Earlier this month, my son helped me with placing my sculpture ‘Turning A New Leaf’. It ended up in the garden of a therapist friend of mine, right in front of his new practice. I am really happy that it's in a much better place now than in storage at my studio; a striking eyecatcher, and not only that, it seems as if it was made for that spot. It's about unfoldment, finding new energy, and, of course, about growth.
I carved the sculpture in 2010 out of a single piece of granite, and it is 2.5 m high.
Yesterday I The garden image of Flora from Lead Antimoon put back into the wild. At this site it comes into its own, a very classic and graceful garden statue of the goddess of spring and flowers.
I made a base for her out of blocks of gray stone and a thick stone tile, to which she's anchored with three thick stainless steel threaded bars of 14 mm. This way it all has become one quiet gray coloured whole, so the base draws no more attention than the sculpture itself.
A picture from the 20th century shows that Flora used to have flowers in her left hand and in the vase. From the strange position of the fingers, I think I can deduce that the statue already had been restored at the time.
The statue is now restored with restoration mortar. I made the mortar in the same grayish colour as the lead alloy; the greenish colour comes from some chlorophyll that I rubbed in. Should the owner in the future choose to remove the algae, the repair will have the same colour as the original, and not a misplaced greenish tint. With the chlorophyll the repair now also resembles the rest, which already had a slight layer of algae .
The repairs will be getting their real patina after a time in all weathers, so the difference will soon no longer be visible.
