VIPs

One of the few folk I invited to the yard before leaving; Evelyn Munro tries out the artwork out for size. The spheres are not only meant to delight the eye, but also the sense of touch and thinking of "Bruce's seat" the smaller two can be used as stools or resting points. Evelyn is the first person to sit upon the spheres apart from myself, and rightly so, as she has been a great support to me and font of local knowledge throughout this project.

Sagrada Familia

I was so excited at Fyfe Glenrock in Oldmeldrum to see this stack of sandstone from Elgin being prepared for a consignment to Barcelona, where it will become part of the Sagrada Familia- the fantastic church mostly designed by Antoni Gaudi,

(1852-1926), which is aiming to be completed on the centennial of his death. Here's a snippet from Wikipedia:

The Basílica i Temple Expiatori de la Sagrada Família (Catalan pronunciation: [səˈɣɾaðə fəˈmiɫiə]; English: Basilica and Expiatory Church of the Holy Family, Spanish: Basílica y Templo Expiatorio de la Sagrada Familia), commonly known as the Sagrada Família, is a large Roman Catholic church in Barcelona, Catalonia, Spain, designed by Catalan architect Antoni Gaudí (1852–1926). Although incomplete, the church is a UNESCO World Heritage Site,^[4] and in November 2010 was consecrated and proclaimed a minor basilica by Pope Benedict XVI

We have a plan

I just received an email with a beautiful drawing of the exact location for the three petrospheres. The day before I left John Bruce an Aberdeenshire Council engineer and I went to the site in Oldmeldrum town centre, (where there is quite a bit of building work going on as you can see above), with distinctly low fi templates of the 3 spheres, and following a good deal of consideration, humming and hawing...mostly from me, decided upon this exact layout which will instruct the building contractors exactly where to place the underground steel supports for the artwork.

Installation will hopefully take place some time in the not too distant future.

New Landscapes

I am writing from Cornwall, where I arrived on Friday after a 15 hour drive amidst bank holiday traffic with slices of offcuts from the corrennie sphere in the back of the car. This is a journey I have now completed a number of times and especially when travelling alone it reminds you just how diverse the landscape in the UK is and how much of the character of a region is defined by the geology- the bones of the land.

The following day I attended a small artist led seminar where Cornwall based artist/researcher David Paton gave a presentation of an aspect of his current research which draws on his experience as a stone sculptor and orbits a small granite quarry in Cornwall, which I had visited a number of years back and collected some speckly Cornish granite from. This quarry is fascinating in that the quarry and workshop are adjacent to each other and the owner of both, as I understand it, will not work with any imported stone.

I was amused to find David Paton was considering 'sludge' a material produced from the quarrying and granite manufacturing process, and one which had also caught my attention thoughout this project.

Working with granite in many ways basically seems to involve trying to crushing bits of it; pulverising the crystals with various tools, and what David calls the 'sludge' is the waste dust mixed with water often from the power saws which require a constant stream of water to keep the diamond cutting blades cool.

At Fyfe Glenrock a massive amount of water is used in this process and for both cost and environmental reasons the yard has its own water recycling plant which gathers all the dust infused water and through various mechanical processes with the help of gravity separates the two again. The sludge particles are dropped onto an ever changing mountain made up of particles of stone from quarries all over the world; Brazil, India, China, Norway, and of course Scotland, to name but a few. Terra Internationale.

This I was informed, eventually is mixed with other stone offcuts of multiple provenance, and used as by construction contractors as roadfill, perhaps on the very roads which will enable more stone to be delivered to the yard.

Its history

Today the hard graft has been consigned to history as I have completed the work on the three stones- or at least as much as I feel I can do. This is a day or two earlier than I could have hoped for, and I am feeling like celebrating...and by co-incidence the occasion was marked by a visit from a few members of Oldmeldrum Heritage Society( actually I was not quite finished when they arrived at 11am).

A few photos were taken for the heritage group's archive.

Despite this exclusive preview, I am still reluctant to reveal the work in its entirety here, and think if anyone at all is actually reading this - I am sorry- you may have to wait until the installation date which might be as soon as late September. However do get in touch if your really desperate and I could pull some strings...

Was today for some reason reflecting on George Orwell's famous quote:

"Those who control the present control the past

and those who control the past control the future"

Klaasy image

A photo of me at work looking very glamorous with all the required and desired safety equipment on. This snapshot was taken by Andre Klaase, who works in the yard and seems to look after most of the machinery .. but I could be mistaken...

Today a meeting to discuss 'installation' so things are moving forward. I am too tired to write much more here as now I have to prioritize sending out an email to update the steering committee and letting them know that I hope to be heading home either on Friday or possibly Saturday.

