Summer Camp: Drawing and Wandering

I settle in to life at Camp Mondamin. My cabin is right on the lake, and I wake early each morning to an ever shifting view of skies, water and trees. In the evenings there are fireflies and the grasses and trees sparkle mysteriously.

The day unfolds punctuated with the ringing of the large brass bell which echos across camp: from the first peal at 7:45, accompanied by a bellow of ‘Good Morning Mondamin!’, through meal and activity times, to the call to cabins and ‘lights out’ bell at 10 pm. Breakfast is followed by assembly, with songs sung enthusiastically if not always in tune, and uproarious announcement of day’s activites: Overnight mountaineering adventures! Sailing races! Mountain bike jumping and River kayaking! Weekly evening activities include rambunctious outdoor games, and a dance social with the nearby girls camp, balanced by weekly campfire reflections.

Each morning I walk through trees along the shore to the ‘Craft Castle’, an open air space at top of the camp, in shade of tall trees, overlooking the swimming area, boating docks, and across the lake to hills and boathouses. I join Bunyan, an artist and mountaineer, who leads the Arts and Crafts programme, and Sam a cabin counsellor and artist, also from the UK. I will be covering Bunyan’s position when he is away for the next several weeks. But first, I have a few days to get to know the camp and campers.

I sit sketching at the back of morning assembly, and introduce myself to campers by way of drawing portraits. The boys are marvellously complementary of my efforts and thrilled to sit for me and be drawn- ‘Can you do me next? Me??’ So nice to have such willing models and artistic acclaim! I chat with the boys, ask them about themselves, their lives and the things they like at camp. Many are from the Southern states, and have charming accents and manners. They are boisterous, cheeky and full of enthusiasm. I draw the younger campers more than the older ones, who are frequently preparing or out on overnight trips. Drawing portraits is also a sneaky way of getting campers intrigued to start drawing themselves. I am using my ink pens, and a watercolour pencil for shade, experimenting with capturing form and tone using a thin ink line. I let them try out my pens and carry around extra pencils and card for them to use.

During my time here I hope to contribute to an active culture of creativity, based on the portable practice of drawing. In Wanderlust, Rebecca Solnit finds a natural affinity between the activities of walking and reading, a similarity in the linear travel through space and thought.

“Walking shares with making and working that crucial element of engagement of the body and the mind with the world, of knowing the world through the body and the body through the world”

— Rebecca Solnit

I believe this relates as well to the act of drawing, which links observation and sensation with thought and mark making. I hope to encourage the campers to explore drawing as a method of observing, questioning and engaging with the world. Practically, this means that I try to spend less time in the ‘Craft Castle’, and more time out and about. I bring drawing materials to the docks, where we draw and discuss methods to convey perspective. We draw horses and trees and try to capture shape and texture. Some boys bring a fish: through drawing we look more closely, see more detail, become more curious and generate more questions.

I grew up among the dry pine forests of Colorado and now live in the demure countryside of the UK. I’m stunned by the scale and variety of the trees and foliage here in the Appalachians. At nights I read about current research into plant sensing and communication, and learn surprising new evidence of plant decision making, memory and intentionality, behaviour we wouldn't ascribe to plants. (The Light Eaters, by environmental journalist Zoe Schlanger). Scientific research is, like art, about looking and attending closely.

Summer Camp : Art and Adventure

One morning in assembly the counsellors announced the first overnight sailing trip to nearby Rabbit Island, This small trip would be a good practice of sailing and camping skills before heading off on longer jaunts. Rabbit Island is a dinky outcrop covered with trees, with just enough space to pitch a few tents. It was just across the water from my cabin. After they had sailed off and pitched camp, I borrowed a dry bag from the kayaking team, filled it with notebooks, pencils, watercolours and cookies, put on my swimsuit, and set off across the water to surprize the campers with after dinner drawing activites.

Some call it art - I call it an adventure!

Surrounded by mountains, and with all this adventuring going on, I wasn't content to just stay in the art workshop. During my first week at camp I joined Bunyan and a van load of boys on a day trip to the Blue Ridge Parkway, a linear National Park which runs along the spine of the Appalachian Mountains.

After a picnic lunch amongst tree roots, and sheltering from a sudden downpour in the van, we hiked down a pathway with views overlooking wooded mountains and stopped at a stream for an extended drawing session. Another time, on a lazy hot afternoon, I led an afternoon walk from camp to the nearby forests for a meditative tree drawing session.

Many people are nervous about drawing, thinking they can’t do it, they don’t know what to draw, they might get bored. Well. These thoughts are not unfamiliar to artists. One way I like to get people to start is by looking at the subject and drawing without looking at the paper. I invited told the boys to imagine an ant crawling over the leaves of a nearby plant or a squirrel running among the branches of the distant trees or mountains, and to let their pencils trace the movement on paper. For tone or depth, we could imagine a worm or a bird, burrowing or diving into hollows, tracing this movement through the pressure or scribbles of their pencils.   

