i went for a walk today and came across an old rusty chain that someone had coiled around and made to rise up off the ground, kind of like a cobra. i didn’t stop to look how it was done, I just wanted to think about it. it got me thinking about other things you could sculpt with rusty chains. would you weld the individual links? how would you “pose” the thing while you built it? how would you rust it out? would it be strong enough for children to play on? or other techniques, like applying an epoxy, or even encasing the whole thing in a transparent epoxy tube.
then it got me thinking about doing it to a tree – imagine a fine tree, maybe a mature oak, and then coiling an old rusty chain up around its trunk, and out across branches. then calling the whole thing, “government.” that’s poetic, right there.
that got me thinking about tree art – could you use huge tubes to force a tree to grow a certain shape, for instance could you entwine two trees together like a candy cane, and how many years would that take.
that’s what happens to me when I go for a walk by myself.
