Grit in the Gears

I am the grit in the gears, the missing bolt, I am the poker of sticks into spokes. I like to know how things work, but sometimes when I take them apart and rebuild them, I have a few pieces left over. I am a man, so I tend to leave reading the instructions until after it goes wrong. And like all men I have a comprehensive mental map of the world and never need to ask directions. I never get lost, only sometimes I'm late, or end up in the wrong place entirely. It's what we do.

Saturday, 18 August 2012

Unintentional Sculptures

One of the many interesting places I visit at work, on a regular basis, is a warehouse where casting forms are made and stored. Most of these pieces are used to make the foundry moulds for cast-iron pumps and turbines. The people who work there are just ordinary working men. They take the plans from the designers and turn them into three-dimensional forms of the spaces outside a cast-iron part.

And in doing so, they create what to me are artworks to rival any sculptures I've seen in a gallery.

I walk in here, and I imagine just one of these pieces displayed at the centre of an upmarket gallery, spotlit, with people standing around, drinking wine, and discussing the allegorical nature of the artist's message.