I quickly learned that my original AA2A project proposal was too ambitious and unfocussed and needed a rethink. After a ‘lost’ period spent exploring the potential of laser cutters and lathes in the furniture wood workshops I began a completely (for me) new body of work. 

Perhaps conscious about how quickly 100 hours were passing I became obsessed with ideas about TIME. I filled a notebook with drawings and diagrams of clock faces and as I drew I asked myself questions or questions arose through the process of drawing...... how do we experience time; why does it appear to slow down or speed up or even stop; can it go backwards or split and move parallel to ‘real’ time? 

These linear black and white notebook drawings led to attempts to make very thin lightweight linear ‘clock sculptures’ which would hang from the ceiling. I became fascinated by clocks and how they work. I remembered from my school days how a potato could be used as the most humble and greenest of power sources - insert a copper wire or penny and a galvanised nail into a potato and you can convert chemical energy into electrical energy, enough to run a small digital clock. 

I decided to make a Large Potato Clock - a hollow wood sculpture with hidden batteries powering a number of clocks sunk into its surface. Unfortunately I ran out of time and as an alternative I ‘grew’ a number of smaller potato clocks out of the top of the sculpture - perhaps a less literal and better sculptural solution than using real clocks. 

The AA2A project has helped me to find a new direction for my work and the skills I have developed using the college’s excellent workshops are proving invaluable. I enjoyed talking with furniture design students and comparing technical methods of construction with them - even though my processes must have seemed eccentric. And my grateful thanks go to Jonathan and Roger in the wood workshops for their help and patience on this project.

'Large Potato Clock'
Wood sculpture size 90 x 60 x 40cm