Stuff Up's

It is actually quiet refreshing seeing Tejo and Rene stuff up there design jobs. I am continually making mistakes and the studio. Having to remake frames or re-cut objects because they are not the right size. It is all part of the learning curve, but very frustrating at the same time.

To see older more experienced people muck up their design work, lets me breath a sigh of relief. Dad put it well, he said something along the lines of.. The only difference between you young guys is and us old blokes is that we have stuffed up on more occasions and have built up a bank of mistakes which we have learnt from.

Anyway, the other day Tejo was already to pour the concrete into the plastic mould he had been making for an outdoor, concrete seating piece. This piece was pretty well tried and tested, Rene and Tejo making a few of these benches for an exhibition in Miami late last year. Just a few minor changes were made to the volume in the legs and the material used in the upper half of the mould. It had taken him a week of tinkering to get the frame welded, work out the new geometry of the legs on the piece, sew up the plastic liner and prepare the mould ready for pouring.

Anyway, when it came to concreting I got to chip in and help out a bit. We were almost complete with filling the mould with concrete, when the sewn seems started to rip under the pressure of the concrete. Small leaks grew into large leaks. I was running around the studio madly cutting strips of rubber to wrap around the gaping wound. After repairing the rip we still needed to pour more concrete to create a completed piece. So we pushed on ahead and low and behold the seams ripped on another leg and we had another rapid repair job on the mould. The studio was covered in wet concrete. It was a bit of a disastrous pour.

So I suppose I will take comfort in the fact that the learning curve will continue, even until I am considered an old girl!