Extreme weather causes havoc

I decided to do a bit of rearranging of the globe and to cut a long story short Rob helped me raise it up a bit on an old cement mixer drum which he supplied. It looked OK but the wind blew it off a couple of days later so it is now on the tyre but further back. I decided to get rid of the wired cans because I wasn't too happy with them and people thought it looked like an octopus apparently. So now there are just some cans randomly around to try and convey what it's all about which I think works better. Originally, I was going to pile the cans from the ground up, as I collected them, until they eventually covered the whole globe. I might go back to this idea and see how it works but this is dependent on me carrying on collecting cans for ages and there being enough. Not sure about that.  Strangely enough the amount of litter on the road since just before placing the globe has decreased a lot and I am hard pressed to find any cans at the moment. I guess this would seem to be what I am trying to achieve but it doesn't seem to have anything to do with what I'm doing.

                           

This is before it fell off

This is after it fell off - don't suppose you can tell the difference, I have moved the sign as well which I'll show in another post (and painted the text red; very important attention to detail), really gripping stuff.

I'd like to say I met this guy on the road but I actually found him in a waste paper basket, I haven't been to Brazil yet anyway.

Earth Day

I did actually get the globe in position on Earth Day eve but chickened out of advertising it as I had originally intended.  Anyway it is on view now and it remains to be seen what reaction it gets.  There is a short Youtube film, (link on the right) about the installation, created by Patric Turner and I much appreciate his involvement and interest, I never intended to be a film star but sometimes these things are thrust upon us.  I'm not sure where it goes from here but I guess I need to get out there and collect more cans - unless there aren't any in which case mission accomplished 'the message' was received and understood. OK, well maybe I'll just count them.

Rubbish

This is what it looks like at the moment, I am trying out different ways of arranging the cans but haven't got enough yet. This looks rubbish. It is rubbish.

Road kill

At the moment I am collecting cans and try to pick up a few most days. So far I have found two unopened ones in different places and then I got really lucky and found my first road kill. Yes a Tunnocks tea cake in very good unopened condition. I didn't eat it though just took it's photo and consigned it to the compost bin.

As you can see in good condition, just a few bruises

Two halves make a whole

The two halves have now been joined together and that all went quite well.  I started in the workshop by suspending one half from the ceiling but it was all a bit cramped. I would have had to take the doors and part of the door frame off to get it out so decided to assemble it outside in the end.  I used a scaffold tower to suspend one half and lowered it onto the bottom one.  The globe is hollow and doesn't weigh very much so it can be moved fairly easily ( I hope).

   Lowering the top onto the bottom.

This is what it looks like at the moment.
It is 6 feet diameter and is held together with about
2800 rivets.

                                                                                                         View from inside. 

The wooden part is the former, half a sphere, on which the shape was created. It is not part of the finished globe.

At last....

Separation of the second half from the former proved to be even more difficult than the first.  Rivets get stuck in the wood even though I was trying not to hit the wood too often. Took about half a day to ease it off.

In the beginning........

This is the fundamental problem that prompted me to make a comment about it.  So I decided to create some kind of sculpture/installation that did just that.

The idea is to make a large structure representing the earth out of scrap aluminium and surround the base and some of the globe with aluminium cans.  The message being that it is not a good idea to lob your empty cans (or anything else) out of the car window because of the environmental damage. There is a connection between the aluminium earth and the aluminium cans in that recycling cans is one of the most energy efficient methods of producing aluminium compared to smelting the ore (bauxite). Recycling a can uses only 5% of the energy. More about this later but that is the basic idea.

I have made a good start and this is how it is progressing shown in the following pictures.  I have a fairly good idea of how it will look when finished but have not drawn it in any detail.  This blog is just to keep some record of how it progresses and hopefully all will be revealed around Earth Day on 22nd April.

OK that's enough for now - watch this space!