Category: Metalworker

Trades bring public art to a new level

9/19/2014

Manaen Senkow (left) and Jordan Thys assemble the sculpture. (Carlyn Yandle photo)

You know you're working with the right people when you arrive at their shop with nothing to show for your sculpture idea but some vague sketches and they don't frog-march you out of the industrial park.

My idea is for a giant version of a severed fiber-optic cable — but it should also look vaguely like a thruster-cluster thing. And I'd also like to hint at those giant tunnel borers and massive industrial fans. Somewhere in there.

I don't know where to begin to try to communicate all this to industrial welders so my burly cousin with a lifetime in the forestry industry opens a door and before long I'm thankful to be pitching my idea to Manaen Senkow, of Select Steel, whose grandfather John Senkow built the decorative railings at the historic Minoru Chapel in Richmond as well as other metal fixtures that helped revamp Steveston.

Fiber-optic wire bundles (Carlyn Yandle photo)

I tell him it should be a bunch of brightly-coloured, random-length, angle-cut tubes made of some shiny, rust-proof metal. Which should be spaced apart somehow so you could see between the tubes. Which will be hoisted up at the end of the Canada Line in downtown Richmond. And, by 'will' I mean, 'may be', if this City of Richmond public art project doesn't fall through.

I bring along a snarl of fiber-optic wiring in my purse, like rosary beads.

And Manaen, who I'm told does a lot of sketching and designing himself, says yes. All do-able. Then the long collaborative process begins.

This isn't my first time working with metal fabricators — my last project relied on the welding skills of upcycling specialist Noah Goodis — but this would be a small, potentially pain-in-the-ass job at a bustling shop serving the West's primary industries. It all comes down to having faith that people who work with their hands in all crafts like to innovate and stretch their skills.

Jeff Morris bolts down Cluster to the last Canada Line column. (Carlyn Yandle photo)

Fast-forward several months, to overnight last night (at this writing) when another team of trades gets in on the project, this one in the hoisting of massive sculptures into place. Enter Jeff Morris of Pro-Tech Industrial Movers, who finds the prospect of swinging nearly 1,000 pounds of plate aluminum up onto the end of the last guideway at Brighouse Station "simple."

He was right. And right on time, too.

My faith in the trades in the collaborative process is confirmed.

Cluster, day one. (Photo by Eric Fiss)

***
City as Site, a survey exhibition of Richmond's public art, continues at Richmond Art Gallery (five minutes' walk from Canada Line's Brighouse Station, now with newly installed Cluster) to Oct. 26. Public art bus tour: Sept. 27, 1:15-3:30 pm, with public art specialist Dr. Cameron Cartiere and special guest artist Andrea Sirois. RSVP required: ktycholis@richmond.ca or 604-247-8313.

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true craftsman makes a crazy idea real

12/13/2013

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While the rest of us are scrambling to post our recent activity, build our brand, be a part of the online conversation, Noah is solving problems through metal. His underwhelming website is testimony to what he does instead all day long instead of sitting at a computer, often seven days a week, for money and for love.

I found him through a trusted recommendation and knocked on his hand-crafted metal-ball door-knocker back in May, with my metal problem: I wanted to make a quilt out of reclaimed copper piping and other old gizmos. I had my pitch all ready to go, something along the lines of, "I know this sounds crazy but hear me out..." but I could see he was already loving the idea.

"I really want to do it," he said, and I could see I had found the right craftsman for the job.

For the next four months, Noah turned my full-size paper pattern pieces into two mirror-image, six-foot-square quilts of 10 lapping 'log cabin' blocks, which was installed in the front entrance of the City of North Vancouver's new Operations Centre last night, at the time of this posting.

Sometimes ignorance is bliss. I didn't even know what brazing was when assemblage artist (and Noah's neighbour) Valerie Arntzen brought me around to his place. I didn't know that you can't just solder different metals together. I simply handed over the goodies I found at my favourite scrap yards (thank you for putting those gems aside, Richard of North Star Recycling and Dung of Allied Salvage). Apart from some initial head-scratching and smiling, Noah did not harp on the fact these were time-consuming challenges. Had I known the trouble he would take dissembling old spigots and repairing bronze pressure gauges I might have clawed back on the scrappy treasures.

It also had not dawned on me that paper patterns might not be suitable in a workplace that is all fire and molten metal, a problem he solved by laying a thick piece of tempered glass between the patterns and the hot solder and copper. Problem-solving is the mark of fine craftsmanship.

Noah claimed to like the quilter's block-by-block approach to creating complex pattern and texture. I appreciated the fact that he also saw visual value of keeping the soldering drips and the entire range of patinas of copper, from black to turquoise to new-penny pink, instead of polishing it all to a high sheen. That ability to let go of the need to create a perfect joint or a uniform result speaks to the artist in this craftsman.

The nuts and bolts: Hand-drawn renderings were translated into an Illustrator file and printed out as full-size colour-coded block patterns to indicate three levels as well as placements for found features. Noah adjusted for the bulky tees and elbows as he transformed the patterns into a three-dimensional matrix, and situated specific gizmos to enhance the subtle mirror-image effect.