I make trip drawing packs with stiff card, pencils, pens and gouache and lead several waterfall drawing and swimming hikes. We make colourful abstract drawings by using gouache to create lumpy rock shapes and directional ink lines to capture the rushing water and reaching trees. Then we go for a swim.

In camp, colour and adventure leaked into other activites. We visited the snakes and spiders in the Nature Lab, then came back to the workshop to make plaster casts which we later painted. One morning we headed to the barn to draw and paint horses.

It was great fun teaching and leading activites, but I was also hoping to make some larger scale interactive sculpture for the camp, and I’ll write about that in my next post.

RESIDENT WILDINGS

Resident Wildings are a set of four oversized welded steel insects - Spider, Bumblebee, Lightning Bug, Cricket - created by artist Melissa Pierce Murray for Camp Mondamin, an outdoor activity summer camp for boys, aged 8-17.

During her time as artist in residence, she was inspired by interactions with the Mondamin community to create the playfully interactive artworks, linking to the camp themes of care and responsibility of each other and the environment. Robust and freestanding, the insects can be easily hung, carried or positioned about camp. She hopes the insects will join in daily activites and become valued co-inhabitants of camp.

I was at Camp Mondamin partly to cover the Head of Arts and Crafts role, but also as Artist in Residence.

I wanted to make some sort of artwork for Camp, to create something interactive, engaging. I imagined lightweight sculptures that could be moved about camp, ideally sculptures that would retain their interest year after year, not works that would become part of the backdrop. I wanted something that would be appreciated by kids as well as adults, by art enthusiasts as well as the art ambivalent. I also wanted the sculptures to be responsive to the wilderness setting and camp ethos of care and responsibility of each other and the environment. Finally, I wanted to create something that would acknowledge the times we are living through, but to do so in an oblique and playful manner.

The mind is drawn to novelty and movement. Fixed and static forms can initially catch the eye and capture the attention, but with time they become familiar, and we stop noticing them. The challenge to a sculptor is to create an artwork that remains compelling to the mind and senses. There are various ways one can do this: one which I’ve been experimenting with for a number of years is to make interactive or repositionable sculptures. Thus while the form remains the same, the contexts and interactions are continually changing.

The camp has four ‘lines’ of sleeping cabins, with campers grouped by age. One of the counsellors suggested that I could make a sculpture for each line. I liked this idea, because it would give context in which to situate the works and encourage the campers to assume ownership of each sculpture.

Insects were a feature of camp. In the evenings we admired lightning bugs, during the days we held the big tarantula in the Nature Lab, raised crickets to feed to the spiders, and the fragrant, blossoming trees hummed with bees. I showed the boys how to make colourful paper and string spiders with google eyes: these made their way into the cabins and onto the pillows of their counsellors to surprise them at bedtime. During art sessions I chatted with Bunyan about my welding ideas, and he encouraged me to run with the idea of insects. I was grateful for this nudge, as it would also link with the line drawing techniques I’d been teaching the campers.

The camp maintenance team did have welding equiptment which I hoped to be able to use. I proposed my ideas to the camp director, including images of sculptures I’ve made in the past (see past works).

I'm hoping to make some large welded steel bugs for the camp- info and pictures below. These will be like quick 3-d sketches. I'd have time to work on them next week. I'd need some steel, access to a welder and equipment and welding clothing.

Bunyan had left, and I was busily occupied teaching and organising activites when the steel finally arrived.

Hi Melissa- The metal is here! Could you come with me to the maintenance meeting at 7:30 tomorrow to discuss using the welder?

I arranged to head over to the maintenance shop in the evenings to weld, staying up later and later each evening, as I really didn't have much time left until Bunyan returned and I headed back the the UK. I finished the last insect in the early hours of the morning I was to leave. I got to meet the local night sheriff who came through on his patrols, who admired my welding and regarded me with curiosity.

image credits: Jon Mullen 2025

I brought the insects into the morning assembly, where the campers admired them before they were promptly put into service as songbook stands. Later that day, the boys carried them to different locations about the camp.

I wanted to find a good title for these artworks. The word ‘Wildings’ emerged from discussions with the camp photographer, Jon Mullen, who is also a bee-keeper, among many other talents. I liked ‘wildings’, which combines the sense of ‘wild things’ and ‘weldings’, and paired this with ‘resident’ as a reminder that humans are one of many creatures which inhabit the earth, and while we may sometimes regard them as nuisances, insects are vital to our survival.

Coles Casting : Creating a Bronze Sculpture

I won the opportunity to have a small bronze sculpture cast at Coles Castings!

Coles Castings is a fine art foundry in North Dorset who specialise in bespoke works in cast iron, bronze and aluminium. They offer a range of foundry processes including lost wax in ceramic shell, silicon rubber mould making, traditional sand casting, metal finishing, and patination. Stephen and Necole, the founders of Coles Casting, gave an online talk to members of the Royal Society of Sculptors, and I won the prize draw for a small bronze cast.

