{"id":325,"date":"2011-05-03T13:14:47","date_gmt":"2011-05-03T03:14:47","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/userblogs.ganoksin.com\/suzannecronin\/?p=325"},"modified":"2011-05-24T23:04:45","modified_gmt":"2011-05-24T13:04:45","slug":"stumped-first-posted-3rd-may-2011","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/userblogs.ganoksin.com\/suzannecronin\/2011\/05\/03\/stumped-first-posted-3rd-may-2011\/","title":{"rendered":"Stumped"},"content":{"rendered":"

So here’s the issue:\u00a0 When I was a student in London I enjoyed all the smithing projects I attempted.\u00a0 I put my child’s sense of rhythm down to the fact that I spent a good part of the pregnancy\u00a0leaning over\u00a0mandrels with hammers or sitting at a stump\u00a0sinking and forming.\u00a0 I just loved it!\u00a0 So as part of my laundry workshop I have made it my mission to find a stump to enjoy this again.\u00a0 I\u00a0think my children will love it too.<\/p>\n

Both kids enjoy playing with a couple of cyprus stumps in our garden. They love deconsturcting and bashing…anything!<\/p>\n

Having done my intensive weekend through CAE<\/a>\u00a0with the lovely Catherine Da Costa<\/a>\u00a0I revisited that old feeling of satisfaction with smithing.\u00a0 Mind you, I only played with copper for an hour or so yet it was enough to inspire <\/a>my hunt for the perfect stump.\u00a0 The CAE improv <\/a>ised with these woodeblocksbut it just wasn’t the same. $\"\"$ <\/a><\/p>\n

\u00a0 $\"\"$ <\/a>I teach computers and media at a local Neighbourhood House and it was during an art class (as a student)\u00a0 I was made aware that several coastal Moonah trees were to be lost. I took my camera out one morning and just recorded what I saw and posted this video: The Memory of Trees<\/a>.\u00a0\u00a0It started a chain of events which led me to help the artist\u00a0 Deborah Brearley<\/a>start a Facebook group called:\u00a0 Moonahs Not Mulch<\/a>.\u00a0 To cut a long story short, Deborah has been overseeing the Queenscliff Community Garden and she rescued the\u00a0the Moonah stumps\u00a0from being mulched and offered a couple to me.<\/p>\n

Now in my garden, the problem I face is how to get symmetrical shapes\/curves in the wood so I can sink metal?\u00a0 I have spent many wasted hours pouring over Google Images of metalsmith stumps but I have just come across a blog of someone who did workshops at my London University and posted pictures of the process, including stump he used, the same stump I used for my three years as a student there.\u00a0 Here it is:\u00a0 My holy grail of stumps!<\/a>\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

The Neighbourhood House where I teach, Queenscliff,\u00a0runs a Men’s Shed group and they are keen to take up the cause of shaping my stumps.\u00a0 Their member’s have consulted with members of a\u00a0Bellarine Woodworking\u00a0group and I am receiving reports that my stumps are the subject of a few meetings!\u00a0 Isn’t it fantastic how a small town works.\u00a0 The last I heard was an angle grinder is a “nasty piece of work” and the alternative is lots of chisels.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

So there you have it, the story of my stumps.\u00a0 As a footnote Deborah Brearley is planning a Moonah exhibition next year and hoping to use anything produced\u00a0with the saved wood.\u00a0\u00a0 I already have a project on the boil involving seed pods from one of the doomed Moonahs, but that’s another story.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"