Fibonacci - The piece
Thursday 3rd March, County Hall, The Day of Making.
When I arrived at the site it was still slightly damp from the storm the night before, however, areas of the the space had dried so it was able to be worked onto. With me I had two spotters to help keep an eye out for any cars trying to enter the car park, this was to avoid any accidents. High vis jackets were worn by myself and the two spotters for extra caution.
I had worked out all the maths of the piece before I began creating the piece, I had my sketchbook next to me throughout the process to refer too. I started within the center of the space, knowing I wanted to work my way out. The space began with the colour white, the brightest colour that I had in my chalk. I wanted the center of the space to be the brightest colour in order to draw viewers to the into the middle.
As I progressed through the rings, I would blend the colours together to make the tiles join together within the space. One ring would have solid colour, whereas the ring touching would be a gradient from one colour to the next. This was to create the effect of the spiral, rather than it being rings of colour, they seemed joined together, making a smoother flow from the center outwards.
Once I was 7 rings outwards, there was only 1 tile that broke up the ring. This meant that the 8th ring would be a solid ring. Although this would turn the spiral shape into a more solid shape, I wanted to carry on using the mathematical equation. If that meant from now on the space would be a solid space of colour, then that's the way it worked out. I knew eventually this would happen when I happened the piece, as the equation jumps into quite large numbers, and I knew the tiled space wouldn't have that many tiles per ring.
What I enjoyed about creating the piece was that visitors of the building were very curious by what I was doing, some even stopped on their way in the ask me questions. Some stated that it looked like I was enjoying myself, which I felt might have been a nice touch for them visiting the County Hall for whatever reason it might be. The act of making made people stop in their busy day to day lives and watch art being made. This was something that I wanted the piece to do, I wanted people to stop and interact with this overlooked space. However, some people were so focused on their lives that they were oblivious to my making, ignoring me as they passed by, focusing on the entrance of the building.
The piece also encouraged my spotters to join in with the process of making. There was a child like state of play that came along with the making. It reminded me back to being a child and how I would sit out in my Nans back garden and make art work on her concrete slabs. I resorted back into that mindset, but only maturer with a structure to the making. This bought attention to the piece and my spotters wanted to revert back to their childhood memories and create this giant piece of art as they did as a child. I thought back to those memories, wondering if I thought I'd ever be creating a piece this scale outside the grounds of County Hall.
About 13 rings out of the 19, I had gotten to the darkest shade within my collection of chalks. This inspired me to create a halo like effect with the white chalk that I still had. Using the white I blended it in with the darkest shade, pink, so that it gradually faded out into solid white. This then became more and more faded, blending into the tiles beneath it until the 19th ring was nothing but plain.
What I found interesting when making the piece was how cautious visitors where when driving into the car park. They would try and divert around the chalk, rather than drive straight over it. I didn't know how I felt about this, I wanted the visitors to have an interaction with the space, for the tires of their cars to drag the chalk around the rest of the car park. However, a lot just drove around it, apart from one lady. The lady drove straight over the piece and parked her car. In all honestly I don't think she even realised I was there, she didn't look at me or acknowledge me when arriving at the space. However, her tires dragged the chalk from the tiled circles through the car park.
Once the piece was done I sat and watched peoples reactions with the piece from a far. It amazed me how many people would avoid walking over the piece, yet saddened me when people wouldn't look up from their phones, walking directly over the work without acknowledging its existence.
I walked through County Hall to try and collect a picture of it from higher up, and what I noticed was a lot of workers from inside the building had be watching me work. They would come up and ask me questions about the piece and saying how it made them happy to watch the work being made. I felt this was a positive towards the piece, what I wanted from the beginning was the bring this overlooked space back to life and I felt I was done so by making people watch me work.
After a few days the piece washed away through natural causes, rain. I wanted to have no involvement with the pieces removal as I wanted the piece to naturally fade away. Due to the weather, the piece lasted 5 days before completely fading away. I felt this might have been nice for the workers at County Hall as they got to look out of their windows and see this brightly coloured space.
