Moving Mountains...
The beds of Devonian rock which lie beneath Exmoor have had many millions of years to form; unfortunately I have only had six days to create both Exmoor and the Rift Valley in Kenya!
Real rock… hmmm… too expensive and rather heavy to lug about
A valley. Two slopes.
Two characters on two slopes, initially separate, but connected by what lies beneath. I have always been fascinated by colour coding on Geological maps each swirl and stripe representing many hours of fieldwork conducted by Geologists over the years in their quest to understand the earth.
So, the slopes are what we see and the coloured bands represent the strata and beds of rock. I might have the germ of a design idea here.
"Van packing can be quite a specialist art."
The landscape begins to take shape using a mixture of Polycarving, MDF sheets, bonding plaster mixed with sawdust and PVA; not to mention paint.
Polycarving is a technique, often used on film and TV, where you carve objects out of polystyrene or foam and cover them in fabric or plaster and apply a lick of paint. Statues, gargoyles or even a close up shot of Mount Everest could have been made this way. My version discovers a new use for polystyrene loft insulation tiles from the local DIY store.
Every thing has to be made in small sections so that it can be loaded into a van and transported to Taunton and swiftly reassembled. Van packing can be quite a specialist art.
Alex Marker is the designer for Rift, premiering on Thursday 17 – Saturday 19 at 7.45pm (Sat mat 3pm). Find out more.
