Dr Ramanathan Balachandran ! Flurry of Flamingoes in scrap metal: Public Art Project for Ahmedabad.
Forge, welding machine, metal cut outs, heap of metal scrap. ;)
The Ashapalli festival is near and work is underway for a public art project as part of the habitat conclave.
The sculpture will be permanently installed at a traffic island in the City
It is a gift to the city from the organisers.
The project is curated by artist Deviba Wala of Tvak studios and I am co ordinating. It is a great privilege to be part of something so fascinating.
I have been on site with him yesterday and I am sharing with you all my experience.
He showed me his sketches of flamingo, its anatomy and explained to me how the final sculpture would be like as it is a resultant of not just a few drawings but also a precise study of the flamingos body structure which is a process.
I saw the arrangement for the sculpture pieces to happen, a welding machine, and the back storage of the Dr.'s car it is a portable storage for all tools he needs, the anvil, forge, and hammer and tongs.
He explained to me picking up the first piece of the metal cut out which is to be the beak of the flamingo, kept it in the forge to heat for a few seconds and he started beating it on the edges to give a contour to the piece.
He moved too quickly with a hammer or at times tongs in his hands beating the heated up metal piece and then putting it in a bucket of water to cool it down.
And in a few minutes the head piece of the flamingo was ready, he held it up against the light and talked about his process of starting with from the beak till the legs of the beautiful creature.
It was an experience observing the Dr. Work with metal as just a while ago he calmly injected a needle into the vein of a sick horse at the farm. The contrast.
Jeet Pandya
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