of a drill, unlike me.
Having spent probably too long making a scale model of the space complete with stages, you'd think I knew exactly where we would be erecting scaffold and building. Alas, this wasn't the case. When faced with the space all my planning seemed suddenly effervescent. After a day and a half the scaff was up and in the right place, finally. We only had to move on the of the stages once...
Part of the fun but also the pain when working with found materials is just that, the materials are found. If you don't find what you need, you don't have it. Also you have to be very good at improvising with whatever you can get your hands on. Technical drawings are about as good as chocolate tea pot when the timber you are using comes from skips, gardens and alleyways. Chalk on floor was about as technical as it got. That said us three were in our element. Well at least until I stepped on a rusty nail with a thinly soled trainers on day 1.5 of the set build. Holy crap that hurts! I was hobbling for the rest of the week, and the following week... and the one after that. There was no time to stop though, grimacing and loaded up with painkillers I soldiered on.
A plan was formed, the stages were set, the models I made did actually turn out to be useful as did the myriad of drawings I had made.
One stage was two small kiva style mounds with ladders sprouting out the top. This was the easiest to make, comprised of two small scaffold platforms with an enormous carpet draped across them both. Simple and really striking with a surface much like a giant boulder. This would be the point of emergence for one of the tribes.
The second stage was akin to a sermon mount, enormous, tall, dangerous, psychedelic, monstrous... did I mention dangerous? This stage employed the genius use of the plaster spraying gun which I bought on Keanes recommendation. Like all the stages the surface was basically built by nailing, screwing, cable tying and glue gunning any and all rubbish we could to the scaff structure before draping this with material and more card to give a solid facade. One the facade was sturdy...ish, we (Keane) loaded up the plaster spraying gun, fired up the compressor and caked the whole thing in finishing plaster. This gave a strange pink brown finish a bit like a mix between plaster and leather which when dry could be painted.
I needed paint, lots of it. After some calling around I found out that rubbish dumps all shared a common problem. Namley... paint! Paint is frequently dropped of at the dump as people often only need a small amount, buy too much, the wrong colour or just want to clear out their shed. So, if you pay a trip to the dump and present proof of you address they will happily let you take as much away as you can carry. Woop! Settling on a palette of pastel shades in-keeping with the masks we loaded up the truck and got to work.
Note to self.... place plastic sheeting on the floor before spraying enormous sculpture with emulsion paint. Not fun to clean off later.
Scaffolding had arrived as planned and as ever the free chocolates were much appreciated. A calorific breakfast ensued. Next on the arrival front was lorry after lorry load of rubbish, kindly donated in a sort of back scratching exchange by my housemate Biscuit, who was conveniently clearing out an underground car park he was currently part converting in a recording studio.
I had scouted out his place a few weeks before as he told thought I might be interested in some of the rubbish he was currently shifting. I had ear marked a small mountain of cardboard and some a ton of old polypropylene HedKandi banners which had somehow ended up at the car park. Not quite sure how I was going to use them yet, but was thinking that it might be very useful to have lots of plastic material for one of the sets.
Next to arrive was Keane and Peter, my set builders. Keane had brought just about every conceivable tool imaginable and carry-able in his over laden transit. With a grin on his face and a roll up in his mouth he eagerly began to unload and set up a workshop in the space. The scary load on my shoulder had just been lightened by the power of 2. Still a shit load to do, but happy knowing I had dedicated people both of whom knew the right end of a drill, unlike me.
Having spent probably too long making a scale model of the space complete with stages, you'd think I knew exactly where we would be erecting scaffold and building. Alas, this wasn't the case. When faced with the space all my planning seemed suddenly effervescent. After a day and a half the scaff was up and in the right place, finally. We only had to move on the of the stages once...
Part of the fun but also the pain when working with found materials is just that, the materials are found. If you don't find what you need, you don't have it. Also you have to be very good at improvising with whatever you can get your hands on. Technical drawings are about as good as chocolate tea pot when the timber you are using comes from skips, gardens and alleyways. Chalk on floor was about as technical as it got. That said us three were in our element. Well at least until I stepped on a rusty nail with a thinly soled trainers on day 1.5 of the set build. Holy crap that hurts! I was hobbling for the rest of the week, and the following week... and the one after that. There was no time to stop though, grimacing and loaded up with painkillers I soldiered on.
A plan was formed, the stages were set, the models I made did actually turn out to be useful as did the myriad of drawings I had made.
One stage was two small kiva style mounds with ladders sprouting out the top. This was the easiest to make, comprised of two small scaffold platforms with an enormous carpet draped across them both. Simple and really striking with a surface much like a giant boulder. This would be the point of emergence for one of the tribes.
The second stage was akin to a sermon mount, enormous, tall, dangerous, psychedelic, monstrous... did I mention dangerous? This stage employed the genius use of the plaster spraying gun which I bought on Keanes recommendation. Like all the stages the surface was basically built by nailing, screwing, cable tying and glue gunning any and all rubbish we could to the scaff structure before draping this with material and more card to give a solid facade. One the facade was sturdy...ish, we (Keane) loaded up the plaster spraying gun, fired up the compressor and caked the whole thing in finishing plaster. This gave a strange pink brown finish a bit like a mix between plaster and leather which when dry could be painted.
I needed paint, lots of it. After some calling around I found out that rubbish dumps all shared a common problem. Namley... paint! Paint is frequently dropped of at the dump as people often only need a small amount, buy too much, the wrong colour or just want to clear out their shed. So, if you pay a trip to the dump and present proof of you address they will happily let you take as much away as you can carry. Woop! Settling on a palette of pastel shades in-keeping with the masks we loaded up the truck and got to work.
Note to self.... place plastic sheeting on the floor before spraying enormous sculpture with emulsion paint. Not fun to clean off later.
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