PORTFOLIO III

It's been a year now since I compiled my list of works for Portfolio II. In the meantime I've taken a job working four days a week up the hill here in The Black Mountains on the Powys Herefordshire border, managing 70 or so acres of newly acquired marginal hill farm. The farm ajoins the garden that I mention in Portfolio II, and hasn't had a lot of attention over the last 30 years. Alder trees and scrub have joined forces with brambles and bracken to stake their claim on ancient pasture. Fences have fallen into disrepair, and there are anthills large enough to make areas of it look a little like the Valley of the Living Rock from the Disney film Frozen, and I wonder sometimes, as dusk falls, if trolls may appear to add their two pennyworth to the mix.


This is the setting. The job comes with a cabin, Bones Cabin, and Bones Cabin comes with a workshop the size of an aircraft hanger.


I've put it to use: Here's what I've been up to in 2019, when I havn't been out and about with strimmer, mower or chain saw:

Sculpture:

 

 

:I: Piece is in oak at about 2.5 m high with a cyanotype dye to give it this gorgeous inky almost blue-black blue. I guess it's a totem in as much as it references a totem pole, the sticky out bits at the sides reminding me a little of the wings or beaks of the eagles and thunderbirds of archetypal first nation poles. It's a totem with a figurative half twist as the central cutout represents the 'I' of the individual. Maybe everything in nature and art has a figurative twist as we have the ability to see ourselves in everything, including of course, the moon. The 'man in the moon' predates man on the moon by millenia. The 'I' in :I: piece is a nod toward this ability or curse of humanity to find ourselves or at least our image in everything. I love it here below Bones Cabin and the way the deep blue of :I: piece shares a twang with the deep green of the moss laden Alder trees, reminding us, maybe, that we are just a part of nature, and not its raison d'etre.

Exuberant Piece stands at about 60cm high and is finished with the same cyanotype dye as ':I:' piece. This piece is of course two pieces, both taken from a single stem, or trunk of Ash. I love the joyful, arms outstretched feel of this piece, as well as the feeling of empathy we get between the now two separate pieces that were once one piece. The grooves in the LHS piece that differentiate one half from another were accidental. I'd given up on seeing the piece as a 'piece of work' and had relegated it for use as a couple of treads for steps in the garden, and put the grooves in to stop it from being too slippy. In the way that accident is often the keystone of making the grooves somehow made the difference and, by supplying the necessary 'attraction of complimentarity', allowed the piece to work, well, for me at anyrate, as a piece of work in its own way. Of the three pieces of sculpture I've finished this year, this is the one I'm happiest with and so: to all the accidents that are waiting to happen out there, in terms of design and form, I say: 'Welcome' and thank you for fresh insight.

Vessels are 'vessels' in name only and are in fact, solid rounds of wood in Mountain Ash and Oak respectively. There's an energy about this mis-matched pair. Opposites attract and all that, and there's a wistful leaning toward each other  between the two jugs of an almost teenage intensity. There's also a slightly comic feel added by the handles, in their almost human body language, as if they're both standing with their hand on their hip, interacting animatedly. Whilst they do so of course, they combine to create a certain symmetry, and collectively make a torso, with both hands on hips, nodding maybe toward the humanising language that we use to describe vessels with their foot, body, shoulder and neck along with mouth and lip.

Outdoor Furniture:

I like to think that the furniture here all has a sculptural twist, although it's not sculpture as such, as it has a function, and can be sat on or at, or leant upon, or made useful in some other way. It therefore falls short of the luxury of simply being, of existing in the landscape or gallery without a care in the world as to ho-hum utility.



There's lofty precedents for mixing up life and art, to build a seamless bridge between form and function, to sit on the fence of aesthetic and utility. Marc Newson, talking about his aluminium chaise longue, Lockheed Lounge, says, 'Some people consider it a sculpture, some people consider it a piece of furniture. But the fact is, it probably lies somewhere in the middle.'


I like the maybe senseless beauty of making sculpture, but dislike the amount of agony involved, and the endless doubt as to whether or not the piece of work works. You know. As a piece of work, as an object to be desired in its own right.

