Making Sculpture from Scrap Metal E-Book

Peter Parkinson

• Herausgeber: Crowood
• Kategorie: Lebensstil
• Sprache: Englisch

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2015

Beschreibung

Transforming unlikely pieces of scrap metal into significant works of art - giving new life to things we throw away - is an accessible, creative and fulfilling activity. This book describes and illustrates the concerns and techniques involved in making this kind of sculpture, looking behind the work at the richness and diversity of an area of sculpture that deserves to be far better known. Topics covered include the role and purpose of sculpture, the particular qualities of sculpture made from scrap metal and the practical processes involved in its making. It also covers sources of scrap metal, identifying metals, reviewing metalworking techniques, creative approaches, different types of sculpture, and the making, finishing and installation of pieces of sculpture. This book will be of great interest to blacksmiths, sculptors and metalworkers and is beautifully illustrated with 108 colour photographs from work by professional sculptors and students, showcasing a range of different approaches.

Leseprobe

Peter Parkinson

THE CROWOOD PRESS

First published in 2015 by

The Crowood Press Ltd

Ramsbury, Marlborough

Wiltshire SN8 2HR

www.crowood.com

This e-book first published in 2015

© Peter Parkinson 2015

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopy, recording, or any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers.

British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

ISBN 978 1 78500 022 5

Frontispiece

Eumenides II Medusa, a sculpture with four faces, by Ian Campbell-Smith. Made from steel artefacts found on the shores of the Thames and Medway. Part of a series deriving from Graeco-Roman mythology.

Acknowledgements

I am very grateful to the sculptors who generously lent me images of their work with which to illustrate this book, and also provided me with a rare opportunity to study and enjoy their work. Their names appear in the captions relating to each piece. Some of my photographs show the work of West Dean College, short course students, who regrettably I was not always able to identify by name. My thanks and apologies to those concerned. Photographs of the work of Harriet Mead are by Jody Lawrence. Drawings, photographs and work not otherwise credited are by the author.

Dedication

I would like to dedicate this book to my dear wife Pauline, whose patience and support is always there.

CONTENTS

INTRODUCTION

1SOURCING SCRAP METAL

2IDENTIFYING METALS

3METALWORKING TECHNIQUES

4APPROACHING SCULPTURE

5TYPES OF SCULPTURE

6MAKING SCULPTURE

7FINISHES AND FINISHING

8INSTALLATION

FURTHER READING

INDEX

INTRODUCTION

Window II by Hamish Black. An echo of the distorted perspective of cubist, still-life paintings by Picasso, Matisse and Cézanne.

At least four thousand years ago Bronze Age metalworkers in Britain were hoarding broken axes, swords and other scraps in order to re-use the metal, just as Iron Age smiths did later. Metal was too precious to throw away. Following the capture of Constantinople by the Crusaders in 1204, ancient bronze statues were melted down to provide the metal for new works. During the Napoleonic wars, bronze statues were melted to make cannon. Two world wars swallowed and re-generated huge amounts of metal, from huge amounts of scrap. There is nothing new about metal recycling.

Bronze sculpture is traditionally produced by a specialist foundry, making a mould from the master pattern produced by the sculptor, sometimes enlarging the sculptor’s maquette to make a larger work. The practical skills of the sculptor were in modelling or carving rather than in working metal.

The use of scrap metal to make sculpture is a twentieth-century development. The beginnings can be seen in a move towards directly constructed metal sculpture, where the sculptor assembles the components. In 1912, as a kind of three-dimensional cubist collage, Pablo Picasso produced a sheet metal and wire sculpture entitled Guitar.

In 1913, the Dada artist Marcel Duchamp made his Cycle Wheel, which was indeed a bicycle wheel and forks, mounted upside down on the seat of a tall wooden stool. A year later his Bottle Rack became the second of what he called ‘ready-mades’: not an assemblage, but an existing metal object, bought from a shop and presented ironically, as art. Both sculptures in a sense used ‘scrap’ metal, in the form of found objects.

Following the armament demands of World War I, the technology of gas and arc welding became widely available. For sculptors traditionally trained in carving wood or stone, or modelling in clay or plaster, the opportunity to work metal directly offered a new approach to the making of sculpture. The properties of iron and steel allowed constructions to be massive or fine, monolithic or linear, strong or apparently fragile, offering new qualities and a new freedom, which Julio Gonzalez described as the ability ‘to draw in space’. During the 1930s Gonzalez created a large number of metal sculptures, and with his welding and blacksmithing skills, helped his friend Picasso produce a series of sculptures, including Head of a Woman, made from sheet metal and lengths of scrap coil spring, used to represent hair.

While Picasso was far from a lone pioneer, his work records the development of direct metal sculpture. With hindsight perhaps, his Head of a Bull, created in 1943, provides the seminal statement about sculpture from scrap, consisting simply of a bicycle saddle – the head – supporting a pair of handlebars – the bull’s horns. With just two components, this is the kind of visual pun that exemplifies some of the appeal of sculpture made from scrap metal. Head of a Bull is recognizably a bull’s head with horns, yet it is equally identifiable as two bicycle components, a visual ambiguity which can be amusing, captivating and witty.

From such beginnings, making sculpture from scrap metal became an accepted artistic medium, as exemplified by David Smith in America, Anthony Caro in England and others in Europe and Russia.

I am greatly indebted to a number of sculptors who work with scrap metal today, and have generously provided many of the illustrations in this book. These have been chosen to demonstrate a range of approaches, and the distinctive character of the work of each sculptor.

