Another collaborative sculpture: this time with Jamie Abbott, my studio neighbor. We are frequently in and out of each other’s studios and often discuss our work with each other. We’ve often thought that a collaborative effort might be interesting because of the parallels that we see between our work. We settled on a collaborative effort for Sculpture Is: 2017 In The Garden at Sierra Azul Nursery in Watsonville.
We started by thinking about forms that we are each drawn to, trying to recognize where they overlap. But we also had to be careful to not veer too much in one direction–towards Jamie’s forms or towards my forms–because this is first and foremost a collaborative effort. In the best of all possible worlds, we would each learn something new in the process, and see something through the other person’s eyes. It’s the magic of collaboration…becoming tuned in to the way that another artist sees and thinks about the world. We collected some photos of chrysalises because those sorts of closed forms would make sense within the garden setting of this show.
Like the post I did on another recent collaborative sculpture, I probably have too many photos in this post. But I like to look at process photos from other artists, so here are ours. If you open any photo, you’ll get a captioned slideshow that starts from that point.
This show is still up for another month, and there are many wonderful pieces, so go take a look!
Some sample chrysalis photos that we collected.We made steel rod forms that would eventually be covered with concrete. Each form has an opening of some sort, and a planar area of steel.We had look at the forms vertically too, since the finished pieces would be vertical.Here they are hanging in my studio, welded and partly clad in chicken wire, with a very confusing studio backdrop!We had to start looking at them not only vertically, but in relationship to each other.And then, before they were covered with concrete, we worked on the layout of the hanging structure.Arranging them along the pole.We're ready to do the concrete. The pink trailer in the background is being renovated by our studio neighbor Peter!Mixing the concrete and vermiculite.Covering them in concrete takes some time because only one portion of these complex forms can be done at a time, and then set aside to dry.Some finishing touches.The partially-clad forms drying on the floor.The covered forms hanging in my studio while we paint them.Some final touches.Just a moment horsing around.Here is a construction detail view of the pole on which the pods will hang.Jamie's son Nick came to help us with the installation.Assembling the arbor.And more assembly.The pods are laid out in front of the hanging structure.And...the finished arbor.We're hanging the first sculpture.They're all up, and we're checking from different angles to make sure that we like the relationship of the pieces to each other.The two collaborators.Nick having a fun moment with the sculpture.We took a lot of pictures from all angles.Another picture of the finished pods.We found some interesting viewing spots.Another perspective.And the view from below.
Thanks for all the process pictures, definitely gives good perspective on the “how to.” Very cool!