Wednesday, December 18, 2013

Commissions

 This is a sculpture of my granddaughter, Erin, at 7 years of age. She is now 16 years and is competing at  Australian National Women's Gymnastics at level 8. How time flies!!!


"I Can Do That" Bronze and Stainless Steel 207cm .

 Her last competition at Nationals saw her team from Tea Tree Gully, SA compete and come 3rd Team overall and she achieved achieved third place individually.

I have just been through the motions of costing the above sculpture to be hired as an artwork for a public place to add interest to the area for a 6 month duration.

I really wasn't sure what the normal charges would be but found help through NAVA (National Association for the Visual Arts, Australia) who have a series of booklets  that give fees and other advise. I rang them as I am a member and they were very helpful over the phone. I also took advise from Arts SA who were also helpful.

I also needed the sculpture to be sound and Martin Murray , an engineer from George Street Studios, is able to make the sculpture more public friendly and would be able to install the piece if needed.

It was amazing just how much time was needed to complete this exercise  but at least I keep learning about procedures and what needs to be done before a quote can be written. There is some cost to the artist (hiring an engineer for work involved)  and looking at General Property Insurance for the sculpture but I was amazed how costs added up as I initially did not look at everything involved.

Another exercise is sending sculptures off to cities around the country and also sending unfired clay sculptures to an interstate foundry.  These are usually around the 70 kg mark  so they require care and manpower to lift them.

 I have just sent a Mary MacKillop CC bronze  bust to St Gertrude's Primary School at Smithfield NSW. They will build a reflective garden with the bust as the centrepiece of the garden.


I am finding it rather hard to blog about my practice of late as there have been commissions which require me not to disclose the work until it is installed and with large bronze work this often means that the work will not be completed for 8 to 12 months.

I have 2 such commissions at the moment. The first one is now at the foundry so I can focus on my new one.

I usually take from 2 to 4 months to model the work in clay and then the foundry work requires another 4 months to complete the work.

Commissions usually take several months before they are signed up and ready to go.
Often they begin with an expression of interest and a visit to my studio to see current work.

There are discussions on what the client is proposing and work then often takes the form of research,  the historical content and reading of contemporary accounts , especially when there are no photos available. Paintings are also a source of information and I am so happy to have the internet for research as it would take many, many more hours to research at the library.

Because of this, I do not post often.

I have however seen some wonderful sculptors from sites such as   www.figurativeartists.org
I saw this site on facebook and have visited it often.