“…we are looking forward to working with you to cast a piece of your work. We thought it may be best if you could send over a few images or ideas of what you would like to do and then we can have a further conversation about how best to move forward in the process. “

Below is an extended blog post with lots of cool pictures documenting the development of the sculpture and the casting process. I hope you enjoy it!

December: Zoom Meeting and Initial Ideas

I had been developing some sculptures in wax which I wanted to cast, so was thrilled at this chance to meet Stephen and Necole, and show them my ideas. In the past I’ve cast figurative bronzes using the ceramic shell process (see commissions), but I was interested to learn techniques for casting these more complicated forms, and also to find out about sand casting.

To make a bronze, a silicon mold is made of the original sculpture, and the form is reproduced in wax. Wax rods or ‘sprues’ are attached to the wax copy, providing channels for the bronze to run into the mould during the ceramic shell casting process. The entire form is then encased in investment plaster or ceramic shell, the wax melted out, and the bronze poured back in. Making a mold of the original also allows you to make multiple casts of the same piece.

After looking at the complexity of the form and size of my sculptures, Stephen and Necole thought it most suitable to work directly in wax and use the lost wax process: encasing the original form in a ceramic shell, melting out the wax, and pouring bronze back in. My original sculptures were made using soft brown modelling wax supported by steel armatures, which couldn’t be melted out. This meant I had to try to remake the sculptures, using wax only. However, I was interested to try out this direct method of working. This would cut out the intermediate step (and cost and complexity) of making a silicon mold, but I would only be able to make one unique, rather than multiple, casts. (It is possible to use wax over a bronze wire armature, but I didn't experiment with that process this time.)

January: Experimentation and Frustration

“ Hi Necole… I received the wax and started back the studio this week. It’s going.. difficultly.  When I was initially working on these forms, I found I couldn’t do what I wanted to do without the rigidity and flexibility of the steel armature. I was hopeful that wax you sent might work, but I haven’t yet managed it. Below is a little recounting of my efforts so far, so you can see what I’ve tried. I’d welcome your thoughts! Melissa “

Necole sent me long rods of red sprue wax, which she thought might be flexible enough to bend and shape, yet still rigid enough to hold the form. It took me a fair amount of experimentation and determination to figure out how to make these forms without the rigidity the metal armature provides. The curves of red wax tended to flop when I worked on them.

I made a long plaster mold to cast rods of even more rigid green casting wax, and bent them into shape as the rods were cooling. It was winter, and quite cold in the studio. If I warmed up the wax enough to be able to bend it, the entire form would ‘flop’ and not hold it’s shape. If I tried to adjust the curves without warming it, or tried to model or shape the surface of the forms, the cold wax would crack and fracture into pieces. In principle, is easy to melt the wax and stick pieces back together, but I lacked a sufficient number of arms and hands to hold all the pieces of these tangled forms in the correct positions. It was quite frustrating work.

February: Technique, Play and Refinement

However, Necole and Stephen were at hand to contribute expertise and ideas for working with wax, advising on tools, methods and techniques. I learned how to make ‘bog wax’, by kneading warm wax as it’s setting until it achieves a putty-like texture, which I could use to model. I experimented with building up forms using bog wax, then shaping the curves by using a metal knife heated in a propane flame. I worked on several pieces simultaneously, partly because I often work in multiples, but also so that when one form started to warm up and sag, I could put it aside to cool down and work on another. I even got good enough so that, when one day I came to the studio to find a wax sculpture smashed to pieces on the floor (I had hung it off the corner of a chair as the wax was was cooling and setting), I was able to puzzle it back together.

“At this point I am having so much fun! My mind is completely filled with tangled forms. Shaping, playing, drawing out the lines, trying out different surface topographies.

“What maximum thickness should I aim for (or not exceed)? And regarding surface finish- I am using a hot knife to melt and shape. I wish I could sand, but my rifflers or sand paper get clogged up. I seem to remember that methylated spirits soften the surface? I might try using a thin veneer of brown modelling wax.”

Having mastered the forms, I turned my attention to refinement of the shape and the surface texture. I was using a hot knife to melt the surface, and Necole suggested I could also try using wet/dry sandpaper or sanding mesh dipped in white spirits to dissolve and smooth the surface a bit. As these were to be cast solid, rather than as hollow forms, she advised that the diameter of the wax stayed within the 4mm to 12mm range, with gradual changes in thickness (rather than very thin next to very thick) to avoid bronze flow issues.

March: Studio Exhibition

“I want to cast them all! I want to try out colours- solid cobalt blue or vivid orange- and metals- bronze, aluminium, steel. I have so many other ideas I want to try, so many more forms. “

At this point I had created five wax forms, and wanted to cast them all. I weighed the wax and Coles Casting gave me quote for the price of casting each sculpture. I could afford to cast one extra piece, for now. To help me choose which, I set up a studio exhibition, and included the original steel/brown modelling wax sculptures, alongside a series of related paintings. The paintings were created using ink over a beeswax resist.

