Sometimes a break from photography is in order. A client requested an “over the sofa” lobby piece and a photograph wouldn’t do. We went through some ideas and I was inspired by a piece made from recycled mailing tubes. I had an attic full of cardboard cores from the print paper rolls and this looked like a perfect idea to steal. I prepared a few designs and came up with something that resembled soap bubbles bunched together. I wanted to give the piece a feeling of a rolling hill so I varied the tube lengths. I had two tube diameters, 3” and 2”, and each tube had it’s own characteristics of color, thickness, and texture. This added some welcome randomness.
Cutting the cores on a band saw was not as easy as I thought, the blade wandered as it passed through the material, also leaving a rough edge on the pull out. I didn’t like the messy cuts so I sanded the edges on the inside and out, both ends. There were over 600 tubes of varying lengths, creating a lot of sanding. Then I coated each tube with an acrylic coating for some protection.
On the workbench I setup a wood frame sized to 24” x 72” forming the boundary. I began filling the space with tubes, initially following the design but then just winging it. This was a great exercise in trusting your instincts to place the tubes by feeling instead of purpose. After the dry run, it was time to glue things together. There is a bit of hesitation as one commits to permanent placement of a piece, not that it really matters but you always question the intention, was it the right piece, the right height, the right gap, the right alignment. We are always concerned about being “right”, and after doing this 600 times, you develop a degree of confidence that one can place a cardboard tube in a good position. Ah the rewards of making art!
It took about 3 days to glue everything together, no problems…yet. I let things set for another day. I knew that the assembly would be heavy, and this thing was a solid mass of cardboard. I disassembled the frame and expected the piece to just slide off the Formica surface of the table, but it didn’t budge. I pushed a little harder, then attempted to lift a corner. No movement whatsoever. Tried to slide a putty knife under a tube where I saw glue that had run out of the joint onto the table. Finally got out my hammer and broke through the glue bond to the table. Since when did wood glue stick to plastic? I had that sinking feeling that I would need to chisel out my sculpture from its base. Luckily i had used a wax paper sheet under half of the piece, but the other half was hopelessly glued down.
I took my framing square and hammer and got to work. I literally hammered the steel under a third of the tubes when things broke free. Two sections were damaged in the process and I went to work repairing those, wax paper underneath. When everything dried up, I trimmed some of the glue globs off the bottom and built a backing board with 4 - 1” dowels to hold the piece to the board. Then I drilled holes in the board to attach to the wall. Having a 50 lb sculpture is a bit unnerving to handle by yourself, but there were no further incidents thank goodness.
After completing the piece I felt rewarded by the result. I am interested in landscapes, and the piece was big enough to evoke a sense of dimension to the plane. There was enough variation of the surface to evoke interest, and some nooks and crannies that I wanted to crawl into. Expect to see more of these creations in the future.