Reservoir’s rejected art

Art is considered valuable and worthy of preservation but what happens when it is not. A postman friend has been photographing and critiquing the art deposited on the nature strip outside the homes in an outer northern suburb. It was a series of Facebook posts starting Sept 23 2018 and is reproduced here with permission.

Art brut, au Reservoir: outsider art exhibited outside.

A new exhibit of outsider art for the Reservoir nature strip gallery, framed in glorious ironing board. Or is it merely fan art homage to Ariel Pink?

Art brut salon, Reservoir nature strip gallery.

Art le plus brut, sur un socle de boîte aux lettres, correspondance esthétique du jour, Reservoir. (Translation: The Most Raw Art, on a base of mailbox, aesthetic correspondence of the day, Reservoir.)

Design on serviette, discovered in a driveway, Reservoir. Calculating to graduate beyond the curb and up to street art.

 “In the wake of the death of God, only the death of desire can save us. The task of art is to abolish desire rather than re-educate it. If it once held out a promise of communal redemption, it is now a form of spiritual self-extinction. The self is not to be realised but annihilated, and the aesthetic is one place where, like Keats before the nightingale, it can be allowed to dissolve ecstatically away.” _Terry Eagleton (summarising Schopenhauer), Culture and the Death of God (2014).

A symbolic objection to global warming? I spotted this tasteful example of Mandarin calligraphy yesterday, junked among other rejects in a Reservoir front yard. Today it had migrated to the footpath, found leaning against the neighbour’s fence. I’ve had to rotate the image 90° to correctly orient the character. The red stamp below says “four seasons.” My guess is this was part of a set, the others being characters for the rest of the year. The word seen here is Summer. Someone’s over it.

Art outside, drifting liberated from a spontaneous tip on the nature strip.

The most recent raw art, the gallery on the nature band, in Reservoir.

The art brut colours of Reservoir: diptych on nature strip.

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Hot Metal in Reservoir

On Saturday I went to the opening of Mal Woods Foundry in Reservoir. Sculptors, foundry workers, friends and interested people gathering to watch bronze being poured along with nibbles and drinks.

The weather was great, a pleasant sunny day, I bicycled to the foundry from Coburg. “This must be the place.” I thought as I cycled along Kurnai Ave. The factory and even its carpark was an oasis of tasteful design in the industrial area.

The professionals were talking about their work including another Boer War Memorial with one and half sized equestrian statues. I can see why the sculptor, Louis Laumen and the foundry workers are keen on the project, more work for them. I can also see why the people behind the project might be having difficulty raising funds for it. Why does Australia need more Boer War Memorials?

There were amateur backyard foundry enthusiasts talking about their hair dryer or vacuum cleaner fanned furnaces. I didn’t know that there were amateur backyard foundries casting small objects in plaster moulds.

At the back of Mal Woods Foundry the moulds that had been drying out in a kiln and were then placed in a large metal trough and secured in place with sand.

Mal Wood added an ingot of tin and two large ingots of copper to the furnace, the tin first and then the copper. These two soft metals when combined produce an alloy that is harder than either of them.

The roar of furnace dies away and in front of the assembled crowd the crucible was removed. The temperature of the bronze tested and then the bronze was poured into the moulds. I didn’t see the results of these castings, you couldn’t tell from the moulds, not with all the venting pipes. When I left the bronze was turning from florescent pink to dark purple in the moulds, still hot enough to warm a person standing nearby.

For more on foundries read my 2012 post Casting Sculpture in Melbourne.