Junk Modelling Boat

Here is my junk modelling project. It started when I bought something at an auction and with it came an old rickety chair which was not safe to sit on.

So I decided to re-purpose it into a sculpture of “Odysseus Resisting the Sirens”.

First I collected African carvings I had bought at a charity store, some old rope collected from the sea shore, old copper wire, old pewter repousse sheeting.

Then I cut the chair up, keeping the springs. I used various parts of the chair to make Odysseus’s boat – the leg became the prow of the boat, that chair back became the past and beam for the sail, you can see the springs also form part of the mast and sail. I screwed and glued it all together and then used a blow torch to blacken the wood taking care not to set it on fire! the figure head on the prow is a small carved face from a charity store attached to a curved chair leg. The boat sits at an angle – to look as if it is turning. This was achieved by stick a wedge of wood under one side of the boat.

Odysseus is a carved figures from the charity store and is “tied to the mast to resist being tempted by the sirens” with copper wire of varying thicknesses which also forms the rigging. He is burnished in gold acrylic paint.

The sirens are carved heads from the charity store burnished in gold acrylic paint attached to bodies made from a small piece of chair leg. Their bird wings, tails and feet are made from pewter which I impressed with feather patterns. This was then aged using a patina fluid. Once all the pieces were stuck together, I then wound copper wire in spirals around each siren to repeat the pattern of the chair springs on the mast.

One siren is attached to the back of the boat – as if landing on it – the other is attached to a piece of drift wood (which is then attached to the boat) and supposed to look like the rocks.

The boat is then placed on an old leather book which in turn is on an old carved pedestal – both charity store finds.