Around metal
The surprise of metal | The work on the roundabout | Technical options | The making process
I worked using wood for 20 years, creating a great amount of works. An experience which was both strong and sucessful but by surprise i changed material when I discovered metal.
It all changed because of a contest that was put up for a roundabout, close to my whorkshop in Saint Pierre des Corps.
I knew that I had always been interested by urban space and architecture but « daring » to conceive and suggest from my own ideas, sensibility, my own political views on the town and how to live in it, always remained until this day out of reach or out of the question. Thank you to the town hall which opened the field and « authorised » a self taught artist to take the risk of urban creation.
The idea of using wood vanished while preparing the project. Even with the use of some tricks like isolating wood from the ground with metal, putting a hat on top, covering it with thick protection…all those solutions wouldn’t last long.
With the help of my tunisian neighbour I started to learn welding, with fear at the beginning fo this « electrical force » able to melt metal in a second. It is in fact so magical that my fear very quickly disappeared to the actual benefit of the infrastructure of the weather-vane itself, heart of the roundabout ( ie « urban works/roundabout in situ »). This installation of the roundabout (thanks to the technical department of the townhall ),opened up for me the doors of metal sculptures.
In a kind of jubilation, I worked metal intensively,waiting for the first exhibition in town.I felt like i had found what I really desired working on and since the wood sculptures remained in the same state, always appreciated but still the same number of them. I’m careful in changing their places, for me and for the visits, quite numerous I have in my workshop. Especially during open days events (ie : meeting with individuals) with as « guest star « for the moment the tower of Babel. (ie tour de Babel)
Working with metal is drastically different than working with wood. With the former, no nods nor impressive shape at the beginning that you have to transform with cautious removals.
Metal opens up space , 3 or 4 pieces of steel reinforcement bars create an inside volume, a « drawning » full size much better that the real ones done on paper. The space therefore created »takes me » and everything then involves around it. The folowing stages are often tricky. It’s easy to destoy the mystery, the elegance or the opening of a created space.
The surprise of metal | The work on the roundabout | Technical options | The making process
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