Blimey, it’s been a hectic few days.  Apart from setting up, and tweaking, and re-tweaking (and re-tweaking) my new website (link on the left), I have still been in to Uni to start work on my board/frame.

Matt (the technician, and now my hero) has cut out the boards for me, but I have to sand, by hand, all of the edges for a good fit and finish.  I never realised how hard MDF was to sand….

Having spent about 3 hours doing this on Thursday and Friday (when I really should be doing portfolio and presentation work), I had a sudden panic when I realised that my big template said one measurement, and my drawing/plans said another.  And yes, everything had been cut to the smaller measurement.

Oh boy, did I feel just  a wee bit ill.  Okay, so there’s still a bit more time to do this last bit, but it would mean getting new boards delivered, re-cut, sanded before I was back to where I am.  The frame still needs to be constructed, battened and strengthened, and painted, finished and the tiles actually put on to it!

Panic over though, having rushed back down to my workspace, the original template IS the right size, so major disaster averted. For now.

Just got to get through Monday’s presentation, and submit everything required and I can get back to the final piece.

Waiting on wood today for making frame/backboard, so I worked on the presentation for a little while.

Then I figured it might be a good chance to photograph the first glass panel test I did a couple of weeks back (on top of the ceramic tiles are going to be sections of glass that I wanted to echo the pattern of the main body of the work.  So I did a bit of test carving into the plaster, and slumped the glass on to it,

I made a few more moulds yesterday, this time in ceramic, which will be re-usable, as, quite often, the plaster mould (even with flint added) doesn’t survive more than a couple of firings. Certainly not eight!

So, these panels are going to fixed to the board with special stand-off fixings, so they’re just flat – will holes in, but this first one didn’t.  How to photograph it then?  I needed to get light at the back to show the pattern, but didn’t have any of my home-made (well, that means brother-made) stands, so I used glue clamps but they’re not very pretty.

Then the light bulb moment happened!  I have lots and lots (and lots) of big, thick, chunky ceramic tiles – with channels cut out!

So, I improvised, and used one as a stand.  I can use this technique to make special ‘feet’ for other glass panel work.   And I think this photo might make it on to the main website.

I had to go to the school (KHCTSC) yesterday evening to present my design ideas to the properties sub committee.

I was a wee bit nervous.  I’ve invested a lot of time and energy, and emotion into this project (never mind the financial cost invested!), but ultimately, no matter how much I like the work, no matter how much my friends at Uni like the work, it doesn’t matter unless the end client likes it.

And in this case, it wasn’t as though the end client came to me, or asked for proposals for the commission, and in that case had guidelines.  The idea was generated on my side only, with really, the only discussion so far being that they didn’t necessarily want something formal and straight forward – I really did have a free rein on the piece from concept through to materials, size, finish.

So, off to school I went, saw one of my old teachers from back when I was there as a pupil.  He doesn’t seem to have aged one bit!

Oh I digress.  Did they like it?  Yes!!! They absolutely did.  A resounding yes certainly from the school head, and as far as I could tell, the whole committee.  In fact, the head teacher was positively enthusiastic about the piece, liking the story behind it, the way the ideas were developed – feels it could be used as an educational tool, which adds even more dimension to the piece. 

I can’t tell you how I felt when I came away last night.  I was overwhelmed actually by their reaction, and really, it validates everything that I have done.

So, what am I wittering on about?  Here’s a Photoshop mock-up of what the final piece might look like in place:

The area is a stair way, at the half way platform, and it is quite a large piece, about 140cm square when finished.

I am a happy bunny today. 

Ok, this post is purely for search engine reasons, googling for even my exact site address isn’t bringing anything up, so lets see if Blogger can help!

My New Website

However the website is by no means complete so ignore content for now! I just need to know I even exist…