Committee visit

The Matthew Flinders memorial committee visited the studio today to check on progress.  The clay statue is unfinished, but most of the parts are in place, so there was plenty to discuss.  Also Charles Miranda and Ella Pellegrini came along to write about and photograph the day.  They are pictured here talking with Deputy Agent General, Matt Johnson.

Draft head

I rough out a head based on the famous painting of Matthew to use as reference.  On the statue, he will be looking down and concentrating and the likeness may well become diluted in favour of getting the mood right.

First draft in clay

Once the armature is up, I block, in clay, the general movements of the figure.  These photographs take you to the end of the first draft.

Matt Johnson in South Australia

Back in August Deputy Agent General of South Australia, Matt Johnson, undertook a short, but highly effective trip around South Australia to promote the Matthew Flinders memorial statue project and introduce collectors to the maquette.  His efforts resulted in numerous maquette sales and partnerships with key individuals and organisations.  Some photographs of his trip have recently surfaced.  Here is Matt in full swing at, appropriately enough, Flinders University in Adelaide.

Full-size armature

The armature for the statue is made from mild steel welded into a rigid structure. It is

organised so that the metal runs inside the form and supports the clay.

The frame on the left is a pointing machine.  This is usually used for transferring 1:1 from plaster to stone.  I use it to find my extremities.

The steel frame is then packed with polystyrene to reduce the weight and tightly wrapped with chicken-wire which gives the clay something to hold on to.

Full-size setting out

Now that the lay figure is well on the way, I set out the armature for the main figure.

Preparing the base-board

I use the wire mock-up to get an idea of where the most weight will fall and to plot the back-iron (see early maquette making post for back-iron description)

Felicity marks out plumb points for the armature

Tricia

As I was starting the armature for the lay figure, I noticed a stranger, in the car-park, looking the studio up and down. Her name was Tricia and it turned out that her grand-mother had been born here when it was a workhouse in the 19th century and that her family came from the village.  Imagine being in one of those places.

If that was not fascinating enough, it transpired  that she was from Melbourne.  And then Tricia revealed that she had, that same day, driven from Donington where she visited Matthew Flinders's birthplace.  My first thought was that she was a plant (the day I start the first of the two large figures, a Flinders fan turns up at the door), although I could not imagine who from. This notion had, on reflection, sprung from a baseless feeling of self-importance that had overwhelmed me since being filmed by the BBC earlier in the month.  In any case, Tricia, it turns out, is a gem and this is a big thank-you to her for her encouraging words about the sculpture.