Made for Headland Sculpture on the Gulf.

In nearly every manufacturing practice, there are pieces of excess material. These fall away or break free from the intended end form. They are often simply discarded, or reshaped into something completely different, thrown away as rubbish or re-sold as scrap. However it has long been known how important these pieces are when examined in an historical context as they reveal secrets from the maker, their tools, activity, practice 
and intention.

Scrap, waste, unwanted and outdated, there are many things that litter our world from a bygone era, and as we move forward, from our current world which will remain as a legacy of our time. However, they also speak of the hand that made them. In New Zealand we often see evidence of colonisation rusting away in fields. Old boilers, bridges, riveted steel. We find axes from forestry and logging, agricultural equipment from farming, we walk on old train lines in the bush, and we visit unwanted and forgotten machinery, long ago abandoned and too heavy to move.

With “Off-Cuts” I intend to capture the feeling of a discarded and unwanted relic from the industry that influenced the development of Waiheke Island and New Zealand so much during European settlement and occupation. By forging 3 large billets of solid steel and piling them in a seemingly random fashion, they will appear to the viewer as remnants left over from a bygone era. “Off-Cut” will fit into the surrounds on the island as an historical work, and a reminder of past hands that have worked and shaped the land. At the same time, the sense of the heat and intense power involved with distorting massive solid steel such as this will be extremely evident and captivating to the viewer.