April: Foundry Visit

“Looking forward to visiting and bringing the waxes down next week! I’ll aim to arrive after lunch on Wednesday and leave Thursday afternoon.  Another question, I have a VW camper van- can you recommend a nearby place to camp?”

I

I drove from the flat Cambridge fenland to the rolling Dorset countryside, passing and admiring Stonehenge along the way. I arranged with Stephen and Necole to visit at a time when they were doing a bronze pour, so I could see the foundry in action and learn more about the processes they use. This would help me in designing ideas for future potential works. It’s not that I want my ideas to be constrained by processes, but there is a very practical side to making sculpture. It’s easy to have an idea but I think that sometimes the execution can be constrained by available techniques. I find that this understanding helps me work around potential limitations.

On the first day Necole and Stephen were preparing works for the bronze pour the subsequent day. While I worked on final finish details on my waxes, I badgered the two with questions and tried not to get in the way. Both gracefully and generously shared their knowledge and expertise as they worked. For the ceramic shell process, they dipped and coated, building up layers of the liquid slurry coated with sand. For the sand casting process, they packed damp sand about the original form. With tremendous flames leaping from the kiln, Stephen burned out the wax of some previously completed ceramic shell coated pieces.

On the the second day, Stephen fired up the furnace and loaded the crucible with bronze ingots, while Necole shovelled sand into a row of tubs, then placed upside down ceramic shell jackets into each. The day was fiercely hot. When the crucible of molten bronze was ready, the two donned heavy leather jackets and gauntlets and kindly sent me to the edge of the yard, where I could watch from a safe distance- which I was happy to do, because the lucent metal looks terrifying like lava. After pouring the bright-hot bronze in well-rehearsed choreography, Stephen and Necole smiled and shook hands. To celebrate remaining in possession of theirs, I think.

Sand Casting

I’ve always been interested in translating ink line drawings into metal sculptures and I was interested in developing works suitable for sand casting, a relatively more simple process.

While at the foundry, I started modelling a flat piece in clay, and asked Stephen about ways make it easiest to cast. I was working in clay, but ideally the original would be in a harder/more rigid medium, and the form flat, no undercuts, no huge changes in thickness. Back in my studio, I completed this piece, made a silicone mold and cast into jesmonite. I brought this back to the foundry at a later date for them to cast.

May: Foundry Casting

I left the waxes at the foundry to attach risers/runners, invest in ceramic shell, and include in the next bronze pour. In the meantime, I prepared for my next adventure…

June: Artist in Residence- Mondamin Summer Camp, North Carolina

At this point I headed off to a residency in North Carolina, where I spent a month drawing, teaching and welding steel sculptures at the Mondamin Summer Outdoor Camp (see Summer Camp blog posts).

July: Patination

“I want to try two contrasting patinations- maybe one blueish and one greenish- a bit of experimentation.“

I tend to use the colour of the materials I work with. When I do add colour, I treat it as a sculptural element. With these works, I wanted to try out two contrasting patinas. First we prepped the bonzes, smoothing away any surface blemishes from the casting process, and adding back details from the areas where the sprues had been cut off. I say “we”: I did the easy work of sanding and riffling, and Necole, the more laborious and technically challenging work of grinding texture into the bronze. The works were sand blasted, and then Stephen mixed the acids (Ferric Nitrate, Liver/Potash, Marble White, Cupric Nitrate). He heated the bronzes with a propane torch and bit by bit added the colour using a paintbrush dipped in the acid. For one bronze, I went for a traditional treatment of Ferric, Cupric, and White, which provides a more dramatic mottled green finish, and with the other, by contrast, the solid black of the Liver/Potash, which highlights the sculptural form.

August: Hatching Plans

So I’m back in Cambridge now, enjoying my bronzes and planning for an exhibitions and developing new works. Necole and Stephen have been so helpful and generous with their time and knowledge. I am incredibly grateful to Coles Casting and to the Royal Society of Sculptors for this opportunity.

Reflections

In the past, I undertook private commissions for works in bronze, steel and stone. In more recent years, I’ve focused on large scale, interactive, transient, or performative artworks. This event-based, temporary work is tremendously exciting, and to creates opportunities for viewers to engage with my work ‘thinkingly’, and gives viewers a creative role. However these artworks are difficult to exhibit or sell.

In making these bronze tangles, I wanted to create permanent artworks suitable for interior or domestic environments and exhibitions which retained the interest and dynamism of my large scale interactive artworks. These tactile bronzes have no ‘right way up’, and can be variously positioned, and the lines of their open forms take on myriad relationships as the viewer moves about the sculpture.

My plans are develop more works like these for sale and exhibition, and also to help public art commissioners better envisage my sculptures on a monumental scale.

