To the students at Fernridge....Matua Mick tells us you have been checking out our site. Its great to know you are interested in the sculpture. We'd love to hear from you guys.....leave us a comment below and we'll be sure to write back. Lots of love, Sam and J9 and the Hinaki Sculpture Team!
Today the first half of Hinaki was revealed with all the plastic off for the first time yee ha. Looking pretty good. Some work to do still on the other half with only 1 day to go shite. Pictures say a thousand words so here we go.....
Sam is working madly, with the occasional break for Chinese hot pot, to finish off the eels alongside his growing no. of assistants. He is handling the pressure with great dignity & poise (well sort of). The plasterers will be breathing down his neck very shortly. We will post photos of the next stage as they come to hand xxx ps thanks to all of you that have posted comments/sent emails its been great to have the support and news from home!
Quite a few folks have now finished their clay models....next step is for the workers to come in and cover them with plaster to make the fibreglass moulds. These are then sent to Dalian on the coast to be made in Bronze. Meanwhile we keep working on Hinaki Eels....getting there slowly!
Naushad from the Maldives
Michael's "Visionary" (USA)
Kamal's "Mare" (Saudi Arabia)
Jonathan's "First Flight" (French Polynesia)
Eleanor and Allen's "Janus Arc" (Northern Ireland)
After much deliberation and strong "debate" about how to proceed Sam's sculpture Hinaki is finally starting to come together. His design concept is one of the more technically challenging much to the delight of Chou his assistant who is totally up for a challenge. No better time to try something new than when you have a sculpture teacher, 50 artists, 4 assistants and no bill to foot eh?
The frame or skeleton of the sculpture, welded in steel
Marking out Eel length piecies of steel to be cut
Bending the steel into the basic shape of an eel
The eel shapes being welded onto the Frame
Winding on chicken wire to steel to hold the clay
Starting to take shape....
Putting the two halves together for the 1st time and deliberating with the Dream Team on how it looks. Oops....some of the eels are going the wrong way. We have since taken a day to take them off and redo and its now looking tip top
I have just finished my domestic duties...cleaning my work clothes in the bathroom sink (cheap chinese laundry is a myth!) and I thought I would share some thoughts on our first week of work in Changchun. The novelty of being here hasn't quite worn clean yet but routine has definitely settled in.
After filling our bellies in the hotel restaurant all all 50 of us (artists) are loaded onto the bus and shipped down to the sculpture workshop to start work at around 8am. Our workshop is a building complex with 4 or 5 rooms for most of the artists to work in. The stone and wood carvers all work outside in the varying elements of each day.
The room I share with 13 others, is a long hall drenched in natural light from a huge sky-light. Within minutes of the bus arriving the space is alive with the colourful movements of our interpreters greetings and workers standing poised for instruction and construction. The gentle sounds of the morning are smashed with enthusiastic vigour. Steel is cut, bent, beaten, shaped and welded. Crash, bang, clang, zackp, aaaahhh.....Heaven!
As you might imagine with 13 artists all working hard in the space it gets very loud and very hot. When I look at my chinese assistant Chou, his round face is always sprinkled with little jewels of sweat and his shirt wringing wet. I can only imagine I look very similar too, but due to my Irish blood probably worse. Our work continues though to 11am then on to the bus to be delivered back to the hotel. After lunch there is time for some emails and a short snooze then it back on the bus again at 2pm for the afternoon's work. Crash, bang, clang, zackp, aaaahhh.... and its time to get back on the bus again for 6pm finish. This has been our routine for the last 8 or 9 days and it must be followed exactly or there will be trouble!
The long days are starting to take their toll
Not bad eh?
Close up of the little buggers
SuperInterpreter Mei Qi strikes a pose.
Naushad from the Maldives
Michael's "Visionary" (USA)
Kamal's "Mare" (Saudi Arabia)
Jonathan's "First Flight" (French Polynesia)
Eleanor and Allen's "Janus Arc" (Northern Ireland)
The lovely Etu taking a break from the stone work
Marking out Eel length piecies of steel to be cut
Bending the steel into the basic shape of an eel
The eel shapes being welded onto the Frame
Winding on chicken wire to steel to hold the clay
Starting to take shape....
Putting the two halves together for the 1st time and deliberating with the Dream Team on how it looks. Oops....some of the eels are going the wrong way. We have since taken a day to take them off and redo and its now looking tip top
The room I share with 13 others, is a long hall drenched in natural light from a huge sky-light. Within minutes of the bus arriving the space is alive with the colourful
movements of our interpreters greetings and workers standing poised for instruction and construction. The gentle sounds of the morning are smashed with enthusiastic vigour. Steel is cut, bent, beaten, shaped and welded. Crash, bang, clang, zackp, aaaahhh.....Heaven!