Many hands

They say that 'many hands make light work'.......as does a big hoist if you just happen to have one. The three masons are not practicing levitation, or members of the magic circle as far as I know, but merely steadying the Craiglash sphere as it is supported by the sling with a capacity for 2 tons, as it makes it way round the stud partition wall into the cubicle which is my work space for the time being. I am so grateful to have this assistance though I do know that one of the advantages of working with a sphere even of quite a significant size is that it is fairly easy to move around and rotate on your own.

We have the power

I am up early with the gulls in town. I leave town pretty early and yesterday was gifted with views of a stunning mother of pearl north sea shimmering in the early morning light. I wanted to take a photo, maybe to post here, but the traffic coming into town even at 6.45am was so intense that I couldn't get across the lane to park. Driving along in my gas guzzling hunk of metal I was listening to reports of the oil leak 113miles east of Aberdeen.. pretty close....pretty awful...

Its a conundrum.. what to do? Even at the stone yard I am reliant on power tools to have any hope of completing the work in less than an entire lifetime. Something to ponder on between my ear defenders today.

The tools above belong to Stuart, the mason who is removing the two chunks of stone which held the Craiglash sphere onto the lathe.

CP

Yesterday I worked more on the CP sphere- see above code found on the chart pinned to the wall, where CP is just beside CO- Cornish - which made me smile at the end of a long day.. things were not going quite to plan with the CP stone and I am a little anxious..need to improvise again..

Tons of work

The Craiglash stone has been turned on the lathe and is now well on its way to being a beautiful sphere weighing in around 1 ton, if my calculations are correct. Kevin, the lathe operator who has kept a close eye on the stones as they evolved - revolved in fact, stated emphatically on Friday, that this one will be 'the best'. The markings are indeed magnificent.

Meanwhile I have been working on the Corrennie sphere- carving into the surface, and I have to say - its very physically demanding work. Today I feel I can do little apart from read and sleep as my body just needs a rest, before I go back in to the workshop tomorrow morning. I only have two more clear weeks to complete this phase of the artwork and its important that I don't burn out, as at the moment there still seems an awful lot to do.

Ultra Heavy......Ultra Sound

Some parents like to know the sex of the baby before its born, but I never wanted to know for sure incase I started to get too attached to ( even more!) ideas about of the baby/child/person to be. I am wondering if showing every stage of the production process may spoil some of the magic for the audience - the public- who will see the work in Oldmeldrum town square.

Am I stamping out all the mystery?

There are some artists who elect ( like Heinz ) never to reveal the their techniques- for example The Boyle Family, who have presented exact replicas of square metres of the earths surface, and its extremely difficult to work out how they have achieved the result.

So continuing with the baby metaphor, perhaps I will conceal a little for the moment.. so above we have sphere number 2 in the bag, ( minus the stork)... an ingenious solution to safely moving the ball provided by the in house masons again...and secondly a trace of dust from moving the ball across the underlay, generously donated by Berry's Store in Oldmeldrum, which I have laid on the floor to cushion the stone. I was reminded of an ultrasound image of a foetus... in this case around 10 days old.

Chip off the old block

Another day of rain ..however it certainly keeps any rioters off the streets.. though actually I am not aware of any major troubles in Scottish cities...it seems police officers from Grampian are being shipped down to the Midlands to fill in for the ones from there sent to swell the numbers in London.

But I digress... leaps and bounds today in the workshop. I am on the final furlong of the Pitcaple stone..... the Corrennie sphere is ready for stage 2 and I need to get out my calculator and compasses.... and the Craiglash stone has been cut like an enormous diamond and will be offered to the lathe tomorrow. Everyone is wondering how it will go. The stone itself looks absolutely stunning... almost a big bang moment suspended.. I hope we can do it justice.

The image above shows an offcut from the process.

Met with the FGR Director, the Oldmeldrum public art project manager and Aberdeenshire Council Public Arts officer today...and mercifully, we are within budget, (and I might even get an interim payment soon- she says- laughing into the fangs of the canines at the door!)

I would like to see a small publication produced about the project, for all the folk who are not willing to trawl through a blog, and hope someone can find a few pounds to pay for a modest print run.

Royal Academician John Maine is also in the yard assembling a collection of stone pieces for installation at the Royal Academy in London late Nov... just along the corridor from Degas.

21.48pm... its still raining...