Summer Camp: Artist in Residence

I’ve arrived at summer camp!

I wanted to base my work this year on ideas of journeys and peregrenations, with themes of reaching, stretching, exploring and experiencing. What more fitting way to begin than outdoor camp which aims “to encourage growth and foster education through adventure”!

Camp Mondamin is a summer camp for boys, ages 6 to 17. Located in the Appalachian Mountains of North Carolina, the camp emphasizes outdoor activities such as hiking, kayaking, canoeing, sailing, mountain biking, rock climbing, and horseback riding. Their goal is to build self-esteem while teaching community living skills, respect for the environment, and a love for the outdoors.

Over the next month I’ll join in daily life at camp, finding ways that my interests in making can contribute to camp activities and outdoor nature trips. My work with the campers will be based in the arts and crafts pavilion- the “craft castle”, where I’ll work alongside to other artists to provide hands-on creative work to compliment outdoor activities. I also plan to design activities suitable for joining out of camp trips and just possibly an overnight back country adventure.

As someone who grew up in the mountains of Colorado, I’ve continued throughout my life to be sustained and artistically inspired by walking through the natural world, and considering how environments shape cultures. I haven’t been to the Southern states previously, so mingling with the community here on the edge of the Appalachian mountains is an opportunity to explore this part of the the country, to and learn a bit about this culture and landscape. I’m in a forested place, full of new verdant, abundant growth. The trees tower upwards, and the forest floor is dense with myriad leaves. A tree with uniquely shaped leaves caught my eye: I learned it is called Sassafrass, and grows three distinct leaf patterns on the same plant, and that the root was used for making root beer soda.

I’ve brought two books along to inspire my thinking: Wanderlust by Rebecca Solent, and The Light Eaters, by Zoe Schlanger. Wanderlust is an exploration of the relationships between thinking and walking and and culture- an ideal companion as I investigate this new territory. The Light Eaters explores scientific research into the biological capabilities of plants. I’m intrigued to find out more about how plants sense and react to their environment world, and to consider new scientific research that considers ways in which plants may be said to communicate.

For the first two weeks I’ll have time to draw and join in activities and learn about the camp community. For the following two weeks, I’ll take on the role of Head of Craft, leading daily artistic sessions.

I’ll be writing posts once or twice a week and look forward to sharing news with you!

Tangled Up

Finding forms and trying to find words

I have finished working on the sculptures for The Bacchae performance, and I want to return to the stony tangles I was making last year. I had been experimenting with Jesmonite (a crushed stone/concrete/acrylic composite), modelling and shaping it over a steel armature.

I previously made a linear black tangle accented with white lines. The lines dance across and between the different physical curves as you move about the form, until from one perspective it is is as if a line is slicing directly through the form. The intention is to create a relationship between the work and the viewer, where the sculpture is an active participant in a conversation.

The white vein is striking but difficult to construct. I want to experiment more and improve this technique, to get the effect I’m after- a line that only exists from one perspective. If I can figure out a good method for doing this I’ll try adding more lines.

I made other tangles in solid colours: terracotta, white, mustard yellow. Fluid forms with surfaces of sandstone, seemingly capable of movement or intention. I placed them in various relations to each other – side by side, in pairs, or entangled together – to learn how they interact. I like the scale of these works- at about 30 -70 cm across, they are nice to run your hand over and can be positioned in different ways.

Because I move them about the studio, and because they can be easily carried, I’ve imagined people walking around an urban landscape with these sculptures and placing them at different vantage points, like a flash sculpture performance.

But why would they be doing that? Blank expanses are full of potential: I imagine directing people as they move around, positioning sculptures in city squares in a similar way that I think of making marks on a blank page, or of actors performing on a stage. At times I take an idea explored in drawing and wonder what it is, how can I bring the impulse into a physical space, a form into being.

And then, once realized, how might this form relate to the world?  I’ve read of authors who talk about the act of writing in this way- they give voice to a character and then the character moves, speaks, and thinks almost independently of the writer – at these times, the writer simply seems to be a facilitator, enabling the characters to do so. Similarly I make a piece, then place it on the floor, or in a corner, or on top of, or going through another form. As the sculptures and the environment explore each other, I get to know and understand their meaning and intent, different possibilities for expression.

Though some of my studio works can be held in your arms or hands, I can also imagine these same works to be very large, as forms to climb on or through. My large flexible steel sculptures have given me ways to experiment with such scales, for example creating dynamic spaces that dancers could move through.  

During my residency at Aldeburgh Beach Lookout Tower and Art Space, I wrapped the sculptures in white cloth or in coloured mesh to add substance to them visually, while keeping the works lightweight. This was a way to work with them dynamically.

Currently I’m thinking of these tangles as pathways, or journeys or moments when something comes into being. They are spacious objects, mere lines in space yet somehow substantial. It’s always tricky to find words to describe ideas that have been developed non-verbally and expressed in form, but this is one of the ways I work to explore meaning.

