SCULPTURE PROJECT

Arthur Higgins, MFA, PO Box 499, Mosier Oregon
In spite all that I have to do I have taken on another project that has been in the works for about two years. One of the reasons is my trip to Alaska in August to install the Shaw project. I want to use the opportunity to work with Alaskan material. But this project will also be used locally, in Utah, Oregon sea coast, red wood forests or wherever I go for a sketching trip. I haven't thought of a better title than Sculpture Project so that will have to do for now.

The basic idea is this. I will take some aluminum elements 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. The other will be a sculpture that draws attention to or in some way emphasizes a natural feature.

It is early March at my home/studio in the Columbia River Gorge and the spring flowers are just starting along with the tour buses with people to photograph the flowers. This is a perfect place and time to learn how to make these sculptures and work out the logistics.

The above picture shows the basic plan. It has taken about three weeks of off and on work to get this far. The next step is to try it out which is what I did here. I just hauled all the stuff about 100 feet from the house, but already learned that this is not going to be easy. The dead animal cart carries everything, but the 10' long aluminum pieces hang over each end and makes pulling and maneuvering troublesome. I probably won't be going to far from the truck with this set up, so already there is a constraint. I'll be working with material within sight of the road or no farther that one quarter mile on well beaten and fairly level trails.
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.
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.
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.
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 may not be a problem. Another thing that showed up was reflection. 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 would be best.
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.