Cloud Bench | carajeanflynn-MFA

'Cloud bench' - Public art commission

This was a private commission by the mother of an 18 year old girl called Claudia, who was tragically killed in 2014 in a traffic accident. Her mother, Naomi, wanted to create a lasting memorial to her daughter by commissioning a sculptural bench on the green outside their house within an eco-housing community in Mitcham, South London.

The Brief

The brief was to create a permanent, low maintenance and robust bench that was a reflection of her vibrant personality. As we hadn't personally known Claudia we felt it was important to run sessions with her friends and family to talk through designs and to get an understanding of what she was like. These sessions were challenging and emotional, but we left feeling like we really had a sense of her character and a way forward for the design of the bench.

The Design

Claudia's was often called 'Cloud' and so we began playing around with shapes, contours and colours reminiscing of clouds. By taking the decision to think of it less as a bench and more as a sculpture that could be sat on, it allowed us the freedom to think more creatively. The final design came from scrawling her name loosely in my notebook using cloud like loops and curves, which when transferred into a 3D model allowed us to see the possibility of the sculpture as a bench and also as a play structure. Naomi was also keen for us to personalise the bench with text from a poem written by Claudia's friend which we would position along the edge of the bench. One of Claudia's defining features was her love of colour in her clothes and hair colours. We wanted to reflect this in the sculpture by using a contrasting colour on the underside which would work well to emphasise the curves.

The Fabrication

Working with Campbell Design LTD, who we had collaborated with many times previously, we discussed options for how the bench could be fabricated. We decided to press roll 10mm sheet steel. Once we had made paper floor templates, we visited Roll Master in Sheffield to supervise the rolling of the curve bench sections. Fabricating work in this way was new to me and it was fascinating to be present during this stage.The curved sections were then welded together at Chris's workshop in Retford and the whole sculpture was then galvanised to protect it from rusting.

On our next visit to the workshop the bench was ready for the text to be applied using a lazercut stencil and an acid etching technique which stained the steel leaving a permanent mark. The results weren't as precise as I had hoped and I would be hesitant to use this technique again. We had been researching car paints for the underside and wanted to use a pearlescent two-tone paint. This came as a top coat that could be applied to any colour with different results. Our initial idea of using a pastel pink didn't work as well as we had hoped and we surprised ourselves by choosing a black in the end. Once the two-tone top coat had been applied it created a stunning dark blue colour that shimmered in the light and was reminiscent of the night sky. As it was quite a diversion from our original design we wanted to run it passed Naomi, who was happy to go with our recommendation.

The Install

The sculpture was driven down from Chris's workshop to London where we met it at the site. Four holes were dug in the rocky ground of the green and a channel connecting them which was the length of the bench. The sculpture was then lowered into position using a high-ab and the base frame fitted into the dug channels and holes. The holes were then back filled with concrete and left to set. This was then covered with layer of soil to hide the foundations.

Overall this project ran smoothy and Naomi was happy with the results. I was pleased we had decided to go for such a sculptual design rather than a traditional bench as I learnt a lot more about fabrication methods and processes.

Professional Toolkit: