Indiana James - Piggery Studio on KI: Lisa visits this Kangaroo Island studio
One of the highlights of the 2005 South Australian Living Artists Week Festival was Indiana James' exhibition of local marine creatures captured in bronze.
Pieces made from driftwood and rusty old tin certainly caught the eye but the bronze impressions of a predatory squid, a school of sweep set against a limestone ledge and a dog shark on the prowl, certainly had exhibition goers reaching for their cheque books.
The pieces are all the more amazing when you understand the hours of commitment and sweat that go into each one. At Indiana's studio just out of Penneshaw on Kangaroo Island the inspiration for his marine sculptures is never far away. As the sheep graze on fields overlooking Nepean Bay we head into a little galvo shed. It was once a piggery and is now a workshop showcasing the many creatures that thrive in the blue skies and blue waters of his Kangaroo Island Home.
Capturing KI's natural beauty in bronze is a painstaking process that takes in many steps from plaster mounds, wax models, fiery furnaces, molten bronze and plenty of hard work. It's a noisy, dirty and meticulous process as we watched Indiana fire up the furnace.
"By the time the bronze is melting we're talking a thousand degrees centigrade," explained Indiana from underneath his layers of protective clothing. The heat inside the crucible is intense but he reckons it's the price you pay for the closest thing to immortality.
"Most people who pour bronze have some sense of the immortality of bronze," said Indiana. "I think Tom Waits said "I left my Bible by the side of the road and carved my initials in an old dead tree, but one of the avenues to immortality is to make a bronze."
"Because, unless you find a nutcase like me to melt it down it's going to be there for thousands of years. So a lot of time the motivation to come here is to make objects that are absolutely permanent in a way that's similar to the way that they made them four thousand years ago."
That's when the Egyptians began pouring molten metal into casts stored in sand. Over time molten metal settles, unlike the nerves of those who have poured their heart and soul into their work.
"It's a bit like Christmas," laughed Indiana. "Everybody's worked for a week. They've invested their time and energy and love into their art piece... It gets poured. You watch that molten bronze become a sculpture... And when they're opened out. They don't know if it's worked or not.
This one worked and who knows what the next pour will bring. It's all part of the magic of the Piggery Studio on Kangaroo Island. It's two kilometres from Penneshaw on the road to Kingscote - just look for the sign to Lincoln Green Merino Stud. If you have any further questions please email info@postcards-sa.com.au
Piggery Studio
2 kilometres from Penneshaw On Kingscote Road
Look for Lincoln Green Marino StudPublished 6th August 2006
