Work

 

WELCOME TO NICKS SHED OF CRAFTS.

 

 

Inspired by my Grandads years' of making his own art and selling them at the Howic markets, this year I have started to think about 'craft' and its misconception of being a lower form of art. I am wanting to explore the grey field that sits between 'craft' and 'art' by bringing the technics and ideas you may find in a craft market and presenting similar experiences in an art environment. How will this change our perception of the craft? Will we even see it as craft? These are the questions I want answered. So please do so. now. 

 

 

Everyone meet Jimmy, Jimmy meet everyone, he's a little shy so doesn't talk much when people are around. Jimmy is made of junk found in the 3D Lab.

 

I started off creating small figures out of wire as a sort of drawing my ideas but in 3D.

 

Haunted tree made of small metal sticks.

 

 

Shark.

 

Gerald, one of the last specimens of his type. As a result of climate change Gerald's friends and family were all wiped out, amazingly Gerald had adapted to this ever changing climate but now he has no mating partner. He is sad and so am I.

 

 

Tweetie, a shinny sparrow that spends most of his time wading through muddy swamps (hence its over sized feet).

 

 

 

These figures were my first creations using the welder down in the 3D Lab, quite successful I may add.

 

 

 

 

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Final installations.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Have been tossing between both installations for the past couple of days. Both pieces portray my ideas well but in different ways. I think the pine slices highlight beauty in a way where aesthetics becomes quite apparent where as the kauri blocks are more about its history and bringing that to the attention. I am more likely to stick with the pine installations as there is aesthetics, smell and an over whelming experience you have when you enter the room that makes you stop and investigate.

 

 

 

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Booked the 404 room to try out some installations

 

 

 

 

 

 

So for around three days straight I was slicing up pine trunks into 15mm thick pieces with this installation in mind. The work is designed for the viewer to take part in walking around and inspecting each individual slice as if they all tell a story. Cracks and discolouration form as the slices dry and adapt to the changing conditions, as the would in winter through to summer. In the installation I wanted the wood to draw attention, to be focused on so beauty becomes apparent as soon as your eyes set on its flat surface. I think the work was extremely successful in doing so as I witnessed people taking the time to bend down and have a closer inspection. Another element that was successful in this work or room was the smell of freshly cut pine wood.

 

 

 

After knocking down my previous instalment I thought I might try out a few other ideas that were circling my head whilst I had this space to explore. I started with these three stacks of off centred slices emulating its original form as a tree. Splitting the rings so they were not sitting directly on top of each other enables the viewer to see the noticeable rings of the pine in every level.

 

 

These were smaller forms of the previous. I had nine stacks all together in a smaller area, testing the space created by these works.

 

 

 

These larger stacks were erected to transform the slices into the original form of which they came from. The different colours, textures and shapes made the stacks noticeably different from original form but was touching this line between the deconstructed to re constructed.

 

 

This work was created in reflection to the previous work as I was then thinking about growth and time. I wanted the slices to act as if they were in movement climbing the walls as to stack themselves.

 

 

 

 

 

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Redwood round 2.

 

 

 

With a slice of redwood that was left over from my last sculpture I decided to slice it up against the grain and see what I could find. The result was amazing, beautiful knots and colours came through every slice. I wanted to match these patterns together in an unnatural form on the wall like the image above.

 

Again with these two above were experimenting with matching natural patterns to create a new form and colour contrast.

 

 

 

Continuing with trying to make new and exciting patterns and rhythms I put these redwood slices over an existing macrocarpa work to see if I can gt a relationship going between them and sure enough it happened.

 

 

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Bought a 4000 year old block of Kauri!!

 

 

 

The block was purchased off Trademe for $50 from a bloke down by Pukekohe

 

 

I bought it already knowing I was going to slice it up as I wanted to see what wonders were lurking inside. To my surprise the wood was actually quite soft, so it didn't take long to slice up 12 planks.

 

 

Once the first slice detached from the block I was able to see the immediate rings of his particular Kauri. One hundred plus were present in this block alone. Seeing these rings brings forth ideas about it history, the weather patterns of its life and how this effected the tree. I found these rings to be so rich in information that looking at this block is all you need to know everything about the tree.

 

 

 

 

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Some new works in the last week.

 

 

 

Still working with Macrocarpa. This particular piece is 270x310mm. Sliced up large planks and put together where I thought patterns would be created. Stands alone. When making this ideas continued to come to mind like space created by work and its ownership. Architectural references too, things I can explore in the near future.

 

 

This work was made for the exhibition in the hall last week. Standing 710mm tall, the two planks are supported by the wall. My ideas for this work was the natural pattern making the wood creates and its amazing textural beauty.

 

Macrocarpa planks standing 300mm tall. This work I wanted to explore the ideas of architecture and how after thousands of years it is still our most reliant material when it comes to housing.

 

 

 

Oak. 170mm diameter. These pieces emulate the life and cycle all trees go through when they are processed to become usable to humans. The natural cracks in the wood allowed me to slot each dish together and stand them upright.

 

 

Same slices of Oak but trying different ways in which I can portray the same ideas, again using their cracks as joinery.

 

 

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Latest works as of three weeks ago

View. 2012. Made for curate and critique. Work represents the life and natural

beauty redwoods have. Wood has a soft pink centre with a unique scent.

