I am always a bit worried when I take on a new project, the likes I have never done before, that I will embarrass myself with my lack of knowledge and look silly among all the professionals. That is exactly how I felt when I signed up for this gig in Kolmarden Zoo, Sweden. I had tried working with cement once before which I talked about here and here but this was going to be a completely different beast. Making a fantasy sort of castle for a new sky safari ride in the Zoo.
Kolmarden zoo is one of the biggest in Europe with area of 1.5 square Km and a safari park with many lions and giraffes and all that Jazz. You used to be able to drive around but in 1981 a moron got out of his car to take better a picture and became lunch.
This new ride would allow people to fly over the park in safety. Our project was to decorate the queuing area that lead up to the ride.
A dutch Company called Jora Vision had gotten the job of making it all happen and I was asked by my friend Johannes Hogebrink to join the team of eight sculptors. We all had little to no experience although we are all pretty crafty in our own way. This turned out to be great as we all could learn together.
On arriving we saw a building site with the Gondola people doing their final tests. Now, we would have two months to work our magic before the opening of the summer season.
We were joined by a group of Polish metal workers, none of whom spoke English but were amazing at building the substructure from steel and they were already busy welding up the various parts. Staring at the blueprints gave me my first impression of this massive task.
The design was some sort of African village and the team of eight was to carve and paint the whole structure out of cement that would be sprayed over the metal work.
We started in March with snow still on the ground so our first weeks would be pretty cold luckily, we had a nice guest house to stay in run by a lovely lady called Lottee, she would become a mother to all of us, making our food and putting up with all our craziness.
Luckily I had my own room in a little bungalow. Being away from home for two months was going to be tough and I need my solitude.
There was no dilly dallying and we got straight to work.
Bear with me
My first project was to build a statue of a bear at the entrance. Since there wasn't much else to do at the start Johannes helped me with the armature and I thought everyone how to weld. It would seem that I did have some very useful skills to bring to the table. I'm not a best welder but my father had thought me all the basics and I able to pass on what I knew.
As the Polish guys quickly threw up the walls we built our wire frame bear and lion, which was to be the other sculpture at the gate. I tried to make friends with the most experiences polish welder who also luckily had a little English, his normal job was welding army tanks and so I asked him to help improve my skills. He took me from amateur to competent in no time but told me it was all really just about practice.
Finbar, the team leader on the project was anxious to move everything along very quickly so, even though I wasn't happy with rushing at this early stage he pushed to have the Armature finished as quickly as possible and start cement carving.
I was happy enough with the pose and the little bit of movement in the piece and so he got his first coat of cement over the mesh. The cement is a special mix with small strands of fiberglass which adds strength and a nice base colour for our painting. This was shot onto the surface using a concrete pump.
Someone higher up in the design team back in Holland sent some notes on the sculpture and so I had to make some changes to the pose and position, This would have been much easier to do before cementing but designers who are used to photoshop don't really understand the material world. We made the changes and they were happy for us to proceed.
Having to rush the armature meant that I had to use a lot more cement to resolve the form. So slowly but surely I added more and more concrete with the sprayer and added the character and layers of bear fat. This was still only to get the rushed form right.
I will finish this post here. In the next part I will show the rest of the detailing and the other things that I worked on. I don't like to make a images laden post too large for those with slow internet connections.
We worked long 6 days a week but finished up a bit earlier on Saturday to have a barbecue and lots of drink into the evening. As a group we formed a special type of bond. Eating drinking and sometimes sleeping together will always do that.
I did miss home and my Girlfriend although luckily I was able to fly home for two weekends to get a breather. I was learning lots and really enjoying the Swedish culture.
Join me in part 2 for more.
Here is a video timelapse of the project, incase you missed it.
Ps
Thanks for reading. I use PeakD to document my work as an ephemeral Sculptor of sand, snow and ice, amongst other things. This will hopefully give it a new life on the Hive Blockchain. Below you will find some of my recent posts.
Haapavesi Fire and Ice sculpture festival - Documentary
Dancing in the ice Hive - ice sculpture
Box Nativity - sand sculpture
I hope you'll join me again soon
@ammonite
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[//]:# (!pinmapple 58.662677 lat 16.448125 long Kolmården Zoo - cement sculpture (Part 1) 2011 d3scr)