Birth of an obsession!

Windmills! There I said it, I love windmills! I remember fondly as a child watching the re-runs on TV of children’s show, Camberwick Green and Windy Miller! I also remember some of the windmill styled souvenirs adorned at my grandparents. I had a slight fascination and it’s funny to think that universes have collided and appeared in the form of this bamboo exploration.

Following on from my last blog post, the conclusion of my design ideas led me to the concept development of a windmill themed sculpture that would potentially contain a large amount of artwork produced by the communities of Nuneaton and Bedworth.

Firstly I wanted to play with the bamboo skewers and see how they could handle themselves in the form of wooden gears. Initially I played these sticks and a glue gun developing a few versions of a windmill type structure, but in this case powered by a bicycle pulling a trailer. A mobile community art gallery, taking the form of a windmill.

I think the answer to the romantic idea of a wind powered machine is that of childhood, wonder and imagination. There is something very joyful in the perpetual turn of the sails and overall look of the structure. Bamboo fits the bill perfectly and despite its unique properties of and what it can achieve, I felt that in this instance, it was a sustainable material to simply integrate and compliment other materials.