ECOSCULPTURE
Arthur Higgins, MFA, PO Box 499, Mosier Oregon
| LINK TO ECOSCULPTURE PAGES | Oak Run Studios Home Page | |
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INTRODUCTION
The basic idea is this. I have some aluminum elements I made and will take them to the field and set up a sculpture. Then I'll take pictures, remove the sculpture and set it up some other place. Only the pictures will be the record and the sculpture will exist only briefly before I take it down. Two kinds of sculptures will result. One will be a sculpture in a place with the place as a setting for the sculpture. This makes the sculpture more important than the background and a stand alone object of art. However, that is not what my art is usually about. I am interested in the presence of nature. The other kind of sculpture I do will be about this presence I sense. The sculpture I build at the site will draw attention to or in some way emphasize this presence. I am looking at the setting from the same standpoint I have when I'm looking for material to sketch and make an oil or sculpture from. When I find something of interest, I use the sculpture elements I have with me to underscore, accentuate, or in some way expose what I see in order to reveal the same thing to the viewer. The elements I use in this way will not make a complete sculpture. They must be combined with the setting. A good example of this is Willard 05. This idea is explained in more detail on my Fine Art page. |
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| The above picture shows the basic plan. The dead animal cart carries everything I need. The object on top is a slip roller I made to roll the metal on the site, but I have since rolled it first and leave the roller home because it is too heavy to haul around. I have a tool box that holds all I need, including my lunch and camera. The dead animal cart works very well because it has been designed to haul 150 pounds of stuff through the woods. It is also portable because it collapses into a flat package. | ||
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| There are 9 strips of aluminum of various lengths that make up the core of the design elements. I have cut them in a curve and then I use a slip roller to curve them again in a different dimension. |
The basic setup for transport is shown here. The dead animal cart has large wheels in the center and this is where I put most of the weight. The 10 foot long pieces make packing a challenge and hard to haul through the woods because the back end often drags on the ground.
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The curve is formed in a machine called a slip roller. In this picture I'm taking the curve out for transport which is one of the advantages of the machine; you can put curves in or take them out just as easily. This makes transport much easier.
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I couldn't find a suitable slip roller so I made one. I used a trailer winch for the gearing and 3" exhaust pipe for the rollers.
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One thing that becomes apparent right away is that the flat sheet strips disappear at certain angles so there are going to be "holes" in the sculpture. Since these sculptures are short lived, and the record is the photograph, this is not a problem. | If the sun shines there will be bright spots that won't show up clearly or will fool the camera, so a shady area or partly cloudy sky is best for photographs. |
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| Scale is another issue. Some natural features like this dead oak tree are really large compared to the strips of aluminum so I'll have to pay attention to size differential since an element can easily dominate and overwhelm the sculpture. | LINK TO ECOSCULPTURE PAGES | |