And hes up!

installation

Polishing with Stevie

Sanding complete! time to clean up....

Half way there ....

The piece got back from the sawmill..its time for sanding...day an night for the next two weeks!...Reeeba Areeeba!

This surface is going to be pretty tough to bring it up flawless...an endurance test...im guna have to lift a few cans of beans to prepare ma girly guns for this one...its weird tho once you get into the sanding zone and you know how it will look if you push yersel.... you get into the mentality that if you skim a section and dont get it flush then you cant sleep till you sort it out....

At the Saw Mill....Grahams handy work!

 

At the Saw Mill....exciting stuff!

Loading up the cast and heading to WindyMains Saw Mill with "LittleMoves"...the removal van name doesnt quite marry with the task.....

Solid cast ready to go to the saw mill....

The last pours and popping the cast out its mould.....

Hello....

So the works really taking shape now, Ive been doing pours of resin round the clock over the last few weeks, and Ive Finely finished the last one...I must have done about 30, So I am now 250kilos lighter in tins of resin...but I have a made a seriously heavy structure ready for slicing up at the sawmill....in terms of weight, we are talking about half the weight of a small car! To be honest I'm chuffed to bits the pouring stage is complete...it gets a bit much after a while...I would imagine its a bit like caring for a large hungry pet you don't live with...maybe a bit like owning a young horse at a near by stables, you need to mix up carefully constructed thick filling feed twice a day at 12 hour intervals and monitor the surroundings and you leave the studio smelling like a chemical factory which is a smell as equally offensive as horse shit. Anyway not sure where i was going with that....sorry... 

The visual reward is worth it though, its amazing popping the piece out the mould and seeing a big chunky slab of sculptural potential.  So after I cracked the work out its frame I left it to fully cure and air for a couple of days and then today I got some help from a friends little moves company and we drove it to a saw mill out in Humbie, "WindyMains Timber" which are current sponsors of my work.  They do a great job slicing up my casts for me. Graham Walker who works for WindyMains has been fantastic and has done almost all of my cross section work so far. So the piece arrived this morning and he was ready to fork lift it away to the next stage of the process..... slicing the slab of resin into 3 large pieces using a massive chainsaw....very rock n roll...

...sorry to disappoint, I don't have any pictures of that yet but there will hopefully be a video up in the next few weeks, once its done and here's a few pictures to put to my words of what Ive been up to over the past few weeks, to keep you going...

Cheers!

Lou

making the sculpture

The start of Base pouring

Pouring Begins

Resin i have chosen to use for this piece

This is the sculpture mould it is made of laminate chip board i have sealed the mould in preparation for the liquid resin pours.

Vibrant thermoset plastics beautiful!

collecting thermoset plastics

Welcome and hello from my studio in Edinburgh!

Hello There!!

 

So this is my first blog entrée, and I had a few sherbets last night (this morning…just kidding!) so apologies if I seem a bit fruity. I guess I should give you a bit of background about who I am and what it is I do…

 

First off I want to point out that my face to face conversations are far clearer (when im sober) than my writing, so I apologize if there’s anything you read that doest make sense, im going to use this blog to basically just chat as I make the work, so if you want me to clarify anything or ask any questions about the work etc then drop me a comment or email me at anytime my website is:

 

 www.louisegibson.co.uk

 

Please feel free to check out the website where you can get a clearer idea of what my work is like and what I have done in the past and other projects I am working on. (It’s being updated next week so it will have more info etc soon!)

 

I am an Edinburgh based sculptor and I specialize in working with industrial polyester resins, I discovered the material when I was in my first year at college and since then its fair to say iv been hooked, not only to the fumes (which are a little bit spicy on the nostrils…). Over the years ive become more and more excited about the artistic qualities and inventive properties of this liquid based plastic. Since I graduated in 2009 I have been working on setting up and building a safe and appropriate workshop and studio for me to produce and create work. I am based in a Stone Conservation in the south of Edinburgh in Morningside (a lovely area where you can get a good coffee and the mix of characters and surroundings make it a great place to work) At the moment I work throughout the week in the studio (mon-thurs) and manage a second hand vintage shop over the weekend, to make ends meet. The shop is a cloths emporium and the people that I see through the door on a day to day basis can vary from your upper-class modern mum to students, pensioners and addicts looking for somewhere to vent (or do the toilet…a wee episode 2 weeks ago. when an intoxicated lady with no teeth used our changing rooms as a bathroom.)

 

Anyway back to my sculpture work, I experiment and mix various industrial resins (a liquid based chemical originally from plant sap that is used to make all sorts of plastic objects and everyday materials i.e., Home and recreational items include bathroom tubs and showers, boats (building and repair), surfboards and skis, helmets, swimming pools and hot tubs, and a variety of sporting goods. 

I often try to explore or create chemical imbalances when working with the resin to discover and invent new ways to work. Its strange I suppose, that ive ended up working with science as I was removed from chemistry…and physics at school…after achieving marks like 2 out of 100 in tests (I think you get 2 points for spelling your name correctly..) I spent most my school years in the art department and in learning support putting puzzles together… Anyway over the years of experimenting with resin I have had my fair share of disasters, things smoking…. cracking. Burning… but all these experiences have led me to discover new exciting ways to make work. In December last year I visited a resin manufacturer in Grimsby (Cray valley resins ltd, current sponsors of my work) I was trained and educated by the experts and since then my enthusiasm for the product as an art material has rocketed.

 

Right, so I seem to have said a lot but not mentioned the actual artwork I am creating for the broomhill sculpture gardens. I originally planned to create a piece of work inspired by a current sponsor of the broomhill art house the north Devon hospice, however as with most initial ideas this has proved to be difficult, because my idea for the piece of work would involve a lot of face to face interaction with the hospice staff and visitors and living in Edinburgh makes commuting regularly on a budget near impossible. So after chatting to the Hospice on various occasions we have decided not work together on this particular venture. So I have gone with another idea I have for the gardens, which I am already in full swing creating, and I think it’s going to be a blinder!!

 

I don’t think at this stage I will say to much about it, I am being filmed throughout the making of the work by a film student (Oana Crisan)who is doing a documentary following the project, so this will also be shown in June, but I will regularly post up pictures and talk about the work as I make it over the next 6 weeks….

 

Cheers an be back for a blether soon!

 

Louise