The Euphorbia climbing over the wall of the courtyard

Good Morning.. it is lovely and sunny here this morning but cold. Not I am sure as cold as Toronto …I hope the lovely day after a snow storm sun is shinning on everyone. I always feel the one or two sunny days after the snow storm with the blue sky and the sun gleaming on the white is the treat of winter. Here, I have sun gleaming on the roof tiles and on the cacti or euphorbias by the pavilion where I am living and working.

This is one of the many french doors leading to the outside of the pavilion either into the garden or into the courtyard. Check out my boxes of silicone!

My post today is about the preparation for my project here at Lotusland. What I did before I got here.

excess-repetition-accumulation-transformation

The key words for this project really helped me to clearly see where I was heading…sort of.

So to begin! I first headed to the Al Green Sculpture Studio, a member based open studio for sculptors in Toronto.

Here I consulted with their knowledgeable staff, Director Melanie Chikofsky and Nicholas Crombach, the amazing studio technician. This was a helpful path as it helped me to sort out what kind of moulds to make etc. A second opinion is always welcome. Further, both Melanie and Nicholas were with me all the way so when I had questions or catastrophe’s they were the dream team helping me re-think my process or direction. I couldn’t have asked for better support.

Remember theses tiles from previous posts… well this was the first element I interpreted. I wanted to make the tile 3-d and as I had done this before I started at this comfortable place.

From this I framed up the clay and poured a silicone mould.

Here are the final results. Beeswax tiles ready for the wall.

I decided too, to have objects such as a miniature candle stick and a pineapple and doorknobs extrude from these tiles on the wall.

Then came the succulents. These were more difficult as they have many undercuts. Melanie was a great help and between the two of us we resolved many issues. Would they be one part moulds or two parts? I was worried that they would be heavy going onto the wall ..How to make them lighter etc? This was one place where Melanies’s expertise really helped. This was a real collaboration.

These needed to be cut so they would lie flat and they also needed to be sealed so the silicone wouldn’t penetrate. My solution that was to dip them in beeswax and then slowly melt it off. I did this in layers so to create a solid form.

Then I made 17 different moulds to give me the variety needed for the installation.

The final results are quite wonderful.

Well now it is time to get back to the casting and installing business for today. The project is well underway but my time is running out.

A quote from Ganna Walska

“Oh… if only I could stop Time!”

personally, I would just like a pause to catch up!

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