The making of a Modern Fossil; fun with metalwork at London Sculpture Workshop

I spent a few days over the summer at the London Sculpture Workshop. College was closed, I had a deadline to meet and no access to heavy machinery…. LSW was the answer; London’s first open access sculpture workshop had just opened in Bermondsey. Walking there with my bag of metal parts clanking in my bag, I got my hit of nature with a walk through Burgess Park every day, plus I got to hang out with the lovely Giles and Melis…

Cutting the metal bars

Laying out the bars so I could see where to drill the bolt holes

Drilling the holes with the LSW pillar drill

Filing all the rough edges

Test bolt

The project brief specified that there were to be no sharp edges; the sculpture was to be installed in a public place and within reach of curious hands and arms too… this meant filing *all* the edges

Lengths of unfiled tubes

Molegrips to hold the tubes so I could file them

super fast grinder

hand finished tubes; I polished the edges by hand sat on my balcony!

In the end I cut two hundred and ten tubes; 14 per shape x 15 (a couple of extra shapes made just in case!)

super technical drawings ;)

Bolted shape; reverse side

Bolted shapes; detail

Finished sculpture

The finished pieces  bolted together ready to be delivered!