I’ve been thinking about the actual form the sculpture should take, and what exactly i want projected on the roof. The Roof has a smaller roofed area where the door to the stairwell is :

 

One of my favourites at the moment is ‘Time Destroys All’. It’s simple, to the point and i enjoy the irony that it’ll only be visible for a short period early in the morning. It’s fitting as the block was built in the 50’s, and over the years has had it’s balconies bricked up, PVC windows installed and satellite dishes and ariels fitted. There’s no culpability in this statement, which also applies to the other site I considered (which is currently being over-run by nature despite it’s becoming a dumping ground), only a statement of fact. Time has eroded the industries which used to support the economy in the area, and now the main employer sells insurance rather than sheet metal. It isn’t necessarily better or worse, just different.

This led me on to thinking about referencing my other site (which I still really like and hope to do something with one day). I’m hoping to be able to reference nature taking over with the use of foliage shapes (possibly Ivy, a plant often symbolically linked with these ideas). I’m also thinking about using materials such as wire mesh and woven/crocheted wire, something intrinsically man made pushed into a more natural shape, such as Ruth Akawa’s work with crocheted wire and Randy Coopers wire mesh torsos. Both techniques lend themselves to creating beautiful shadows which, whether I can get the lettering to work or not, is my ultimate aim.

This was reinforced when I was talking to a friend of mine about the phrase. He said it reminded him of Bilbo and Gollum’s riddle competition in the Hobbit, and Gollum’s final riddle;

This thing all things devours:
Birds, beasts, trees, flowers;
Gnaws iron, bites steel;
Grinds hard stones to meal;
Slays king, ruins town
And beats high mountain down.

This has made me even more intrigued by this representation, as J.R. Tolkien lived in and was inspired by areas of nearby Birmingham and Worcestershire. I also find the view (particularly when looking east with it’s scaled down houses and areas of parkland) can occasionally be quite reminiscent of that kind of fantasy world. This makes using the morning, east rising, sun especially gratifying.

Of course, this time tomorrow I’ll want to fill the entire roofspace with BIG BALLOONS!

Vix