When I arrived at the site it was still slightly damp from the storm the night before, however, areas of the the space had dried so it was able to be worked onto. With me I had two spotters to help keep an eye out for any cars trying to enter the car park, this was to avoid any accidents. High vis jackets were worn by myself and the two spotters for extra caution.
I had worked out all the maths of the piece before I began creating the piece, I had my sketchbook next to me throughout the process to refer too. I started within the center of the space, knowing I wanted to work my way out. The space began with the colour white, the brightest colour that I had in my chalk. I wanted the center of the space to be the brightest colour in order to draw viewers to the into the middle.
As I progressed through the rings, I would blend the colours together to make the tiles join together within the space. One ring would have solid colour, whereas the ring touching would be a gradient from one colour to the next. This was to create the effect of the spiral, rather than it being rings of colour, they seemed joined together, making a smoother flow from the center outwards.
Once I was 7 rings outwards, there was only 1 tile that broke up the ring. This meant that the 8th ring would be a solid ring. Although this would turn the spiral shape into a more solid shape, I wanted to carry on using the mathematical equation. If that meant from now on the space would be a solid space of colour, then that's the way it worked out. I knew eventually this would happen when I happened the piece, as the equation jumps into quite large numbers, and I knew the tiled space wouldn't have that many tiles per ring.
What I enjoyed about creating the piece was that visitors of the building were very curious by what I was doing, some even stopped on their way in the ask me questions. Some stated that it looked like I was enjoying myself, which I felt might have been a nice touch for them visiting the County Hall for whatever reason it might be. The act of making made people stop in their busy day to day lives and watch art being made. This was something that I wanted the piece to do, I wanted people to stop and interact with this overlooked space. However, some people were so focused on their lives that they were oblivious to my making, ignoring me as they passed by, focusing on the entrance of the building.
The piece also encouraged my spotters to join in with the process of making. There was a child like state of play that came along with the making. It reminded me back to being a child and how I would sit out in my Nans back garden and make art work on her concrete slabs. I resorted back into that mindset, but only maturer with a structure to the making. This bought attention to the piece and my spotters wanted to revert back to their childhood memories and create this giant piece of art as they did as a child. I thought back to those memories, wondering if I thought I'd ever be creating a piece this scale outside the grounds of County Hall.
About 13 rings out of the 19, I had gotten to the darkest shade within my collection of chalks. This inspired me to create a halo like effect with the white chalk that I still had. Using the white I blended it in with the darkest shade, pink, so that it gradually faded out into solid white. This then became more and more faded, blending into the tiles beneath it until the 19th ring was nothing but plain.
What I found interesting when making the piece was how cautious visitors where when driving into the car park. They would try and divert around the chalk, rather than drive straight over it. I didn't know how I felt about this, I wanted the visitors to have an interaction with the space, for the tires of their cars to drag the chalk around the rest of the car park. However, a lot just drove around it, apart from one lady. The lady drove straight over the piece and parked her car. In all honestly I don't think she even realised I was there, she didn't look at me or acknowledge me when arriving at the space. However, her tires dragged the chalk from the tiled circles through the car park.
Once the piece was done I sat and watched peoples reactions with the piece from a far. It amazed me how many people would avoid walking over the piece, yet saddened me when people wouldn't look up from their phones, walking directly over the work without acknowledging its existence.
I walked through County Hall to try and collect a picture of it from higher up, and what I noticed was a lot of workers from inside the building had be watching me work. They would come up and ask me questions about the piece and saying how it made them happy to watch the work being made. I felt this was a positive towards the piece, what I wanted from the beginning was the bring this overlooked space back to life and I felt I was done so by making people watch me work.
After a few days the piece washed away through natural causes, rain. I wanted to have no involvement with the pieces removal as I wanted the piece to naturally fade away. Due to the weather, the piece lasted 5 days before completely fading away. I felt this might have been nice for the workers at County Hall as they got to look out of their windows and see this brightly coloured space.