For my final project for ART5930C: Experiments in Installation, I completed this sculpture, entitled Open Door.
Here is my artist statement:
Our property in Choccolocco, Alabama has been a labor of love since 2016, when we moved to this rural area. Differing from the community in many ways, our farm, Hippie Hollow, and the people who love it, have a lot of community buzz surrounding what goes on here. Whether we are opening a halfway house, growing weed (not legal here yet!) or UFO watching, it’s always news to us when we hear what we’re up to from the latest “Funny Farm” gossip. Passionate about the arts and the environment, our goal has been to host classes, camps and events for the community—whatever size that is or becomes, all are welcome. It’s just taken us a bit longer to get the infrastructure in place than we’d hoped.
Bringing a welcome structure to the front of my property, facing the main road, and learning to work with stones, a medium that has fascinated me since I was a child stacking rock cairns next to the creek, were my primary goals. I hope that the community can see our passion for found objects, the earth, the arts and our permanence in the community. The artist whose work I am most inspired by for this stone project is Carl Peverall. On his website, he explains that the rock work he does is called “Powhiri” (poe’-fur-ee), which means “welcome” in the Mairi language. I hope myOpen Door is a welcome to all who drive past.
Reflections for Final • June 15, 2020
I think I successfully created the piece I set out to do and had just as many problems in the process as I anticipated. Not one to shy away from a big task, at some point on Thursday after already spending about 20 hours on it, I wondered how I was going to finish it in time. My solution was to work from about 7am until about 7pm for the next two days.
Drilling
The drilling of the rocks was twice as time consuming as I’d anticipated (based on tons of research via YouTube and other DIY videos I’d found on drilling), which also added cost to the project—due to drill bits dulling very quickly and needing replacements. The smaller rocks were difficult, as they broke in half during the process. Toward the end, I started drilling about halfway through, then flipping the rock and trying to ballpark where to drill on the other side to meet in the middle. That was the only way I could find to drill the smaller ones without breaking them. The milky quartz that is in the middle took a 1/8 bit first, then a quarter…was quite time consuming, due to how hard it is and the fact that I did not want to risk breaking it. As mentioned in my project video, I had a friend help drill for the big rebar for the largest, base boulders.
Shape Consideration
I wanted to do an arch. At one point last week, I thought about simplifying it to a pillar but felt like that was a copout. I would like to do pillars in the future, but for this one, I wanted to stick to the idea of my original sketch, although at some point early on, I decided I wanted it less symmetrical than my original drawing. I was not sure if the metal on the top was a strong enough material to stabilize the rock once attached, and I didn’t know until my husband helped me insert the top arch into the base. At that point, we discovered a pretty major lean backwards, away from the road. In the interest of time, I braced it with wood until I can install a permanent solution. After spending so much time, though, on something that is a tad unstable at this point, I think my next one will be balanced by rock positioning, different sizes, etc.
I also thought about using a wet saw next time (like one you use for tile) to cut the side edges of the rocks where they will lay next to each other more perfectly. Basically, I would like to experiment with making it more of a science for the next one.
Zoom Feedback
I enjoyed the opportunity to share my project with peers, and to see in a deeper way what each of them had created. After getting the suggestion to create a video of just observing the piece, I added that to my YouTube channel. I explained my intent with the asymmetry and my vision for the small, five cairn part being representative of my family. I also detailed my intent of this being a welcome piece for the front of my property, hence the title I gave it. Some of the subtle shapes, between and overall, were determined by subtleties in rock shape differences or surfaces where they met. Many rocks were placed (which entailed muscling the rock onto the metal string that barely fit into each hole, then back off, then on…) on the “necklace” 5 or 6 different times prior to getting their permanent spot. While nothing was done by accident, I found it difficult to elaborate any deeper on why I did the shape exactly the way I did, aside from the round side coinciding with the implied motion of the arrow. Finding and placing the right “arrow” rock was a big process, and it was meant to balance the piece visually. In this case, the scale of the piece was almost overwhelming, and after explaining my whys, truly did not understand the additional probing for a thematic novella.
Stephanie Hardin 