I tend to stick to rather minimal forms and materials. I could introduce fur, or teeth or garish colours, or make sculptures that leak... actually, that does sound kind of fun, and maybe some day I’ll do that. But for right now, I’m finding that the simplicity of form lends an expressive ambiguity. I am captured by this sparse and alluring austerity of form.

Journal Entry: 16 May 2024

Brought sculptures to Cambridge Artworks to photograph today. Exciting getting them into the empty, echoing space. Just back from unloading van after the photoshoot, and reflecting on the day.

Thinking back to the opera workshop I attended this weekend. A director and a singer led us through lots of playing with movement, writing and singing. The director said that humans are always inventing narratives, and encouraged us to indulge this tendency. What happens when you freeze the movement of people, remove half of them randomly, then look for what stories emerge from the remaining clusters of people? This is often how I work with my sculptures, and how I approached the photoshoot at Artworks today- arranging the forms in a space in relation to each other and then considering how they can express different meanings and ideas, how conversations emerge.

The opera singer told us that there are 6 stages in any creative process: 1- This is amazing! 2-This is kind of difficult. 3- This is crap. 4- I’m crap. 5- Maybe I can salvage something. 6- This is amazing!

Not quite sure which stage I’m in at the moment. Tired.

I took ‘time lapse’ shots, taking a photo each time I positioned a sculptural form. I built up very tall stacks, first in the middle of the room, which went well, then spread the forms on the ground, then built them up again in the corner. 

The balanced forms teetered near the ceiling. I got over-ambitious. I got the photo, but then the stack collapsed with a tremendous, resounding crash. That room has a good reverb.

So a few of them are cracked, which was disspiriting, as I need these for the rehearsals and performance with in situ: theatre next month and I don’t have time to make more. 

I switched to placing forms into compositions and arrangements, and photographing these. Oh, I forgot to say that I had switched from overhead to natural lighting halfway through the first set of photos, which gave better directional shadows from the floor to ceiling windows along the front of the gallery space.

I photographed larger stacks in relation to each other, stacks balanced along the wall, and tiled forms moving out from the corner at an angular line. I tried out some simple ‘rules’: in threes, in pairs, random across the room, arrays.

I did walls and paths but they started to look too much like those limestone rocks that people cement to the tops of their garden walls in Yorkshire. I think I started to lose some enthusiasm at this point.

So I got out my steel plinths, arranging the frames and boulders in various relations to each other. I made some tall stacks of balancing forms that reached to the ceiling. I decided I didn’t like the frames visually- in any case, not the two stacked on top of eachother, so worked more with them individually.

I got some good photos but dropped another form, cracking it, which was again disspiriting. Why do I spend so much time making things then destroying them? I suppose most of life is like that: we make things and they degrade. Just not immediately.

Admitedly, it would be exciting to smash them. One of the most thrilling moments was when the corner stack started to audibly creak as it settled, then suddenly dramatically shifted and smashed. And then all was still again as the echoes faded… but… is that just sensational, breaking something just for the thrill? What is the purpose of artistic activity?

Reflecting Later

This evocative moment of collapse would be a powerful metaphor, relevant to many contemporary circumstances. But I question how relevant this is to my own artistic aims. In the studio I am pushing meaning and exploring boundaries for myself, but then there’s the interface between what I’m impelled to make and how this may be regarded by others. If I dramatically smash artworks, am I doing it for my own art or because others might find it thrilling?

I put the frames away and spent time arranging the forms around the space and wandering through them. I’ll review the photos later. There must be at least some interesting ones to use.

I’ve been trying to experiment with how I write about my work, sometimes just collecting words that come to mind.

smash, brittle, worn, stacked, balanced, precarious, rocking, tipping, stones, ice-floes, collapse, lumped, separate, fitting, paving stones, settle, scuffed

in situ: Artist in Theatre

Last autumn I joined a theatre group.

In the past I’ve worked with dancers to combine sculptures, choreography and movement. This year, I wanted to hone in on sculpture and performance. I invited several people involved in theatre to an exhibition I held called ‘Conversations, Sculptures and Spaces’. We chatted about possibilities of using my work in performances, for example working with groups to stage impromptu or improvised “sculptural events” in various locations.

My ideas really resonated with Richard Spaul, artistic director of Cambridge based theatre group in situ:. This year in situ: were running acting courses focusing on Greek Theatre, culminating in an outdoor performance at Wandlebury Country Park. Richard invited me to be this year’s artist in residence. Since then, working with the company gave me the opportunity to explore how my art may sit within theatre, as well as expanding my understanding of how people respond and interact with my sculptures. I also joined the group as an actor! I‘ve been intrigued to revisit my interests in classics and drama, which I studied in university.

Course leader and Artistic Director Richard Spaul explains: “We’re keen for everyone to learn about Greek Tragedy and how to perform it… that said, our main aim is simply to build enthusiasm and excitement for the art of acting.” Richard himself is an inspiring actor, director as well as teacher.