There are many leaps of faith in the making of something never before attempted. No amount of sketching, Photoshop'd artist renderings or 3-D modelling can create the same sense of the actual thing in its intended space. So as City of North Vancouver workers passed by during the installation last night, joking about how it looked like their last job, or asking if we've checked for leaks, or pointing out some gizmo-relic they remember (including some donated from the City's own works yard), we were having our own first look at our collaborated effort. The glints of hand-rubbed corners and the deep shadows on the wall were all pulling together in this soaring, 12-foot-high structure.

And... breathe out. Waterwork is working. Thank you, Noah.

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Garden art beyond the whirlygigs

5/10/2013

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I know I should be researching or finishing or conceiving or cleaning or thanking or discussing or working on proposals. But like everyone else in the northern Northern Hemisphere, I can barely remain indoors these fine days. Because — and I hate to be the bearer of bad news here — the days will be getting shorter in six weeks. The time to make a break for it is NOW. Out, into the city gardens and the public beaches and the urban forests.

You know you're aching to get going/growing when you and your artist friends are more enthused about a trip to Home Depot for potting soil than an art show opening. You know it when your desktop is suddenly stacked with images of art that lives outdoors, in the midst of natural and tended landscapes. We want to make, we want to be inspired but mostly we want it to all happen out there.

Artists' gardens I have known may be overgrown shambles or even slightly freaky spaces but they are never manicured hedges and putting greens. They are spaces of adventure and surprise and they take me back to my artist father's East Van oasis, where my brother and I would get lost in the winding path that held treasures like his concrete head planters with greenery erupting out of the heads like Sideshow Bob hair. Artist gardens often have the feel of public art spaces in miniature, spaces of experimentation with form and materials, maquettes for possible large-scale works.

The discovery of these tiny simple sculptures in a garden would create surprise through unexpected form and the power of multiples, while referencing their particular space.

Having just finished a course in public art I’ve been thinking a lot about what makes garden art successful. Stuffing the space with curios feels like a clutter problem on summer migration. (The large-scale version of that is the charity eagle/bear/orca sculpure...thingies. Even monumental bronzes of horse-mounted Lords on expansive rolling lawns can be overlooked because they don't resonate.)

It's the site specificity and the element of surprise that makes any outdoor space sing, whether that's in the use of materials and scale, like the giant pinecones (above) that Ontario metal artist Floyd Elzinga fabricates from shovels, or the juxtaposition of the object and the natural surroundings, like the firepit below. (I'm filing this mass-produced, buy-online item, credited only to "an artist" in Tennessee, under Accidental Art.)

It's something to contemplate while I look at all the unidentifiable weedy things already going to seed in my little space.

This globe fire pit will not be ignored — not because of scale or materials but concept. That and the scary inferno.

This hose topiary references its particular space through use of materials and is just weird enough that it works for me. (Artist's name lost in the Pinterest jungle.)

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Oh the laces you'll go when you're distracted

4/5/2013

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We are to understand that being distracted is bad, and being focused is good. Being focused will get the job done while being in the moment is not productive — productivity being the cornerstone of our prevailing Protestant work ethic.

I'm aware that it is absurd to continue measuring our national wellness by Gross Domestic Product stats and I deeply respect those ER and childcare workers who must rely on their mental agility to withstand chaotic conditions but if I'm not at least working toward producing something I start wondering why I'm even here.

I've been forced to think about the virtues of making over the last several weeks as life trumped my fastidious little production schedule. The best I could do was grab a few moments to watch from the sidelines, or catch a glimpse of work by other producers, like Eastern-Canadian metal sculptor Cal Lane whose Gutter Snipes show at Grunt Gallery wound up last week. Lane, known for wielding an oxy-acetylene torch and scrambling around 2,000-gallon oil tanks, is my kinda hands-on gal.

Photo from grunt.ca

She shows serious devotion to her work of imposing filigree patterns into found, often rusted industrial materials. It's the kind of demanding work ethic that recharges my productivity urge, but under the circumstances I had to park that and be content surfing over reviews of her work, her other shows and other collaborators, and soon, other expressions of lace as a pattern.

I'm sure that much has been written about the importance of going on a mental/physical/emotional hiatus, but I usually file that reading for later and get back to the job at hand. That's probably a sign that I may be overdosing on a devotional practice.

Since I couldn't get down to any real work I did a lot of image-surfing between things. This image of the artist's Burnt Lawn installation (right) reminds me that my serious focus can narrow the visual field.

Focusing on not focusing so much is a bit of a trial for me but I'm trying to resist the production compulsion and ride the Googleverse free-form a little more, enjoying the discussion on a related show, Lace in Translation, at Philadelphia University or viewing an interview with Lane at Grunt Gallery (at right).

Lane's 'Burnt Lawn' at The Design Center at Philadelphia University, 2010

And then I did what was only possible due to the distractedness of the last few weeks: I sat back and did nothing but watch a 12-minute video made for a 2009 exhibition of re-imagined manufactured lace that plays in the space between art and production. Time well wasted.

Kerry Polite photo, from The Design Center

Lace Fence, galvanized PVC-coated wire, by Demakersvan, 2009. 16 panels: 152'W x 6.5'H

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Trades bring public art to a new level

true craftsman makes a crazy idea real

Garden art beyond the whirlygigs

Oh the laces you'll go when you're distracted

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