I’ve been so busy developing Philosophilia and making sure you all know it’s coming, I never did get to tell you about the work I spent the whole end of last year doing. Here’s a quick account.
The commission was for three Hebel block garden sculptures, taking the treble clef as a starting point for design inspiration. I gave the clients six vertical designs and four horizontal ones to choose from, and they picked these three.
Both the tall ones lost their heads early on—it’s a Hebel thing; it’s very brittle stuff—you just have to pin and glue, or you might waste a lot of blocks and never get past this point.
If you zoom in on the main picture at top you can see the join, where the gapfill lacks the porosity of the stone. In future, I’ll use a special paint-on protective coating, but in my innocence (check with other artists, not Bunnings staff!) I thought an acrylic render would be the best option. That decision easily doubled my work time and blew out my rate per hour, but I can’t complain—I learned a lot, and I had extra time in my beautiful outdoor studio near the beach.
Now the new neighbours, seeing my work over the fence, have commissioned two new pieces for the triangular courtyards of their yet-to-be-built house. Something reminiscent of herons is the brief…
Meanwhile, back in Redfern for a few days before my next trip to Gosford (for a family joyflight specially requested by my 90yo Dad), I’m wrestling with a Gantt chart for Philosophilia. Urghlggh.
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Love and thanks x
Jaq