the title

The school kids came with several suggestions for the title last week. There was one very obvious winner: Snow White talks to the Phantom while Batman is disturbing and the Wolf is howling. These days (or actually nights) it's all about putting together materials applying for public commissions, creative school projects and grants. I try to limit this work to nights only - as my autumn was reserved to studio time only. This is the reason why I'm blogging less; I basically try to get rid of all that kind of work before the end of the month. It's part of my all present "cluster cluster" strategy. In October I'm planning to be more interesting here on my blog ...

... and it is completed

I looked at it and I thought it was good.

(I will come back another day and take better photos though - the bright light today didn't do the colours justice. Cloudy weather, like yesterday, is the best)

putting it all together

I'm a bit too tired right now to comment the process of mounting, it will have to wait until everything is finished. We'll continue tomorrow.

before mounting

The façade looking very empty and all the pieces for my art piece inside the sports hall waiting to be mounted.

commissioned colours

yellow

Black

Orange

Green and the backside of blue (there are also red and light grey)

black and white

Today - even though I'm still on vacation - I checked out how the powder spray painted white worked together with what I masked out three weeks ago. I must say I'm pleased with the result! The other parts in colour looked fine as well (I'll show you tomorrow), the only thing left to do for the powder spray paint company Guson is to lacquer with a special anti-graffiti layer. In two weeks time I'll be in the middle of mounting the art piece. But until that week: no work ...

those last details

To get some faces and other details on my art piece (my public commission) I today masked out some of the black and handed the pieces back to the company Guson for being pulver spray painted white. They have until the beginning of August to finish the job of painting my approximately 60 pieces.  So far everything seems fine - touch on wood - and I hope I'll be able not to think about it at all when I'll be on vacation in July!

light window

I have a light table, but sometimes I prefer working directly on the window glass.   (it's Red Riding Hood's face)

a secret sketch

real size drawing of the wolf.

Working on my commission again (seems to be a never ending story); some parts are going to be painted in two colours which means I have to mask out parts. I cut these masks by hand to adjust the original drawings to the actual aluminium shapes and to "hide the holes" we've drilled. The wolf's lines seem more abstract as I cut his original shape out of an old sketch. Take a closer look at the bottom wolf and you might be able see a part of a sketch of Snow White. (Or maybe only I can still see it? You can't see her face. Her cape is flying and her skirt is too - she's landing after flying - like a super hero).  I think it is very important to keep that drawing in the final version of the wolf - even though most people will not notice! (I will know - and so will you)

red riding hood

Red Riding Hood playing in a pond Yesterday we delivered all the aluminium parts to be painted ... but first we had to wait - for 4 hours - for the elevator to be repaired!

adding some colour

Last night I dreamt about my public commission; I was to mount it on the wall of the school and suddenly noticed I had made some parts of it in wool instead of aluminium. It started raining and the yellow came off Snow white's skirt and the wool just became really heavy and expanded all the way down to the ground...

Today I spend all day degreasing the 57 aluminium pieces (both sides!) and marking them with the correct RAL colour code. Tomorrow I'll leave everything to be powder spray painted.
... It's almost ready now. 

obsessed by aluminium

I must admit that I'm someone who can get totally obsessed by things. Right now it's the aluminium (metal in general probably): the shine and the aesthetics of the backsides (the welding, screws and distances). I've tried working with glass - not me. Enamel - kind of me. Metal - me! I see so many possibilities. [...could just be a fling. When you're in the middle of it you can not distance yourself and see what's true love and what's just infatuation. Anyway I'll enjoy it while it lasts...]

me in action

photo: Lars Jonsson

photo: Eric Magassa Sometimes I need photos of myself working on my art ... but then I realize I have none ... When it comes to commissioned public art pieces I have many photos of work in progress. some of my assistants working, but none of me. (I'm somehow reluctant towards marketing my art with photos of me, but sometimes you might need to show who you are, to be a bit more personal) So this week I asked people at KKV to take my photo. As you can see I have fun when working!

instead of screenprinting

fitting, drilling, welding aluminium (last one not me, but my helper Arta)

good to check things

Today I went to check the facade for my public commission again. I needed to check some measurements (you can never count on things to be like on the architect drawing!) and I hoped they would have started painting the house so I would get that impression as well.

To my surprise it looked like there was to be a drainpipe in the middle of this wall - where the main part of my art piece is to be! I talked to the constructions site's project leader ... and it turned out to be their mistake. They will move it now, as I pointed it out. (the drainpipe is supposed to be next to the window.).  I wonder what would have happened if I hadn't noticed it now?

the figure group

water cut aluminium parts for my small model (of the real figure group for my commission)

... or at least I consider it pretty small

Here you can get an idea of the actual size of the figure group.

more aluminium

basket with apples

small tree

the wolf (water cut aluminium) Today we worked on adjusting some fitting between parts and making some lines more perfect. Arta showed me how to use his plasma cutter and some other machines in the metal workshop. I just have to take his welding/metal course in autumn - I really love being able to handle these kind of machines!

No Murphy's law so far

Today when I biked home from KKV I felt so happy - all the water cut aluminium parts for my commission were just as they should and what Arta (my metal expert and helper) had cut out looked fine too.

The four large trees are between 6 and 7 meters tall (made in three parts). To be able to see them properly I looked from a ladder with platform.

Arta adjusts the fitting of two parts.

The orange colour on the top part of this tree is a reflection from a door. It looks totally right though - the tree will later be painted orange!

Arta commented that we sure have a lot of time - four months - until the commission should be ready and mounted. He's not used to working with artists with these kind of generous time marginals. But I'm always planning taking Murphy's law into consideration (Everything that can possibly go wrong will go wrong). So far everything seems fine though - touch wood.

water cut aluminium

the outlines for one of the aluminium plates ( 3 m x 1,5 m) Next week I'll be working full time on my commission again; my helper has finished cutting out the bigger shapes and today the more complex water cut shapes were delivered to KKV (artist run collective workshops).  The maximum length of what you can get into the elevator at KKV is 2,5 meter, which I'm very much aware of (I've been on the board at KKV for some years) - so I had checked that the package with my water cut aluminium shapes shouldn't be bigger. But it was (2,58 cm)! At 15:15 Ingmar, the handy man at KKV, called me (in my studio on the other side of town) and told me that my package had arrived and that it didn't fit into the elevator... Ingmar then spend half an hour unpacking all the bits and to get them into the elevator (it's not his job to do this. He's a wonderful man. He said he wanted a trip to Goa for this) - and I could go to preschool and pick up my son.  I didn't just ordered what I needed for the commission, but also all the bits for the figure group with Snow White in smaller format. I'm very curious to see all the bits (and hoping nothing is wrong). But I will have to wait until Monday as I am teaching all weekend.

like cutting out cookies

Today I've been making some templates for cutting out the simpler big shapes for my commission. The shapes are fitted into rectangles which will be magnified onto aluminium plates (size 2500 mm x 1250 mm) with the help of an overhead projector - to make sure the shapes will be the right size and fit together - and that we will waste as little material as possible. [that description didn't sound very clear ... anyhow: I know what I'm doing] ...the basic aesthetic idea in my commissioned art piece is based on the cut out, but now it makes me think more of when you try to get as many cookies as possible out of the gingerbread dough ...

I realized that I actually never posted an image of my finished sketch for the commission - here it is! (the builing will be painted green and the doors orange)

and this is the wall right now.