Sculpture Studio Spring 2010

I started this project wanting to create something out of bikes. I wanted to engage in a dialogue with motion, with the freedom and expression that riding a bike entails. I wanted to deal with the way bikes operate as machines, and as a mode of transportation. I was interested in what happens when bikes are in a state of decay, when the visual language they communicate with has broken down and given way to rust and immobility.

Living at St. Mary's and working at the bike shop, this was something I would have to contend with on a consistent basis. By fixing bikes, I came to understand that not every bike is a gliding steel model of efficiency. However, these rusted husks could still serve a purpose. I wanted to build them up into something that would make me proud and would clearly signify the location and purpose of the shop.

I was inherently limited in my choice of materials. I originally wanted to create a standalone sculpture just made out of the rusted bike parts. However, it's quite hard to find welding points on cut up bike frames, and the paint on the bikes can be toxic. Thus I had to find a way to make the bike parts part of an overall coherent structure, but not one made of parts. I eventually decided on making a steel frame out of angle. I had to work out how to transport it in and out of the sculpture studio but once that was taken care of it was easy. It also helped that I have a Volvo station wagon.

Originally I wanted the parts to be hanging separately from the steel frame, but when I saw the parts all clustered on the floor, I realized it made more sense for them to be that way in the sculpture. I wanted the sculpture to signify immobility, a sort of content heaviness.

Obviously a sculpture made out of bikes in front of a bike shop is going to say something about bikes and how a bike shop operates. A bike shop's purpose is to fix bikes and to have a rusted globe of bikes outside of the shop serves as a sort of warning. This is what happens when you don't take care of your bike. However, I also like to think of the sculpture as representing how integral the bike shop is to St. Mary's. I feel like the cluster of bikes at the center of the sculpture  is a stand in for how integral the bike shop is to St. Mary's. The bike shop literally keeps the campus going.

I feel like the work was quite effective in what I wanted to achieve. I set out to make something quite large, quite immobile and monumental out of bike parts. I'm very satisfied with its location in the center of the courtyard, as are the other employees of the shop. I also really like the response I've gotten from my friends about the sculpture. I can genuinely say it's the thing I'm most proud of that I've made at St. Mary's. It's an incredibly solid and permanent sculpture.

There were a couple blips in the process leading up to the actual making of the sculpture. I'm much more comfortable in the process of actually making the work, as opposed to the process surrounding the work. However, I do understand that the more thought out a piece is, the better the outcome.