During my sculptural process I also use imagery and drawing techniques to experiment with patterns and textures. During my last project on the mind this took the form of experimenting with engraving brain scans on to metal sheets.
I have currently been experimenting with this further by using waste materials, which I have collected and accumulated as a result of other artworks. One way that this has taken shape has been by using soil, dust and bark, which has fallen off of two tree trunks, which I collected as, objects for inspiration. After gathering all of the soil I felt it would be wasteful to simply throw it away as this by product marked the time passing as it began to dry and fall off the tree trunk and the origin of where it came from.
However I did not want to interfere with the material too much so I decided instead to use it as a medium in its own right by simply dripping patterns in glue and then sprinkling the soil over it. Once the glue had tried clear then the soil would be the only thing to remain.
I chose to experiment with doing this in the swirling patterns, which appear in the rings in the wood, which mark growth and passing of time.
Having gathered many coin bags from the bank, while using plaster, I decided to test filling the bags with plaster and then standing them up in various positions in order to make the plaster set into different shapes.
I wanted to create a contrast between the connotations that the bags had as being related to money and worth with filling them with a very light and meaningless substance. After making a collection of these I then tested making a cairn out of them to challenge the pure and spiritual meaning of the cairns with a contemporary value of money and capitalism.