REHEARSALS

Since autumn, we’ve been working together on Monday evenings.

At first we worked without objects, concentrating on ideas of devising and theatre games and explorations. We worked with fragments of texts from Greek tragedies, but each week explored different ways of approaching and engaging with it. In each session, Richard introduced a different idea or focus, for example, finding characters through breath or body work, creating a still ‘tableau’ of a particular scene. I was especially interested in our work with relationships between the protagonist and the chorus, presenting a central character and a corresponding body of commentary or reflection. We experimented a lot with moving together as a group, finding ways to mirror each other both physically and emotionally without actually looking at the leading actor. Richard creates a brave, exploratory space to transcend any inhibitions about using the body to express. I’m fascinated to see crossovers between performance devising and studio experimentation, and as well, the parallels between facilitating art activities, and teaching acting and dramatic expression, both helping people to explore creativity through daring experimentation, no matter their experience.

 “We start with games to help us learn to concentrate, cooperate and work as a group… we might focus on physiology, body language, voice… explore the mental and the emotional… create and perform characters… work with learned text… improvise from scratch… be asked to act within boundaries such as a tiny square space… use a single text in many different scenes with different people with different groups, and with different meanings…watch each other perform then develop a creative response to what we’ve seen and heard.”

Towards the end of the first term, I introduced a range of sculptures into the rehearsal space. I explained to participants that the objects were not to be regarded as props or sets, but invited them to regard the sculptures as fellow actors. Each sculptural element has its own presence which is both physical as well as metaphorical, and the object plays a role and shifts meaning within the performance space. The frames could be stacked, laid on their side, stood upon, passed around, traversed through… The spikes might become lines of division, or create soundscapes. The actors responded viscerally to the plaster boulders, lying on the ground with them, fitting themselves to them, or having the physical object almost become an ambiguous source of conflict being exchanged between actors. The sculptures became a prompt for taking dramatic expression in a novel direction. Objects were placed about the space, lifted in the air, or arranged together to create a strange landscape. Some of the actors have been working with the company for many years. They are fearless in their experimentation and expressive abilities, willing to push the boundaries of any suggestions the lead may give and moving beyond them.

SITE EXPLORATION

In February we did an initial site exploration for sculptural events at Wandlebury Country Park.

At this point we had not made any decisions on what sort of sculptures to use or indeed how they would tie in to the final performance. Instead, I needed to understand how different forms, shapes and colours would read in the natural environment. Which objects would disappear into the foliage and which would have visual impact? I loaded up my van with a range of sculptures, met a group of actors in the car park, and the assembled troupe carried the objects through the woods to the hill where we will perform. By this time we were all familiar working together as actors and with the objects, so it was quite fun to direct both within the woods. The weather was an interesting variable in this new environment. I’d wrapped some of the objects in plastic to keep them from rusting, and created a set of lightweight and portable objects. The weight was important, as the lightness allowed them to be balanced and stacked in a much more dramatic and spacious ways, allowing actors actors to build towering and expansive pieces that took up more space.

Studio discussion

The next stage was a discussion with Richard about which elements would best support the in situ: performance in June.

Richard and I wanted to use something simple and workable that would still contribute creatively to the salient ideas of the overall work. We settled on the white plaster boulders. The previous ones I had used were not robust enough to withstand an outdoor rehearsals and performances, so I experimented with a new and hardier construction. Stacked or scattered, the white boulders stand out in the natural environment, their bony, rounded forms simultaneously expressive and indeterminate.

Following this performance I’ll start working towards my September exhibition ‘Trespass.’ I have ideas of creating temporary sculptures in diverse spaces. Perhaps I’ll gather a new set of participants to move with objects, travelling like troubadours or itinerant Shakespearian actors, creating wandering narratives in urban and natural environments.

euripedes: the bacchae

Wormwood Hill, Wandlebury Country Park, Cambridge

Wednesday 19 - Saturday 22 June, 2024

Travelling and Drawing

Over the Easter Break I visited Tblisi, Georgia, accompanying my husband who had a conference there. He’s an academic and travels a lot with his work. I haven’t accompanied him to conferences over the years, but now that we are parents of adult children and as he does travel to some fantastic places, I hope to join him more often. With these travel opportunities, I want to find ways to develop ideas and have continuity with my studio practice. Over this trip, I decided to do just that, through drawing.

I wanted to create a portable studio, but needed to keep the materials and objectives simple. After a bit of investigation I settled on a hardback watercolour notebook, my mechanical pencil for sketching composition, several ink pens with permanent ink for sketching, and a water soluble pencil for shading. And on top of materials, some structure was needed. Setting aside an hour a day to sit in a cafe and draw, I decided to concentrate on outlines, composition and tone, and to use words to frame the sketches, with the aim of creating a coherent visual diary. I hoped to develop an approach to drawing outside the studio that I could use for future trips, abroad or even at a local museum.

