TARMAC FLOOR?- A New idea

I had a tutorial and idea about creating an immersive space where either just a tarmac floor would be installed or a tarmac floor to which the sculptures and/or objects would sit within came about. It definitely would be a really interesting environment especially if the walls are neon and the smell would be very strong. However I quickly realised after assessing all the logistics of doing this that it would not be practical and potentially not as effective as having large, scale individual pieces- not placed on a floor made completely of tarmac. Perhaps this can be a project for me in future with my practice. It is easy for me to become confused in times where i'm struggling with my ideas, different opinions are thrown at me (which is of course extremely helpful) but its important to choose the ones I want to make.

A CRISIS: Loss of Direction

I have come to a stop in my tracks with regards to what the make. After experimenting with tarmac and resin I believe that I have found a practical method for producing sculptures using this material. However I have this desire to make yet no idea what forms to produce. There is an amounting pressure regarding time as I know that in order to start such sculptures I will need enough time to get it all done before I am not allowed to use the workshop facilities.

In these notes I am trying to know what to make first. Wether the sculptures should come before the objects or the objects before the sculptures. To me, it is the colour I would conceal these objects in that is more important than the objects themselves- however by way of picking any kind of object I run the risk of confusing what the work is really about. I think that maybe it is best to make the forms first and figure out the objects after if in the end I decide they are still needed.

Baby Tarmac

I spent a good few hours painting this baby carrier, at first I thought it would be a really absurd and disturbing addition to the space. However I was prompted of all the things that a baby carrier could suggest, such as fertility, abandonment or motherhood. Although I am more fixated on the colour, I do not want this imagery to be presented to others. Upon reflection I also realise that the baby carrier would take up a substantial amount of space- I have intentions to produce quite a number or small and large scale tarmac sculptures and I dont want the space to seem cluttered. One thing I do like about the tarmac interacting with this object is the fact that it personifies the tarmac.

Tarmac- BOWL

As part of my third experiment with getting cold-lay asphalt tarmac to set and become a manipulatable tool for sculpture I decided to mix it into the resin, followed by catalyst. Sticking with the theme of fluid shapes, I attempted to prepare a dome shape using a bowl and mod rock. I started off using 200g of general purpose resin mixed with black pigment. However as this was my first batch I did not get the measurements right- I should have completely saturated the resin with the asphalt. Even when it looks just like rocks coated in resin, its still not enough. If there is too much resin than tarmac then pools of it will collect on the surface- revealing its trickery. I added double the amount of catalyst to the batch as I wasn't too sure wether this sloppy mixture would ever set (considering tarmac is made up of small rocks and this gloopy tar).

OH NO!

Instantly I knew this was a tragic mess. The mixture was way to sloppy and kept sliding down the sides of the bowl. My plan was a little stupid looking back on it- I should have poured the mixture inside the bowl rather than the outside as it was a bit tricky to remove the bowl after as well and wasn't a smooth inside because of the change of texture over the mod rock.

In an emergency situation where a lot of black, sticky mess was created I used lino to try and keep the tarmac in shape in hope that it will set.

A day layer and it did actually set! despite being considerably deformed and far from a perfect dome. The lino doesn't fit the shape of the lino so a lot of the tarmac sunk down to the bottom and also meant that in places the bowl was still exposed. I added 2 others layers to this and tried patting it down or hitting it around the sides to try and create a completely smooth surface. I didn't mind the texture of the surface either, although it was shinier than if it was just tarmac, it didn't look too glossy or glazed. This was quite interesting because although you can tell it is tarmac, it does look slightly different and has an intense smell of resin (almost too intense in an enclosed space).