Neil's New Marble
Today is the day Neil's latest opus in marble has come home from the yard to be erected in the olive grove. It's always a question of where to put them if you don't sell them straight away. And if you're collecting things together for an exhibition, storage is a problem. Luckily there's a lot of olive grove out there just waiting for a few sculptures to liven it up!
The Process starts with the hunt for a suitable piece of marble. You have to go to a quarry, or to a quarry yard, and look. Some of the blocks weigh tons and cost thousands - sometimes tens of thousands if you want particular colours or quality.
Neil is looking for a smaller piece that costs a lot less! In the marble yard where he works, you can get offcuts - they make shelves and fireplaces and marble porticos. There's a huge machine for cutting the marble and they have compressors for power tools.
The sculptors work in small cubicles behind the main commercial workshop. This is Neil's marble in a more advanced state.
This new sculpture weighs a lot, even though it's small, so a forklift and a lot of manpower was required to get it into the back of the car and then out again, protected by wood and polystyrene. It came down the path on a bogey and Neil has used some acro-props to erect a primitive lifting device using a 'paranca manuale' to winch it up. It was all very tricky.
Still some work to be done inserting metal pins into the marble to hold it. But the finished product looks fantastic. Just waiting now for someone to ask 'what is it meant to be'?
The Process starts with the hunt for a suitable piece of marble. You have to go to a quarry, or to a quarry yard, and look. Some of the blocks weigh tons and cost thousands - sometimes tens of thousands if you want particular colours or quality.
Neil is looking for a smaller piece that costs a lot less! In the marble yard where he works, you can get offcuts - they make shelves and fireplaces and marble porticos. There's a huge machine for cutting the marble and they have compressors for power tools.
The sculptors work in small cubicles behind the main commercial workshop. This is Neil's marble in a more advanced state.
This new sculpture weighs a lot, even though it's small, so a forklift and a lot of manpower was required to get it into the back of the car and then out again, protected by wood and polystyrene. It came down the path on a bogey and Neil has used some acro-props to erect a primitive lifting device using a 'paranca manuale' to winch it up. It was all very tricky.
Still some work to be done inserting metal pins into the marble to hold it. But the finished product looks fantastic. Just waiting now for someone to ask 'what is it meant to be'?
It's meant to be a sculpture!
ReplyDeletevery interesting descriptions of the handling processes (speaking as an engineer) - the Romans would have been familiar with many of the techniques used, of course.
ReplyDeleteI think the piece is a fine Chessman and if I had an olive grove I would order a whole board of them ...
Thank you both! It looks really beautiful with all the machinery removed. yes, Isabel - the artigiani's here are still using the techniques their ancestors used 2000 years ago - amazing!
ReplyDeleteIt is certainly a great marble polishing. You can contact us
ReplyDeleteAl Saudia Chemical Marble Polished Company of Pakistan