Wednesday, January 27, 2010

Floored

I'm pondering how to deal with 16 foot* ceilings in my gallery space

Two floors at 8 feet within each level each seems somehow mean for a space designed for display but two levels of 16 feet each will need some major thought to make sense.

I have to decide if the space is a reused industrial building which would make such high ceilings work, particularly if I insert beams across the ceiling space. Or if the space is a new build where the bottom level uses interesting changes of floor and ceiling height and
inserts to carve the space up. And the top level could be divided into two levels of 8 feet each and include offices and studio spaces: and a lot more work to create...

At the same time I'm considering options for flooring (a slightly easier thing to think about). I could go polished concrete (or the contact paper approximation of it). Recycled floorboards. Cork.


After taking this photo on my cutting board (which reminded me of the last photo in this post) I found myself idly wondering if I could use a cutting mat as flooring....

And then I saw this photo of Dusk Bar in Melbourne in an old magazine I was trawling for inspiration:
And I suddenly started thinking about playing with scale within the gallery. Including real sized objects to add a playful touch. Remember The Borrowers?
Wendy suggests that using old wooden cotton reels for seating in the cafe area might solve the problem of finding (or, more to the point, buying or creating) large numbers of identical seats. (Instructions for the tin are here, if you're interested)

In related news, I had lunch with Ampersand Duck yesterday and she told me about what she's working on for her submission to the gallery. Very exciting. She also agreed that I could visit later and do an In the studio post to share her work in progress!

(*Miniaturists using 1/12th scale (1 inch = 1 foot) tend to talk in feet when they're really measuring in inches, if that makes sense. The display cabinets are 16 inches high, not 16 feet!)

4 comments :

m1k1 said...

With all that height and your reference to real sized objects, I was reminded (but cannot find a link to) the video of the megasized knitting piece (was it something like 100 threads at once??), and was it just in this last year?? - you could have a normal bit of knitting on one wall and claim it was mega'd.

AMCSviatko said...

do you mean the one done by the cranes? Good idea but I'd have to make it look in scale even though it's out of scale: you know what I mean... :-)

m1k1 said...

yes i do know. was going to go back and add that to my comment but let's face it, i got a bit lazy
(but i have been thinking about how many strands of that uber fine slinky silk i have that would look good ;-)

m1k1 said...

it might have been this, but my system has gone into a huff and won't load. i searched on youtube for knitting and got this:
Rachel John, Extreme Knitting, 1000 Strand Knit

don't know about the cranes, but saw a google reference.