Kate V Robertson
It all begins with an idea.
I spent a wonderful week at Arcadia, from 24th - 30th June 2024. I could tell instantly how restorative the experience would be, with everything I could ever ask for - a well-stocked and spacious workshop, outdoor work space, plenty of scrap wood to forage from, a lovely cosy cabin just for me, complete with a treetop vista over the beautiful surroundings of Drymen. Bliss.
The plan for the week was half pre-determined and half open, I had planned to build some supports/structures to display some bronze pieces I have made previously. I find it very hard to finish work in the studio, with the possibilities being endless and without knowing where the works will be exhibited, yet they need to be finished - at least provisionally - so I can move on with other pieces. So, I had decided to make wooden structures, loosely resembling AV stands and other ‘presentation’ furniture, such as lecturns. I had bought some second-hand wood (I try to avoid using virgin materials) and had pre-cut the parts I would need for around 4 such pieces.
The main idea for the week was to master the experiment with the Japanese technique known as Shou Sugi Ban. Originating in 18th Century Japan, Shou Sugi Ban is a method of preserving wood by charring it with fire. This ties in with my current interest in anachronistic sculptural practice, mixing the ancient with the modern and futuristic.
Burning wood
The first couple of days I spent assembling my pre-packed items and seeing how they burned. This had mixed success, I had tried to design for disassembly using dowel fixings, but this was very fiddly and measurements had to be exact - not my strong point. Come back screws, all is forgiven!
I initially was burning with a blow-torch, which was immensely satisfying to do - however I also quickly realised that some of the wood I had used was not ideal for this technique, which works best on soft wood with visible grain. I had thought that the charring finish would cover the fact that the wood was mismatched, but it didn’t. I had the best results on timber CLS, but that wasn’t the right shape for the pieces I was making. So, I didn’t have instant results but now have established
the basics of the technique and know how to progress with it. In future, using a chimney-shaped stack of wood to burn the surface in a fire would be the way forward, as in the original method. The blow-torch may be satisfying but it takes a lot of time to get enough charring on the wood. I will also burn everything before assembling too, as the joins were hard to char without destroying.
After I had assembled and charred all the pieces I brought with me, I thought it would be interesting to contrast found natural wood, direct from trees, with the industrially processed found wood I use elsewhere. My recent works have been preoccupied with manmade processes such as those associated with consumption or technology, and I thought using a natural ‘waste’ material might provide an interesting counterpoint to this aspect of my work. So, I collected various sticks, twigs and logs, from both the beautiful Sculpture Trail at Arcadia, and Rob’s firewood stash (which was both plentiful and ready-dried).
I used some of these tree bits in combination with the furniture pieces, and made some improvised items, which loosely resembled tripods or mic stands, which I found quite comic and reminiscent of older works of mine.
Found wood objects
I also made some figurative pieces using twigs, which came to me during the week, in reference to Giacometti, who I am fond of. However these pieces - although were fun at first - were very fiddly to stick together, and very fragile, so mostly they didn’t work as well as I’d hoped - and certainly not built to last, and they broke almost as soon as I burned them. I did like this one piece that was a replica of Giacometti’s Hand, but I think it would need to be cast in bronze, as I had to fix it every few minutes, especially when documenting it al fresco!
Hand twig sculpture, after Giacometti
I also took a couple of log sections, and was intending to try my hand at a totem pole type thing, which involved using a borrowed chain saw and palm router, neither of which I had used before. My unfamiliarity with the tools made the results mixed, but I also remembered that I always use found shapes or patterns, or incidental mark making, rather than drawing or carving, so this method didn’t really suit me. I found some man-made items such as a plug (for a sink) and a plug (for an appliance) and used these to make face shapes. I enjoyed seeing how I could get these sections to interact with each other, but I’ll need to rethink how to take this idea forwards. The best part of these were the incidental surface of one log which had both grain cracks and saw marks, I did a rubbing of this too and left that for the Arcadia Archive.
Trunk pieces
At the end of the week I staged a photoshoot to document the work I had made in situ. This was really fun, particularly the absurd image of me pushing random objects around in a wheelbarrow and improvising with it as a step ladder!
Documentation
Rob and Susan were brilliant hosts and I really enjoyed getting to know them, and was inspired by the life they had built for themselves and were willing to share with others, which was a real privilege. The undistracted absorption in work and nature was better than any holiday, and I feel really nourished and restored now, and grateful to Arcadia for the gem of an opportunity.
Group
Lecturn
Tree hand