Evaluation

It seems so fast that the three years have blown by and this will be the last evaluation i will be doing. With that on the side lets get started.

For this project i continued on with my initial idea of building up two tables. I had already one made up so it was a case of building the second.

From the start of this project i jumped straight into making, it was the last project so i had no time for messing around with endless sampling. I had a good idea in my head how i wanted them to look and that was the idea i was taking forward.

The tables came together in no time at all. If i am being true to myself i know i could have made a third table as well as the sculptural pieces i moved onto next. I feel that i got a little caught up in this idea of building something outside my comfort zone. 

I really wanted to show just how the squish comes together and how it is formed so i wanted to make some sculptures to get a good view at it. I tried a lot of different things.

This is the first i came up with. I loved building it and when it was together it was everything i wanted it to be. It was the best starting point i could have had. But a starting point is what it was, i needed to make the pieces interact some how. Really get them telling the story of two pieces of metal being pressed together.

I did a few samples like this. I got one piece of steel hot and slammed the cold piece into it like a top tool. Then i would get the second piece got and compress it in the mark it had made. The results were differing. Some worked really well and some didnt work so good.

I knew that this was the way though. I needed to work at it and make it work because the two pieces stacked without nothing happening in between just was not working with what i wanted to say about pressure.

I did more sampling. I mean a lot more. Like 3 days of trying out different stuff before i really got it down. Once i had it in hand it was just a case of making up three i liked.

These are about the tenth different sets i had. I wanted to show off just as it was starting to push in, mid way through the process and then finally really pushing into each other.

I was happy with the making but needed a solid finish to put on them to make them really pop because as you see below they do nothing for each other when the steel is all black.

 

That just wouldnt do for these pieces. I need a finish that set them far apart from one another. Me and Ambrose toyed around with idea of dare i say it a Hammerite finish. With its shitty paint quality it breaks a lot so you can make it look like old paint. A more machine feel to the little pieces.

Personally though i love rust. Nothing screams old machine to me more than a big orange rust bucket.

With a little help from the sand blaster and mother nature i got a great orange coat all the way round. It was certainly a different choice to leave the screws there zinc colour rather than black them up but i like it. It makes them a feature rather a frame for the pieces.

Overall i was happy with what came out of this project all though i do think that a little more drive could have maybe finished me up with more pieces.