A different type of ephemeral sculpture for you today and a one off project that I worked on in Hapavsie, Finland. The mission which I chose to accept was to create a fire and ice sculpture along with my good Friend Fegus Mulvany.
We had never done anything like this before, the closest I had been was when I worked with a fireworks company to set up some displays in Dublin but that is a whole other story and this is the story at hand which is the subject of this documentary I put together while working on the project. ( that's a big sentence ) I had been asked by the organisers to film the process and they would pay me for the video to help promote the idea for future projects they wanted to do.
Trying to create a sculpture while trying to make a video is like the particle beams in Ghostbuster: you should not cross them. One side is always going to suffer from lack of attention but in the end I was happy with the sculpture and also I thought the video gave a great sense of how it was to be on the project.
Fire sculpture
The main concept with fire sculptures is to create a sculpture from wood and straw and then set it on fire. It is the actual burning of the piece that is the artform. It is a performance art and one I was very interesting in giving a try and with this one we also had the option of including ice.
Of course the documentary pretty much tells the whole story with the trials and tribulations of how it all worked out and I don't want to flog a dead horse by writing too much here. In the end and to my great surprise Fergus and I were crowned the winners of the competition and I was really happy that the chain reactions we had set up came together like clockwork as our sculpture burned. Except for the ice.
Defrosted
The ice element was supposed to be like peas in a pod placed on the inside up along the pole, revealing themselves when the sculpture opened but unfortunately the ice, when it arrived, was half melted and we could not make balls big enough so our solution was to create a domino like effect of falling slabs of ice which was set in motion by the opening leaves.
A really nice project and it was so much fun to be building something which's destruction was its creation.
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.
Dancing in the ice Hive - ice sculpture
Box Nativity - sand sculpture
Fixing an Indominus Rex Destroy 'N Devour Dino Rival - Workshop
I hope you'll join me again soon
@ammonite
If you would like to support me
Bitcoin: bc1qp4lfg0ttz66nesgff8fd5unglg9y0l2jy53j36
Ethereum: 0x6abaE039b9BDFB67495A0588cb90F9EAF5f7556c
Eos: ammonitearts
▶️ 3Speak