Arcs

Top chocolate box photo taken this morning 6.45am enroute to Oldmeldrum. Lots of fields looking almost ready for harvest and I am wondering how the farmers are feeling about the relentless rain. I caught the double rainbow just as it was beginning to fade. For a while I could see both end of the main rainbow and it reminded me of the profile on the cutting saw monitor ( see yesterdays entry).

The corrennie ball has come off the turning lathe, and looks stunning...( think sculptor Tony Cragg) and even inspired some extra curricular creativity from some of the masons...I continued to work on the Pitcaple stone and today was particularly physically demanding as my back was bent for many hours. Mercifully tomorrows task should be a little easier.

Turmoil

Well there is indeed turmoil everywhere ; endless rain and flooding in the NE of Scotland (more rainfall in a day than on a Mumbai monsoon according to Radio Scotland, so its true), the Footsie tumbles and London streets are broiling with looters and rioters to mentions a few of the headlines... but I am happy because selfishly all three stones are steadily morphing... and I also today discovered the joys of the pneumatic chisel.. we won't discuss 'white finger' at the moment...

Top image shows two of the main protagonists in the production ..on Stage 1 : Harry the yard manager and Andre the chap who seems to look after all the equipment on the site. These are the real sculptors. Centre stage is the rather stunning Craiglash blockstone.

The Craiglash Sphere

A lot of progress this week- amazingly the Craiglash blockstone has also had two faces cut, and the good news is that it looks fairly sound inside. Once the wet stone emerges from the saw shed and is opened, the surface is dried with an air pressure gun. Any deep cracks will be revealed as they retain moisture. So far there are no really threatening lines showing up, which is quite amazing as Craiglash quarry is not known for 'clean' stone. I think everyone is feeling a bit more optimistic now. I will feel even better once I find out how close the figures are to the estimates.

It's been a demanding week on a number of levels, and decide to stay away from the yard on Sunday, and rest, even though there is the opportunity to go in and work, as unusually a couple of masons will be there trying to finish off a contract.

The Corrennie Sphere

As I only really have this month to offer to the project( which has stretched almost a year longer than anticipated), and have other commitments at the end of the month, I was pretty concerned that only one block had been cut when I arrived. Fyfe Glenrock have understandably had to prioritise larger contracts which often have penalty clauses attached if the deadlines are not met. To add to the pressure one of the two main cutting saws has broken down and a part needs to be sent from Italy which I am informed 'has gone on holiday for a month', so the capacity to cut blockstone has been halved.

To the credit of the yard manager, my stones are put back at the front of the queue to the saw and I then again have the nerve racking time of waiting to see what the cuts will reveal on the inside of the stone.

The corrennie stone looks sound, and after a number of cuts to reduce its awkward shape to some kind of cylindar, is offered to the machine lathe which has been specially adapted to cope with its mass. There are one or two hiccups, but mission is accomplished...

KIngs Museum

Before settling on the final design for the Pitcaple stone I hoped to see the Bourtie petrosphere again, which I saw for the first time in Inverurie Museum, to breath in a little of its magic. As sadly this local museum was closed within the last months, it transpires the Bourtie example is now at Aberdeenshire Council Museum Headquarters in Mintlaw, and I just don't feel I have time to drive up there to see it. So I called the Aberdeen University Marischal Museum, which has been closed for a considerable time due to building refurbishment ( Fyfe Glenrock supplying the dressed stone for the renovation), and heard of the new Kings Museum on the High Street in Old Aberdeen which the curatorial assistant Soraya Kasim told me has a several petrospheres on display, and by co-incidence, a box of 12 sourced for a couple of visiting researchers.

As the museum is open late on a Tuesday evening I managed to wing in past on the way back to my lodgings in town, and spent a delightful hour or so not only marvelling at the carved stone balls, but taking in a really engaging exhibition "Sounded Bodies" curated by students a post graduate course "Curating an Exhibition". Worth a visit.

The exhibition aside, I was reassured to note that all of the petrosphere designs were unique with geometric variations which may or may not have been intended at the outset of the carving process. We can only wonder.

Kings Museum

Kings Museum on Facebook

My workspace for August

I arrived in the NE last Friday evening after a 12.5 hr drive from Cornwall ( I need my vehicle here) ready to start work on the Monday morning. The yard manager at Fyfe Glenrock kindly sorted me out a workbay, which I may have to vacate when some of the masons return from holiday, and installed the Pitcaple sphere which was the only one ready for me to work on. As I had hoped to work on the other two balls first as they have a simpler geometry to their surface design, I was unfortunately not totally prepared to begin this stone, and I had quite a struggle to resolve the maths, calling on several people for advise and suggestions, before settling on a design which is inspired , but not identical to the original Bourtie stone.