In amongst the chaos of our other two exhibitions (Salvation Show and Ro Ro Ro Your Bot ) the guys at the Bakery asked us, ever so nicely, if we could perhaps do something to enhance their decrepit back fence.
Now as we looked about the junkyard-esque terrain, we realised this wasn’t going to be a simple endeavour. The walls to either side were covered in traditional graffiti. Large bold pieces, a little horrid but very striking. One piece in particular, a large ‘JISM’ throw-up tells it’s own story that digs it’s little heels into a layer beneath the vandalism and says more about social culture than anything.
We took a few photos, the fence was black, corrugated and looked derelict. We thought about painting it, but we were afraid anything we could possibly do would either disappear or be completely overshadowed by the density of the other paintings in the lot.
The idea of cutting tin had been floating about for awhile and we thought that the shiny tin would sit well with the painted matt black fence. Hurben had used the silhouette of a flock of birds in the book he created for ‘Hurben’s World ‘ and we thought the idea of a flock of birds emerging from the middle of the fence would both inspire and enhance the quality of the fence without covering it up or taking anything away.
To the hardware store!
We purchased a ‘Nibbler’ for $90. It’s an attachment that sits on the end of your drill and ‘punches’ the tin, really fast. Cool!
Then to the back of a sign store, they always throw away nice things. We lugged a few sheets of nice looking tin that used to be signs. I think there was even one for the ‘Magic Apple’.
Used an overhead projector to draw the shapes, cut them out and attached them using pop-rivets. Beautiful!
