Sculpture

Carmina – Rain Goddess of French Island

Significant rain had not fallen on French Island for some years. Alison, one of the farmers was repairing a stony dry dam, in the hope that rain might fall once again. She discovered a seam of  interesting white clay. Eventually a group of arty locals gathered make something, anything, of the clay. The idea of making a rain goddess was lightly entertained as a pass-time for a lazy spring weekend. There was only the vaguest concept of form. It was generally felt that she should be mature, fecund, motherly and with a sense of humour. Hay from the location was added to the clay from the location to open out the clay and give it more resistance to thermal shock. Hay rather than straw? Hay was available. As she developed, she took on the name of Carmina, and breasts of considerable wisdom. She was only partly developed by the Saturday night, when the first significant rain for some years noisily fell. The sculpture was completed on the Sunday afternoon, after which, rain again steadily fell.  Interesting.

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It was intended that Carmina would be fired in situ, having been built on a sort of fire-box. Alas, this did not happen. And worse – with the spring, the seeds in the hay sprouted and Carmina developed an unfortunate grassy chest.

The women come and go and talk of Henry Moore

Undeterred, the team planned another, bigger, better sculpture, this time in Belgrave. Beginning with a larger Hebel block firebox, and working from a pattern drawn on butchers paper on the side of the shed, work commenced on a composite torso. The vision was a base of four legs, one at each corner, which would progress upward to multiple facades of the one torso. Perhaps four belly buttons. By the time that the hips had been reached, it was realised that four belly buttons implied eight breasts and eight arms – altogether too many. Two belly buttons and four breasts seemed much more sensible. And the Henry Moore type nether limbs were dictating fearsome proportions of womanhood which were discretely morphed into back-to-back mother and daughter Indian goddesses, sharing one neck and three arms. This sculpture was wrapped in ceramic fibre and wood fired to a temperature of over 1200 deg. C. They have been called  “The women come and go and talk of Henry Moore”.

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The Potager Goddess

When Jeremy Francis of Cloudehill saw some photos of “the women come & go…” he thought that a similarly constructed sculpture might be a suitable guardian of the newly developed Cloudehill Potager Garden. The sculpture team of Jenny, Kate, Ric and Rob were delighted. Superb location, the vision and enthusiasm of Jeremy, fine food from Rhonda, what more could we ask? Jeremy would like the goddess of the Potager to be seated and to be holding a receptacle, perhaps a coolamon for the produce, in anticipation. These are not constraints, just challenges, and in any case we perform best under pressure. To add to the tension, she must be completed in five days, three and a half days to build and a day and a half to fire. After that the fine food and wine runs out, but no stress!

With a much better engineered firebox and the secret blend of clay trucked in from Ric’s place, creation commenced. In keeping with the tone of the event Jeremy erected a carpeted marquee around and over the work area. It is a simple fact – that damp soft clay slumps. If heat is applied to a precarious soft damp structure, a firm supportive skin is developed on the clay. Overnight, alas, moisture redistributes, softening the previously supportive layer and natural forces tend to take over. Undeterred, aided by skyhooks, deft footwork and fast talk, the team, in defiance of gravity, produced a goddess. Firing the sculpture presented further problems. How to achieve even firing of an uneven shape in the open air? And how to achieve high temperature when the huge ember bed chokes off the air supply? A leaf blower blowing air by two inch water pipe into the centre of the embers was useful. The end result? Technically not perfect, but an imposing presence at the entry to the garden, which provides superb produce for the adjacent restaurant.

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Gilda – the Venus of Eltham.

An overview of the making of Gilda can be found on the Gilda blog at this site.

For the technically inclined:

The plinth/firebox was made of Hebel blocks mortared together with Hebel adhesive. Hebel has significant fire resistance, but when fired to 1250°C over a period of 20 hours, the inner half of the 150mm wall thickness becomes quite degraded. Firing to a top temperature of about 1150C would leave the Hebel more intact and produce a more mellow appearance on the finished sculpture.

Oregon wood shavings, grog and fireclay were added to open the clay body to allow even movement of moisture to minimise fractures during making and firing. Wall thickness throughout was about 15mm.

A maquette informed only the initial intent of the design. Beyond that the sculpture took on a life of it’s own, the curves continuing to resolve into body shapes dictated simply by what went before.

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