Rimu work untitled 400x400mm. Rimu that was recycled from my kitchen renovations. Rimu original used as

shelving now is my art work. Interested in the different grains and patterns that arise from different woods.

Rimu and Pine 200x200mm. Wanted to know how two different patterned woods work together.

Macrocarpa with its bark still attached 350x350mm. Again interested in the macrocarpas natural design and how different

parts of the tree produce different patterns. Like all my other work, the wood used for this piece

was found and now recycled into my art.

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Pine and Macrocarpa.

So here are two ways I put these plates of wood. These are 300x300mm each. They are constructed from pine, cut up in slices then arranged at random.

The two images above show more of my macrocarpa work. It is a 300mm x 250mm. I'm working with the macrocarpa's natural pattern of its edge and its rings. As a bonus, with working wit this particular wood, smell becomes unavoidable when inspecting the work.

The two images above show another sculptural macrocarpa piece. These two offcuts were just lying around in my studio as I didn't think I would use them, but after sanding them down to reveal the pattern work behind its bark, these two pieces are by far the most interesting I have come across. It stands at around 800mm tall and each slice is 180mm wide. Again smell takes a big part of this work as you become really fixed on what type of wood it is and become more interested in its type and uniqueness.

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A little something for the other half!

Made this for my girlfriend whilst waiting for wood to dry. Although made in another style of wood work than I have been exploring with, I do like the collage of wood and different colours and patterned woodgrains etc. Hope she likes it!

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Trying to figure out how wood works...

Pulled of about 3cm of bark from this piece and revealed all these small fibres forming rings and circuits.

This slice was very weird to strip. Underneath were thousands of string like fibres that built up layers. The brown is a soft damp rubber. 

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My new love... Macrocarpa!!

So I was lucky enough to work on the TV show "The Block" about a week ago now and managed to steal two macrocarpa sleepers from under one of the contestants house. So first step was slicing them up and drying them out, but making sure they don't twist and crack. From there I wasn't really sure what I would do with the wood since it is such incredible wood. So at the moment I am just focusing on its natural pattern making and shapes and forms. So here's a little teaser.

These six pieces stand only 300mm tall and are about 80mm wide.

These four stand at 350mm high and 80mm wide.

oh yes!

S these two images above show the process of drying out the wood. First I sliced them up, then I stack them on each other with a wedge in between each slice for maximum air flow, then force them together with rags to stop twisting and lastly paint the edges on the sticks so the moisture does not exit out the ends and split the wood. (moisture exits with the grain).

This is the end product, nicely shaved, pure macrocarpa planks with the most beauty patterns and rings. Ready to make some work :D

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First time on the Lathe!

Thought I might give the lathe a go today at uni, so cut up one of my logs and got into it.

Took 2 and 1/4 hours to craft this bad boy! Was worth the blisters though.


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New semester, new idea right!??

So here I have a few more works I have completed in the last week of this semester. Found more wood, some with text on it. Again wood is all recycled from throw aways from the 3D lab and sculpture department. Ideas are focused on the pattern making of the nature of the wood. Interested in the cycle of natures life and its ability to be used in many ways by us humans. Have noticed that I am in fact destroying these constructions then re- constructing a similar product.

So here are a few examples of my current work. The two smaller works are 200x300mm. I made five of these mdf frames using recycled wood from both the 3D lab and a wooden platform I found and cut up. Like the works with the transparent film, these works are about the art in making these frames. Using recycled material that people consider 'rubish' and polishing them up to make beautiful frames. Furthering on with this idea of beauty and recycling I made the last piece of the images above. All the wood used to make this came from a dirty construction platform I found. I dismantled it and shaved all the sides, slicing large planks into small strips and thin sticks. What came out of this work and was never the intention was the pattern making of the knots and rings of the wood.


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Got to start somewhere...

These two works were made for the sake of making work. I wrapped these frames, taking apart from a bought canvas frame, with a transparent film plastic. I applied the same process as you would stretching a canvas on a frame. I guess my ideas came through in making the frames as this was the art in itself. I didn't want to ruin the reflective surface by applying paint or any medium on it.


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Work for last semesters final

These three pieces of steel were shown for my mid-year assessment project. They are all large, heavy sheets recycled from a steel shop over the shore. When I collected them they were smooth pure steel ready to be messed with. I used many chemicals to corrode all three. Chemicals such as, ammonium acid, anti rust, bug repellent, rust converter, wet and forget, 30 second and many more. I was trying to get depth of corrosion were large flakes of rust will appear. The largest length piece of steel is balanced on the A3 looking sheet and slided into the carved out wall as shown in one of the images above. Again, with this work I was exploring working with the physical elements of steel.



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Works made for Talk Week.

These six works were shown for talk week where they were hung in a grid formation.

Measuring 300x300x45mm these steel sheets were all used as experiments for different chemicals like hydrochloric acid, spirit of salts, ammonium acids and copper solphate. The works took about one week to develope into what they look like now as I stopped the corrosion for display. Peter Madden was the guest artist in my critique and he mentioned my art reminded him of Stephen Bambury which I had never known who he was untill I researched him. A few comments that came up in the critique that took my interest were things like, traces of human interaction, process based outcome, alcomist, responses to materials, and a sense of movement and action within then art. The last comment is most related to the work im producing at the moment. Working with steel was a great way to extend my interest with working with the physica properties of materials.



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