Wednesday, January 27, 2010

Art of Repair or the Repair of Art

So about that box in the garage I was telling you about, you know, the one I found the picture in, I told you, the reader, that I also found something else.
Long lost but not forgotten, was a casting I did in aluminum.
I had taken it to class to show some kids and they promptly broke it so I put it away knowing I needed to fix it then forgot about it for like three years.
What happened was they broke a pin that was holding the whole thing together:





Basically, what I had to do was flatten the pin on both sides, then drill them out and put in a new one. Since I was working with aluminum, this was a fairly easy deal. Since it had been sitting in a box for so long, I got out the polish and cleaned it up.
I didn't like casting metal. The whole process was time consuming and tedious. I preferred to fabricate stuff.
Sort of like cut and paste with steel don't you know.
Anyways, with some Mother's Mag polish and some elbow grease:



My classmates told me it looked like a big Q-tip. Har, har!
Har.
Well okay. It does look like a giant bent Q-tip but that's not what it was all about. The top is mirror polished, while the bottom is textured:




I wanted it to look like the two ends were being stretched apart, each end having a different surface. I toyed with the idea of trying to capture the metal in its liquid form and freezing the image. I did a bronze casting with the same theme.
Once I started working it, I found the aluminum was still a bit malleable so I gave it a twist.
I called it Allongee, or Elongation.
Instead I got a two headed reproductive cell.
Still, it's one of my favorite pieces.
At least now it's fixed.

4 comments:

John Romeo Alpha said...

Two-headed reproductive cell, exactly what I was thinking before I read that. I wonder if making a large-scale version for display in a park would be feasible. Still shiny, maybe not aluminum though.

limom said...

Aw man! Not you too!
As far as a large scale version goes, that's why I had taken it to class. The kids had to decide if it was feasible or not. I forget what they decided; must not have been good since they broke it.
I'm picturing something monumental! Like seventy feet tall! Polished stainless and all about fertility.
Or clean ears.

dogimo said...

This is beautiful. The surface is really expressive. I never knew aluminum could be worked that way.

limom said...

thanks!