Daniel Swain Project 2 (Continuation of Project 1)

 Daniel Swain

Stegosaurus Plates - Revised

2021

7ft x 28ft x 5ft

High-density foam board, steel, mortar cement, twine

    After the first take on this project, I was left feeling as though it could have been improved; especially given how I had forgotten three plates and overestimated the strength of 1/8 inch steel.  So I took another crack at it with a few changes.

    The first order of business was to add the missing plates followed by repairing and replacing the center piece of steel support within the largest plate.  After that, it was on to widening the 1/4 inch holes that I made for my 1/4 inch screws to 5/16 inch to allow for more wiggle room when assembling the piece.

    Worrying that the top bars of steel would be unable to support some of the larger plates given enough time and wind, I decided to weld diagonal supports underneath the six structures that would carry said plates.  Since I was welding, I also opted to add several 8x2.5 inch wings to the stakes of the structures that carry the larger plates mentioned a moment ago along with several others that hold plates with a sizeable surface area.  This was done to help ground the individual pieces further and to prevent side-to-side swaying and twisting.

Nearing the end of my list of renovations, I noticed that the full sculpture looked somewhat stiff with the top bars of steel lying perfectly perpendicular to the vertical bar.  As a result, the bars in question were bent to more organically lead into the next and add visual movement to the piece.  After this, towards the end of the process, I made the decision to add a wrapping of twine rope around the connection points after the plates were secured.  This served to introduce another element of color and texture and (to a lesser extent) assist in securing the plates further.

As a revisited project, I was quite happy with how the installation turned out this time around.  While there are still things that could have been changed (grinding down the ends of the screws, further solidifying the supports, etc), this iteration feels successful to me; I achieved the concept I had developed in September.