I find that drawing outdoors is complicated- there is a lot of visual information to take in and select from. My work usually centres around much simpler, more focussed and (increasingly now) abstract drawings. To simplify my approach to the complicated subjects I encountered in Georgia, I decided to work with just outline and tone to reduce the choices I would have to make when observing the intricacies of the city environment. In fact, I was a bit nervous and felt like quite the novice, despite my experience with paper and ink. This might be surprising to hear, but many artists do feel that nervousness when it comes to drawing. During a three-week drawing residency several years ago, I had daily conversations with other painters, sculptors, graphic or conceptual artists, centred around the question ‘What is drawing?’. Many would blurt out ‘I can’t draw!’, including those who were sitting in front of their own artworks that suggested quite the opposite. I guess everyone has different judgements of what ‘good’ drawing should look like.

So I was nervous, sitting down with a coffee in public, trying to look like I knew what I was doing. Fortunately, looking closely at the landscape and letting your pen make marks has a way of pulling you out of your head and into the environment. When I give drawing lessons, especially to those who are uncertain about it, I often start with the exercise of sketching without looking at the page. You can’t possibly feel bad about the resulting strange lines and proportions if you haven't been looking at what you’re doing! But you do take more notice of the things you are looking at, becoming aware of the visual choices you make. Do you draw around an object, draw its shadow, leave the outline of one object to trace the line of another? Do you get caught up in smalll details or try for broad sweeps and composition? What if something moves? How do you draw tone if you’re using a line to draw?

With this set of drawings, I used two ink pens. Over the past month I’ve been drawing with a gel roller ball pen and have enjoyed its even, consistent line. I prefer the indelible, defiant qualities of ink to the smudgy key of pencil. But ink is a bit tricky to handle- you can’t erase, and you can’t modulate the line thickness or tone as easily. As someone who works more frequently in three dimensions, I find perspective and tone unintuitive, so with the first few drawings I concentrated on the relationships between forms. Though I did focus on outlines, I tried to let my pen move from one shape to another, using this to feel my way into perspective and composition. Towards the end I used my water soluble pencil to shade in areas of tone and a water brush to blend.

I purchased my black fountain pen just before my trip and I really like it! It gives a much greater range of line thickness, allowing me to use line more expressively. With the gel pen my drawings tend to be more graphic and flat, whereas the fountain pen enables me to bring more depth into the compositions.

Now back in Cambridge, and especially now as the weather warms up for the spring and summer, I’ll continue drawing, trying to approach my familiar environment with a traveller’s eye.

Introduction

Hi, I’m Melissa!

Image Credit Anne-Katrin Purkiss 2023

I’m an artist from the mountains of Colorado, now based in Cambridge, UK. With this blog I plan to share my artistic thoughts, ideas, and images of my work. I’d like to reflect on what I do in the studio, what it means to me and how it relates to my experiences, travels and the world we live in. By sharing my passion for making and thinking I hope to use my ideas, sculptures and drawings to connect with people who are inspired by this work and to create conversations about how art and humans interact.

I’ve come from a rather unusual and eclectic background. From reading Physics and English Literature at University in the States and racing bicycles at a semi-professional level, to studying sculpture after moving to the UK, these experiences have informed my approaches to art. Whether working with objects or ideas, my interests lie in inter-disciplinary boundaries and connections. I am drawn to how ideas are embodied in physical objects and how we relate to them. I go to the studio to play with materials, form and interactions and use artistic creation as a way of exploring my thinking.

 Because my work derives from such diverse interests, the specific artworks I create can speak to multiple origins and conversations. I try to make intriguing objects and create novel contexts for people to engage with them. A few of my favourite artworks and projects include: 

Stasis - stacked, clear blocks of ice and inky spikes of steel, exhibited at an open day at the Scott Polar Institute. The work took inspiration from tensions between volcanic and glacial forces in Iceland. I used a chainsaw to cut the ice!  

Tipping Point - a dynamic sculptural takeover of Aldeburgh Beach Lookout Tower Art Space. I used an oversize sculpture kit of seemingly static sculptural forms to animate the tower and beach. Despite the wind and waves, I managed not to spike anyone.

Interactive Spaces- I’ve created flexible sculptures for dancers and interactive sculptural spaces for arts festivals. These works give me the opportunity to invite people to participate in the excitement I find in my studio, constructing juxtapositions of materials and forms.

Art and Science- I facilitate interactions between artists and scientists and have lead interdisciplinary creativity workshops, such as Drawing on Science at the University of Cambridge, and Thinking Objects at the University of Leeds. I’ve taught sculpture workshops to all ages, including stone carving, casting, and portrait modelling.    

If you like what you’ve read or are inspired by my art, or simply have any thoughts to share, I’d really love to hear your comments and questions. Let me know what you like, what you wonder about, what may or may not resonate with you, or any other ideas this post has sparked!