Curling steel?

After sleeping on it, I decided to move forward with the design I came up with. I am naming it Curl. The first picture above is the maquette and below is the larger piece (just balanced not yet welded). I am really excited to have found pieces of scrap that allowed for a maquette and larger sculpture. And I have been waiting to use the textured rusty piece for over a year now...just hoping for the right design to pop in my head.

Now to get my hands dirty (well, gloves really), one of my favorite parts!

First, I use the wire brush to clean off the pieces for the maquette.

They actually are cleaner here, I swear. Don't forget to wear eye and lung protection if you try this at home, kids! Next, I tack weld these four pieces place and when finished it looks just like the first picture above, only stuck together.

Often when I am putting sculpture together I work with weight and gravity a lot. I try to balance the pieces in what may seem to be compromising positions for the steel, so that they posses the verge of kinetic energy. I feel this make the pieces stronger when they are welded together because they could stand alone. The left picture is an example of this, as well as the first two pictures of this post.


First, I tack weld the pipes together, then I go back and fill in the welds to create more strength in the joining of the two pieces of steal.





Action shot, here I am welding on the inside. The part of welding that takes the longest in this sculpture is setting up the pieces to be welded together, not the actual welding.






There is my weld. I hid it inside the pipe away from the viewer, hoping to give the piece a more whimsical feel.

Below is a video of me welding. I always get funny and curious looks when people find out that I can weld, so here is a little video clip of it. Enjoy!

Final thought for today

I feel great about this piece. I think I am seeing the interactions of these round forms in a different way...which is why the sculpture is called Curl. It is exciting to be excited by this personal discovery. I imagine it to be like when we were learning to really see object when our eyes were still discovering how to see objects and define shapes and light et cetera. There are few things cuter in life than when you realize a new baby or puppy recognizes you and smiles or wags their tail. I feel like that puppy or baby realizing a new form that was always there, just not yet relevant to me. Which is why I am try to share it on this blog. More to come on that!