Lifesize bust made from industrial scrap steel punch parts and fencing swords.
The Seer is the short title. The long title is "Bow Watch for Humanity". This is a reference to sailing where you are navigating uncharted or unfamiliar seas and so you ALWAYS put the person with the BEST eyesight (here used in a metaphorical sense) on the extreme front (bow) of your ship or craft to warn you of impending danger, or (again metaphorically)complications in the future.
This could be a Maori Tribesman of four hundred years ago(notice the spiral tatoos),or an inner city street kid from Chicago,but WHOEVER it is, they have the means to guide us BACK to the PATH.
The hairpiece is made entirely from modern day competition fencing swords.
Technique;
I took a body mold (head and shoulders) of one of my students(Native American)when I was teaching at Berkeley.I used the negative mold as a guide and filled in the inner surface with industrial punch parts ONE AT A TIME as I welded them in. These were generally about 3/8ths thick. I have very firmly WELDED each to it's neighbor progressively until the mold was full and the form accomplished,choosing as I went where to accent negative space and also the shape and size of the punch parts in the composition.
The hair piece consisting of the fencing swords is very heavy and a rather unruly shape. Again ,I took GREAT PAINS to make sure the welds holding all this together were stout. And I have done my best to blunt the tips of the swords ,just for safety sake. There has been at least one accident where someone ran into this thing too fast and got scratched,but they took responsibility for their own actions...
I'm using a wirefeed welder (MIG). the fencing swords are all high carbon steel so they weld really well. The spiral "Tattoos" on the face of the figure were also done by free hand welding ,sort of drawing as I lay down a bead.
