More Sculptures

[Narsil]

a set of lizard based sculptures I installed at a school in Shropshire this week.

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All made from steel. oxidised and finished with various waxes, oils and pigments.

[Kevin C Cooper Esq]

Excellent work, your work is always inspiring, keeps us on our toes.

[Mr. Boltneck]

Very nice. I like the way in which the finish refers to the colors of the bricks at each installation site. It gives the impression that the lizards are adapted to the surroundings.

[rollin45]

Really nice work!

I'm curious, I've always found it very hard to anchor into masonry, how did you go about this?  The bricks are brittle and the mortar is "iffy". 

best

rollin'

[architect]

not sure how he did it but I know that drilling with masonry bits tipped with tungsten carbide and then filling them with epoxy. the fitting the bit or screw to hold the part into the still hardening epoxy is done for a permanent fix. if you look to be able to remove them I would say wait for the epoxy to dry and then drill and tap as per normal.

[Narsil]

That's pretty much it, hammer drill with TC tipped masonry bits, although drilling into modern bricks does require a fairly powerful drill.

In this case I bolted into expanding inserts (Rawlbolts) but a resin anchor system would have done the same job.

Usually the biggest problem is getting everything to line up since holes in masonry tend to wander a fair bit as the drill hits hard bits, even if you use a drilling jig, so it helps to design a moderate amount of leeway into the brackets if at all possible.

[Mr. Boltneck]

For lighter objects, like painted acrylic, you can also anchor metal studs into masonry with a good-quality exterior-grade silicone adhesive. Common method for sign systems, and handily resistant to temperature changes and moisture. For mounting steel objects, though, expanding anchors are the business.

[architect]

that and making sure the weight of the article being hung is not pulling out of the hole. the ones pictured here are a perfect example of the proper method to take advantage of gravity. hanging them from a ceiling so the bolt holes were perpendicular to the earths surface is not a good idea. in such a case I would run said bolts all the way through and have them wrap around something like a beam to be sure the item does not fall. not even something lighter like wood or plastic should this be taken lightly as it sitll can fall and cause serious injury

[Bethune]

Hello Narsil - perhaps a slightly off-topic question, but what kind of reception does your work get from school students? Were students involved in the creative process in any way?

My wife is a teacher in a secondary school that has struggled in the past but is now improving greatly, and I wonder what part creative projects like your might play in the creating of a sense of pride in the school among pupils. Do you think projects like yours help students feel a connection with the school?

Sorry if these questions are a bit left-field.

B

[Narsil]

Hello Narsil - perhaps a slightly off-topic question, but what kind of reception does your work get from school students? Were students involved in the creative process in any way?

My wife is a teacher in a secondary school that has struggled in the past but is now improving greatly, and I wonder what part creative projects like your might play in the creating of a sense of pride in the school among pupils. Do you think projects like yours help students feel a connection with the school?

Sorry if these questions are a bit left-field.

B

It's quite a relevant question actually

The theme of lizards was suggested by the school and links into projects that they've been doing across most of the year groups all term. I did a couple of workshops with the students mid-way through the design process, mostly talking about materials, colour and texture. Obviously with steel fabrication the amount of hands-on exposure they can get is pretty limited but I tried to get them as involved as possible in the design process.

Initially I collected scans of drawings that they had done and tried to incorporate as much as possible from them into the finished work and at least make sure that the overall feel and style of the work was consistent with the kind of drawings that they were producing, albeit 'filtered' quite a lot.

Once i'd got the basic forms worked out I sent them copies of the outline drawings for the staff to photocopy and distribute which the children could then colour in after I'd done the workshops on colour palette and texture etc. and the results then got fed back into the design process.

I also accompanied them on a field trip to an outdoor sculpture museum. The line I tended to take was to encourage them to ask questions and voice opinions and let that direct the course of the discussions rather than just coming in and delivering a lecture in what I though sculpture was about.

To round it off I'm in the process of putting together a package of documentation of the design and fabrication process which can be used by the staff as a resource in the future and hopefully capitalise on the  initial excitement that it generated.

I was actually very pleasantly surprised at how into the whole process they got, they really did respond very well and got very enthusiastic. I was also  very gratifying to see them get into sculpture purely for its own sake without all the academic pretensions that a lot of adults acquire about art.

I definitely think that projects like this have the potential to really get pupils interested and hopefully the finished product will go some way to enhancing the school's sense of identity and make pupils feel that they have more of a sense of ownership. It would also be nice to think that it might have awakened some interest in art and engineering in a few of them too. I think that its also very good for students to see a school project result in something tangible and permenant.

Feel free to Pm me if you'd like any more information. I can't really disclose specific prices etc for reasons of client confidentiality but I could certainly give an indication of what a realistic budget for a project like this might be.

There actually seem to be quite a few projects like this going on at the moment in certain regions and I'm sure that the benefits are real and substantial, albeit not necessarily that easy to quantify in terms of government targets etc. But I do think it;s important that any project ends up with something tangible and fairly permanent at the end.

[jringling]

Very Cool Work! The last pictured is my favorite...

As far as anchoring, I have had great luck using lead inserts that expand with lag bolts. The inserts are pre threaded and allow for removal and re-attaching whatever you are hanging.

[aldebaran]

Fantastic! The third lizard from the bottom is my favourite.