As a contrast to this I most often times find the limitations function imposes on form, when maybe a piece of furniture is being made actually dictate a freedom, and allows the sometimes tortuous paths of pure creativity a careless passage. For me it's Bish Bosh That's Finished  when there's a lashing of utility in the mix, as opposed to the indecision of how do you know if it's finished? involved in making something purely sculpural.

The finished piece ends up somewhere in the middle between furniture and sculpture. A piece of Funiture has been achieved

Ho ho ho


The subtleties that lift a piece of furniture toward sculpture leads to interesting questions about the meaning of form and maybe even beauty itself. 'What is beauty?' is a question that has been around for centuries and is, I suspect, unanswered by life or art individually, or indeed by the lone wolf approach of either pure form or unadulterated utility.  Maybe, however, answers are hinted at, or an understanding gained by this combination of form and function.

Greenwood Table in oak and ash. I worked on the ash legs staright from the tree, just recently felled. It cracked rather well, and I was pleased to be able to smooth and round over the cracks and integrate them as part of the design. The top is from green oak supplied by Whitney Saw Mill, and the superstructure is constructed with standard mortice and tenon joints along with interlocking bridal joints let into the castellated top of the legs. This was a learning curve for me, and a tricky one to boot, although it proved to be childs play when compared to getting the table into position on the deck. Green wood is considerably heavier than its kiln or air dried equivilant, and the deck and it's approach, high up as it is here in the hills, was as slippy as a saint on a night out.

Standard Lamp out on the deck at the back of Bones Cabin. The base is Alder, and the stem's in ash, hexed off with a draw knife. The shade made use of a wire frame from a discarded rattan pouffe, along with ash and hazel wood verticals. I used a warm tone lamp, and love the invite of the orange yellow against the cool purple shades of winter.

 










Ancient Table is on legs from re-claimed oak beams that had been lying discarded up here for goodness knows how long. I like to think of them spanning back through the centuries to when the still visble marks of chisel and saw were originally made by the carpenter. I wonder where they were first put to use, who it was that fashioned them for purpose, and where the tree itself grew. I like it too, that I am part of that continuum, and that I resisted the notion to log the beams to fend of the harshness of winter. It's cold up here in the hills, and, this being my first year, the gauge on the wood store reads 'empty'. Aah, discipline! Thank you for calling! 

The stools are a temporary measure until I make time to conjure up some chairs. They're the trunks of multi-stemmed Alder, showing a beautiful colour orange on the cut face.

Picket Fence is also in Alder, planed of with a power plane as, unlike Chestnut that is  commonly used for fencing, Alder is reluctant to cleave

  

Bones Cabin

Bones Cabin came with the job up here in the Black Mountains and was in a derelict state. It's a year on now and whilst the boys at the builders merchant in Hay still call it Chateau Shacko my neighbour declared, on a recent visit: 'It's not a cabin Drew, it's a palace!'

Bones Cabin is actually called 'Bluebell Lodge' on account of the sea of blue that surrounds it in Spring but I like to call it after the river that runs behind it, The Esgryn. Esgryn is Welsh for 'bones', and according to a Welsh speaker I spoke to this probably refers to the bones of the landscape, laid bare by the river as it winds down the hill to meet the Dulais Brook, just below the cabin. The confluence of the two rivers is the place, or so I've been informed, where the fairies play, although I've yet to have sight of these. It is, nevertheless, a magic place, as is the whole setting for Bones Cabin. I love it here, with nothing but the birdsong and the silence for company.


Here's the shack, pictured below, along with some pictures of the re-built interior. 

 

Kitchen diner with unit in oak and ply. The water is fed from a spring, and is, as Kerouac might have said, righteously sweet. The table is in mdf, ply and chestnut, with a threaded rod connecting the top to the relaimed concrete base, and is, I'm pleased to say, as sturdy as the water's sweet.




Rolling shutter in mdf and oak, with free hand routed leaf drawing.

The lounge complete with a shelf full of memories 







 and the bedroom



That's all folks! Please follow my instagram account @drewzacharyken for new work in 2020.