Hammer Head. Clearly not Picasso’s Head of a Bull, made from a bicycle saddle and handlebars, but a similar conjunction to make the important point that we can read significant visual references into very little.

Why Use Scrap?

Making sculpture from scrap metal begs the fundamental question – why use scrap when clean new metals are readily available?

Making sculpture in this way offers the sculptor a directness and immediacy, and by definition gives rise to unique pieces of sculpture. No two sculptures can be the same

Using scrap metal is about transformation, providing a visual challenge in identifying and selecting components and turning the abandoned detritus of civilization into something with meaning and value

Artists are usually wary of the word ‘inspiration’, which seems to suggest the sudden illumination of that cartoon, mental light bulb. Ideas can come fully formed, but they are more often the result of plain hard work. Scrap metal components are not simply a kit of parts, but in their extraordinary variety can themselves provide a rich source of ideas

Using scrap metal components makes possible a kind of visual pun, the added dimension of interpretation and association. The old pliers used as the ears of a hare are understood both as ears, and as tools, introducing the viewer to an intriguing ambiguity

In some cases the source and nature of the components may add another quality and significance. The sculpture of a farm animal may utilize recognizable agricultural scrap, the sculpture may incorporate metal components of significance to those who commissioned it, or they may have been found near the location of a site-specific sculpture

Creating sculpture from scrap metal can be a powerful philosophical gesture, giving new life to the things we throw away. Just as the sculpture itself represents an idea, the way it is made can also carry a message

At a purely practical level, using scrap metal provides an opportunity for making sometimes sizeable pieces of metal sculpture for a relatively low cost, in materials that are tough and durable

And finally, like opening presents at Christmas or looking for pebbles on a beach, behind a serious business there is an almost childish pleasure in visiting a scrapyard and seeking out interesting pieces

Simba the Dog by Barbara Franc, illustrating an almost Impressionist approach. A commission incorporating some significant mementos provided by the client.

What is Sculpture from Scrap?

For the purposes of this book, ‘scrap metal sculpture’ is defined as sculpture which is made either wholly or in part from scrap metal – metal that has had a previous use. This covers a whole spectrum, from work which may contain only one or two identifiable pieces of scrap – the rest being new metal – to sculpture made entirely from scrap.

While much work uses scrap objects for their intrinsic form, largely unaltered, some work uses recycled metal as the raw material, from which to cut and shape the required forms. This might involve recycling sheet metal cut from old oil drums, tin cans, biscuit tins or copper hot-water tanks, or using salvaged electric wiring.

Note: To some, ‘the studio’ is the place where they do all their work, whether two- or three-dimensional. Throughout this book, I use the word ‘studio’ to mean the place where drawing and design work takes place, and ‘workshop’ to mean the place where three-dimensional work is made.

CHAPTER ONE

SOURCING SCRAP METAL

A metal scrapyard, where it all ends up.

Metals have been recycled since before the Bronze Age, but this hasn’t prevented the fashionable renaming of what we used to call the ‘council tip’ as the ‘household waste recycling centre’. Most towns have one, and this is probably the nearest and most accessible source of scrap metal, but probably not the best.

The word ‘scrap’ suggests ‘rubbish’, which is misleading. Scrap metals have a value today, just as they did in the Bronze Age. Scrapyards make their money by dismantling items, sorting metals into particular categories, and selling bulk quantities to companies who melt them down to produce new metal ingot, sheet, plate or section. Today almost all new metals contain a significant proportion of recycled scrap, alongside virgin metal smelted from the ore. For example, new steel and aluminium typically incorporate around 40 per cent recycled material, and sometimes more.

The bulk of scrap metal passes through dedicated metal scrapyards, which are intrinsically dangerous places, full of spikes, sharp edges, heavy objects, oily, slippery surfaces and often unstable mounds of metal, ready to slide and catch a careless hand or foot. Scrapyards use cranes, metal-crushers, shears, oxy-acetylene cutting torches, heavy trucks and loading equipment, all of which are additional hazards. For this reason it is essential to wear ‘working clothes’, safety boots and work gloves when visiting a scrapyard. Equally important is asking permission to look round. The people running the yard are justifiably wary of visitors who might sustain cuts, a broken leg or worse.

There is always a yard office, so reporting there first is vital; simply walking in and wandering around is the quickest way to be ordered off the premises. Explaining what you are after, and why, is crucial. Remember that the essential function of the yard is to accumulate and sort metal, and to sell it by the truckload, so dealing with your more modest needs might be an annoying interruption to their working day. Be polite and patient. Wanting to buy a small amount of metal from a scrapyard is tantamount to walking into a farmyard and asking to buy a pint of milk.

Nevertheless explain your mission – show them pictures of previous work if you have them – gain their confidence, and you will meet people with a wealth of knowledge of metals and a remarkable ability to identify the material, origin and function of apparently nameless components. To get beyond the office, it may help to suggest that you have a particular item in mind – for example, a piece of 100mm square steel tube for a sculpture you are making. This sounds more positive and reassuring than simply asking if you can wander around with no particular objective.

Pricing is sometimes rather arbitrary, but is fundamentally based on weight. So a complex casting or an intricately machined gear wheel may cost no more than an offcut of steel plate or angle. Ferrous metals – steel and cast iron – are relatively cheap; aluminium, lead and stainless steels are more expensive, while metals such as copper, brass and bronze are considerably more expensive still. Depending on the scrapyard, anything that clearly still has a use, such as an undamaged firegrate, tool, or a decorative cast-iron grille, may attract a higher price.