FOUNDRY
Monolithic forms
rendered in green microcrystalline sculpting wax
shimmer with stillness on the work bench
I was entranced when I saw the cobalt light of the 3D camera
meet the hand-chiselled limestone sculpture
photographing to a thousandth of a millimetre
collision of futuristic fluorescence and deep time
the catalogue of life in the stone
porous and steadfast under brightness
and now, some weeks later
that image created by the collision has been upscaled on a screen
routed as a pattern
assembled and renovated into wax
in real form again
and I’m working with my hands again
with a fragment of granite, my chosen stone
pressing the crystal edges
to roughen and stonify, the smooth paraffin skin
imprinting
a granite language
part of a mountain into the form
granite meeting petroleum > to meet fire > to meet bronze
here
materiality reigns supreme
there is no avoiding
the elemental forces that make up all life the ephemeral and the immortal
tussle
I hold
a small dear
hand-folded
metal vessel with a handle that had been dipped in
emerald green molten wax
I drip the warm liquid
paint it with a brush
onto my sculpture
tenderly pressing points of granite as it hardens
for the surface to resemble stone
I work with sandpaper and white spirits
noble tools with sharp blades
curved — metal with wooden handles
today the bright foundry
is humming with music
and the bodies of men
I am the only woman
everyone is working — rapt
light ricocheting off
white plaster sculpture moulds
dust
and whitewashed walls
marks of making and rendering
smelting and pouring
solidified into the walls
this building
a giant mouth
speaks invisible stories of artworks made
through teeth
of alloyed objects – welded, polished and patinated
taps covered in wax
We are post lockdown #2
the radio is a fountain of commentary
on democracy; its threats, its strengths
sounds of election scrutiny
floating high
in the air above as we work
I carefully render the corner
of a moulded wax stone with a rasp
I imagine the weight
of that rocky Pnyx Hill
where western democracy
was founded
Those stones which observed demos, ‘the people’
and kratos, ‘power’
could such a mass anchor?
demokratia
so that it could not float up and off
— an aloof ideal
lost to the world
where is this mooring now?
I think about love
and my daughter
who I will soon feed milk from my breasts
and of the ephemeral
and the non-ephemeral
responsibility and weight
of the imprint
of the marks I make today
that will outlive my own life
will the climate still have us?
in my mind’s eye I see
the site for this sculpture
near the ocean — bronze vessel
— open translator
between the
clouds and the ground
