Meat Pod: In the Beginning

Assignment:  utilize biomorphic and geometric forms to create an abstract sculpture.

I started with a 4' x 10' sheet of 22ga. cold rolled steel from Reliance Steel. Easily the most NEW metal I've ever bought or owned at one time.

Ten feet is hard to photograph.

 Normally I would make patterns to decide what steel to cut, but this time I decided to wing it, in the name of biomorphism. I used the oxy-acetylene torch and cut random shapes.

With a pile of pieces to work from, I went to The Stump.

Using The Stump and a ball-peen hammer I made dents throughout the sheet.

Then I hammered the bumps back down, and as I did the metal started to gather up in areas, creating a unique texture.

I annealed the steel after the first round of hammering, the fire scale is evident.

Once all the pieces were hammered to my satisfaction, I rolled up the edges.

The edges let each piece butt up against another, so they could fit together.

Unfortunately they didn't fit together (it's like some idiot didn't make a pattern beforehand), so each piece had to be tweaked and bent to fit as well as possible to the next.