Overview
Sculptures by the Sea Bondi 2024 artist, Lucy Barker, from New South Wales received sponsorship from Capral Aluminium to support her in the creation of her artwork.
Artforms WA was approached by Capral to assist Lucy.
Lucy’s concept was to create a large mesh blanket from interlocking squares and washers to replicate © Glomesh, the iconic Australian product, first made in the 1950s.
We worked with Lucy’s initial dimensions for the individual pieces and amended the designs so that samples of the mesh would move and flow in the same way as the original material. We worked through several combinations of washer diameter and material thickness before we were happy to proceed to fabricate the full blanket.
Working with aluminium sheet provided by Capral Aluminium, we provided the laser cutter with the cutting files for the approved design elements.
3600 squares and accompanying washers were cut to create a blanket approximately 2600mm x 2600mm in size.
Photo: Lucy Barker Aluminium Donated by Capral Aluminium
The four ‘arms’ extending from each square hand to be linked through washers and folded accurately, by hand, to the rear to form a giant chainmail effect. To assist in this process, we designed a jig to fold the arms part way and relieve some of the strain on our hands of folding and interconnecting so many pieces.
The blanket was formed in two halves so that it could fit into the powder coater’s booth.
Each half was strung and secured along a rail so that the blankets would hang cleanly during the powder coating process and provide an even coverage.
Artforms delivered the two blankets to the powder coater where an excellent finish was applied to both sides of the artworks, replicating the vintage © Glomesh style.
Back at the workshop we carefully combined the two mesh blankets to form one piece.
The blanket was wrapped and crated with care prior to dispatch to Bondi.