Two weeks after Ragdale, at a second month-long residency at the Vermont Studio Center, production began. My studio was in the Schultz sculpture barn, ideal for casting in plaster, with a great woodshop on the first floor. I worked on a few other projects, butI spent a large part of the residency making more models, then molds, and then casting the works and scouting locations.
Towards the end of the residency, I received the news that the inital piece at Ragdale had 'folded over’, and a photograph that showed me what had happened, which also showed me how to prevent its happening again. That solution did mean that the pieces I had just made would need to be cut into and reworked internally. I decided to only install one piece in Vermont, and cobbled together a somewhat improved internal support system for it.
The original piece at Ragdale, about six weeks after installation.
I initially wanted all the works to be installed on dead trees. During a dinner conversation with VSC co-founder Jon Gregg, I asked to install on some cut stumps near the river, because how I would know if a tree was dead in November? He made me laugh out loud when he said, “This is VERMONT! People drill into live trees ALL THE TIME!”
Ten new pieces were made before I ran out of beaten pulp, but after seeing the Ragdale photo, I knew these would all needed to be re-worked internally.
So, I chose a location across the beautiful, swift little Gihon River where the piece could unobtrusively eavesdrop on all the fertile conversations that take place in VSC's huge dining hall, located in a former mill next to a waterfall. Installation involved a bit of tree-climbing but I managed not to fall in the river.
The piece looked great, but I doubt that it survived for long, as it was a bit too cold for the adhesive to set properly (it snowed the next day). The project needs to be tabled during the winters.
