Everlong 2019

Working on Everlong 

Now I'm realizing that the casting of this large piece in resin was really only the beginning and as I have worked much more on it, it's clear to me that the resin is a material like stone or wood could be.

I wanted to make it more elegant and subtle with no screws or metal used to support the piece but rather all support in wood. Cutting the sculpture into eighteen separate pieces unifies it much better with the drawings and makes the work much more engaging by opening numerous vistas that hadn't excisted before. As I cut into the resin , the pattern began to evolve. I knew I wanted to break down the volumn of the piece but I wasn't sure by how many times, first I wanted to cut sections perpendicular to the direction of the planes. I felt this would make the piece more dynamic.

I used an angle grinder and a very large disk for cutting stone. Cutting large segments of resin is very unhealthy and unpleasant. I used running water over the slab to try and reduce the amout of resing dust flying around the place but it's difficult because the disk throws water and resin everywhere instead. 

I began by using a clamped piece of wood to the resing block in order to keep the line straight while I cut. Quickly I realized that this was counter productive and it was easier to cut free hand keeping to a line that I put on the resin with masking tap discovering that I just needed to have more faith in my own ability to keep to the line using the large blade.  This is a long and laborious process I did over several weeks when I had time between my working hours. In a way it was good to have breaks while making the cuts because I had time to think and reflect on the next step. One thing I knew was that I wanted cuts across aswell making it more edgy.

I took the pattern from a small piece I had made around the same time I was working on the piece. It´s a space invader covered in thorns and it´s part of a collection of work entitled ´MADE IN SPAIN inspired by 1983´ I´ll come back to this atr a later stage but that´s basically where I got the idea of the form. 

Then I got cracking making the cross cuts and the began the process of sanding and polishing. This type of work is much more suitable in Tabacalera where I work out of a open plan public workshop known as NAVETRAPECIO.

Each block of resin is then ´cushioned´ between wooden dowls so as to give the overall work a softer feel. There are no screws of metal of any kind drilled into or attached to the resin. Like jewelry the pieces are clamped between thes wooden dowls.

Grooves had to craved into each bloc of resing using a cylindrical rasp connected to a drill. These elements make the work more somehow like a drawing or pianting to me, more elegance a delicacy.

Each piece is cushioned between the dowl wood and the and the wood support with each dowl fixed to the wooden back by a smaller dowl so tht there are no screws used in the sculpture.

Every resin segment is sanded with approximately 6-8 diffferent grades of sand paper finishing with wet on wet paper and polishing with a brush and buffing wax. 

The final result is an almost glass finish but softer and the overall composition of the work is much more complex intricate and visually lighter.