Complete

The wrapping's off, the lights are on!

Installation

All the planning and preparation came to a head today with the sculpture being delivered to site and fixed to its foundations and power supply.

Just a bit more paving to cut and fit around the base, then the covers can come off and the commission finally finished.

Looking forward to the official "unveiling."

Glass circles

There are over 600 glass circles to be set in the front of the sculpture, and keeping track of all the participants' science images and glass disks has been a mighty admin challenge.

Collating the stacks of circles into their final position in the sculpture meant commandeering the sitting room for a few weeks, plus roping in a little family assistance.

Fitting the circles is the kind of job that gets easier the more you do, especially as getting the circles into the sculpture's fingertips was particularly fiddly.

Nice when lit though...

Polishing

With fabrication finally complete the sculpture was then professionally polished.

Shiny!

Fabrication 8

The small end of the sculpture will taper off quite sharply.  To get the right profile I made a temporary arm that swings around so the short metal rods can be arranged in concentric bands.

There are quite a few journeys to and from the studio required as the sculpture gets pickled, polished and installed.   A temporary frame was constructed to enable the sculpture to be loaded and transported more easily.

Fused Glass

There's such a transformation from firing the crushed and powdered glass.  Here's a before and after comparison...

Fabrication 7

Almost there...

Interior view from the small end:

It feels like it's taken forever, but finally the outside strips are complete!