Final Interview

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lfv-X-7RWAs

Some small stuff . . .

These are just a few small questions that need awnsering that need to be considered. 

* Will the sculptures be powered ?  No they wont , the only power that will be used will be the underwater lights , if displayed in an underwater pier , they will provide.

* Will they need to be maintained ? They will not need to be maintained , the bronze and paint will withstand the water for the period the exhibition will be on.

* Will there be any stakeholders ?  The people funding and the owner of the gallery will be the main stakeholders aswell as myself , the harbour board and council.

Ways i could look for funding

* The first most ideal way for funding for the project would be that the local Folkestone council could get the funds togeather and support the project.

* I have had a look at the art fund programme at www.artfund.org . Getting the council behind me with the project would be a great push for the art fund programme to actually dig deep in their pockets. On the Grants & Projects page theres a list of names and number to contact if i need to get information about possible fundings.

* I will be payed by the owners of the pier £20,000 to go towards this exhibition.

Materials

I have been looking into materials for my sculptures and have come to the conclusion that bronze will be the best material for the sculptures with an acrylic , waterproof paint to go over them . I found a bronze worker who can get the sculptures done for £15,000 a figure which would work out at £45,000 for all three of them . This is including the concrete slabs that will be screwed in with industrial sized screws to the bottoms of the sculptures. The Sculptures will be roughly 9ft each. The concrete block to be dug in and supported on the sea bed which will be 2ft . The body at 6ft and the hair at 1ft.

www.robertholmessculpture.com

Heres an image of where the work is going to be displayed around the underwater pier . The Black dots showing where the pier will be and the yellow ones locate where each sculpture will be . I have also added pictures of the site from first person perspective.

First stages of modelling

I have started to model the sculptures at life size and have used the clingfilm technique used by Mark Jenkins . Ive found this technnique quite easy to do but havent been able to get hold of the thin acrylic that is reccomended to use for support and have had to used heavy duty see-through tape , doubled on itself which is still not as strong as i can imagine the acrylic would be .

Change of Plans

I Have been thinking about having some sort of underwater scene where people could go underwater and view a scene of these characters socialising / playing underwater , giving viewers a whole new experience of looking at work . The main concern with this is creating a way in which the public could actually get underwater and look at the works. I would have to design some sort of underwater gallery or my only other option is to have the works somewhere on the beach where the tide would submerge them, which would make the sculptures only visible above the water. Talking to one of my peers, I had found out that he was going to propose an underwater pier for his project. After explaining what I wanted to do with my project, we came to an agreement that his project would benefit to offer one of the first underwater galleries as one of the attractions for this pier and would suit in with the creative interest within Folkestone. I am going to develop and design an exhibition displayed underwater to be viewed within the pier looking at all the aspects I will need to cover.

Kaws interview

Interview from 'KAWS' an American street artist who has influenced my project and designs relate to my own. He talks about how he started up and what his work is about .

07/03/2012

Here ive drawn up some rough positions i could have my sculpture standing . im thinking of adding in a bucket and spade to create more of story as to whats going on within the piece and it will suit in with the sea side town . The next stage is to start modelling for the sculpture with the technique i have looked at .

Mark Jenkins

I have been looking at washington DC's artist Mark jenkings and the sculptures he produces . when i have my main design ready i think that the technique of the cling film and tape casting could work well for a life sized scale of my piece of work because its cheap , simple and time efficiant and can be modified easily . Theres a video underneath of him talking about his sculptures and what his work is about .

Mark Jenkins: Go Figure! from Gestalten on Vimeo.

Out and about , Possible locations

I have gone and taken pictures of possible spots i think i could work with my sculpture around the area i have chosen . I was quite please with the areas found because they have somethingto offer all individually . I could either go with something on the beach ( kids playing on the beach ) or i quite like the idea of having some characters sitting on the wall nobody can get to , the ' look but cant touch ' feeling with a new , different piece of work i think could be very appealing and leave viewers more intreeged with the work. 

The chosen image / Character

This is one if the images of the character im going to be working with . When i have Chosen an area around folkestone to display some sort of 3D sculpture i will need to start drawing up full images of what i am potentially going to make along with small scale models . 

Welcome and first initial ideas

Ive started this short blog to document a project for part of my second year of my visual arts degree at Canterbury Christchurch university. I have been given a brief outlining that i need to create a site specific work in any chosen environment needing to develop and see how far i can take my ideas with what i want to do .

Having a general interest in street art and the unique styles alot of the artists have to offer , over the past few years i have been drawing a character in a style of my own and have Incorporated it into many things such as paintings , drawings , stencils and ' paste-ups ' . When i was given the brief for this project i wanted to stay around the folkestone area , which is where are studios are based and create something for the harbour area to be enjoyed by all ages . I immediately thought of my character which Ive titled ' Aztec child ' and want to take my 2D images and make them into a 3D sculpture to push the boundaries of my own work and the character i have been using . Folkestone is currently going through the process of re-generation and i feel that bringing something new and fresh to the people around should create a ' buzz ' .