many more to make!

Sticks and twigs for hanging so far, 4 to come out of the kiln tomorrow and 2 awaiting in the cold shop. (oh and two hanging in the living room at home)

I do have some short branches, but they won't be suspended.

Second layer (almost there)

Well, since i'm using up my stock of DIY type silicon, this one is clear. Doesn't pong quite so bad as the white stuff but still quite vinegary.

Just to prove that I do tidy up at times!

Between the lines* but with the cracks

Maureen had a solo show at Salerno tonight. Great crowd and support.

Elaborate & experimental kiln loading!

Elaborate & experimental were words used as 'polite' words by tutors on seeing my kiln set up. What we have here is 2 'lost stick' moulds on the left using pre-cast furnace glass from another project. The one on the right is a lost wax branch using pre cast Spectrum '96 nuggets.

and now for the other side!

One side is complete. I tidied up, cleaning off clay, and bits of plaster, wiped it down. Applying Vaseline (not to my toast) to the silicon so that the next lot won't stick. First layer is Gelsil a two part condensation curing silicon rubber.

Bathroom silicon

and on goes the second layer, this time white bathroom silicon. I had forgotten how much that stuff stinks!

Cute piles of ash

These are the little piles from after burning the sticks out of the plater silica moulds... I'm using the ash later to rub into the glass (to give the detail some definition)

Brush on?

I seem to be trying every sort of mould making material this year. The  (red and yellow) re-meltable stuff, Pinkysil (pink) and now today a brush on product (blue) called Gelsil. I haven't used this type of stuff before. It's a 2 part mix. On opening the tub and trying to dollop out the white part I wondered about the description 'brush on'...imagine beating egg whites for a meringue and adding bubble gum and you'll get an idea of the consistency, much much stiffer than bathroom silicon. You need  good cake / concrete mixing arm to combine the two parts. The 'brushing on' step was more like persuading, trowel-ing or pushing action. Though I guess for a term to use brush on is OK.
So today I set up the branch with a surround of clay and applied the first layer. I used half a kilo for one side. It takes between 6-12 hours to set so i'll come back tomorrow for the next layer which I may do in a cheaper bathroom silicon.

Grad show forms

Don't you love filling out forms, when you don't know all the details?

Describe your work in detail: Um you mean the work that's not finished yet? riiight...

and here is my " " image for the catalogue.

I did darken the background for my entry

Cards from the past

My mum has framed some of the cards that I have made her and dad over the years. Here is a selection

The van got Andy Goldsworthied

I replenished my stick collection from the forest at my parents property. At the end of the day (in the dark) we piled the van full of fallen branches and twigs and one log from a tree that fell over the drive way (in the strong winds that have been plaguing the Sydney area). I wish I had taken a photo but I doubt it would have come out well of the inside of the van at night. It did though, look as if a Andy Goldsworthy sculpture had been installed in it.

Sculpture by Andy Goldsworthy

L'll red riding hood cover by Amanda Seyfried

Black magic

So, since I decided to use wax as a sculpting material I have been wanting to use black wax, but I also wanted to use a friendly product (well not paraffin or tallow). I now have a huge packet of soy wax and some bees wax. Initially I bought some condensed colour  in wax form but it turns out that soy wax is hard to dye very dark colours and the tablet form gave a lovely aubergine hue. From another company in Western Australia I ordered some liquid dye and I am glad to say that I have black wax, black enough for any magical incantations.

Nostalgia for Bluebell woods

I'm writing my research paper which is presented within a frame story. Part of that story includes a bluebell woods. I find myself sighing over bluebells and my lack of them, my lack of over 20 years. I do have very fond memories of the enchantment that is walking through English woods in springtime. Oh well. Is it coincidence then that I bought Jo Malone's Wild Bluebell perfume?

Appley apples: confessions from an apple stalker

I'm afraid I have become one of 'those' people in the supermarket. You know the ones who stare at the fruit and vegetables, pick one up, stare at it then put it down? Well that's me with apples at the moment. I'm trying to find the most perfect shaped apple to make a cast from. I started off with red delicious for their shape, but they are too big. Once they are cast in crystal they are too heavy. So I turned next to Royal Gala (my favourite eating apple). The organic ones are smaller..so I check these out very carefully when they are in.

Musing on Wax

I use wax, modelling wax quite a lot in the casting process. Every now and then I think I should actually use it as a sculptural medium in its self. Today I went to Schaeffer Library (the non borrowing Arts library at Sydney uni) I even got to look at something from the rare book room (though why it is in there I don't know..Large and expensive books room maybe) which was a large book on Kiki Smith. She uses wax in her sculptures and it is... so visceral.
So today I have been thinking about casting twigs and branches in black coloured wax, maybe beeswax for that beautiful scent or a subtly perfumed soywax....

Kiki Smith in Studio c. 1993

The Keep by Jennifer Egan.

I've just finished "the Keep" by Jennifer Egan. It was recommended to me by my supervisor as an example of fiction with multi-voiced texts. So was 'The people of paper' but I haven't got to that one yet. The Keep carried me along sure enough, I read it super quick so I may have missed some brilliance. I liked the swapping between voices, and the unstated connection between them (until the end). It was enjoyable and surreal at times, a page turner (or tapper) but not brilliant. The story sets up with two cousins meeting again after years of silence. A teenage prank gone wrong is the cause of all the tension, there is a castle, there maybe ghosts and delusions and then there's this guy in a prison....

Crazy casting day

I've been trying to work out how to pump out casts of sticks quickly. One of the slow parts is the first essential layer...as in the most important to 'get right' layer. I had though about dipping them, in the end I got the clay 'resevoir' mounds ready. Part dipped part sloshed the plaster over the sticks in the bucket then stuffed one end of the stick into the clay and quickly redabbed over the place I had touched. I did this 8 times and thought wow this is really working until I realised that I would have to complete 8 moulds before I went home...smaaaaart. (this was in the afternoon, I had already made 8 simple openfaced moulds. Crazy but I made 16 moulds in one day!

Rob Snyder: Lost twig caster!

Anum Cara (detail)

A website

Well finally, I hit the publish button.  I have been, here and there through Wix putting together a website. Something very plain and simple but not quite so informal as the blog, It still needs work but it is out there now!

www.spikedeane.com

Can't imagine anyone else wanting that domain name...

Glass branches, twigs: natural and manmade

See my Pinterest board for more trees, branches n twigs here

'Aspen Glade' for Steuben Crystal

Su Taylor-Glasgow 'Communal Nest'

Elizabeth Lyons 'Large ladder'

'Communal nest'. Top view

Jeff Zimmerman 'Fallen Log'

Jeff Zimmerman 'Tree Sculptures'

Su Taylor-Glasgow sorting glass branches

'Frosted Tree Branches' Anthony Goto

Glass Bush from flicker

Jeff Benroth. Sand cast "fireplace logs'

Naoko Ito