This sculptor is a direct carver — he makes no models first — and he's carving a giant stone slug
Michael Binkley: 'I'm hoping it will be something that kids are going to want to run to and pet and climb'
Michael Binkley is a direct carver. What's that? In his words: "I don't make a model out of a materials such as clay and then copy it to stone."
In this video, watch the Vancouver sculptor work on a giant stone slug sculpture — and make a giant noisy mess he says comes alongside doing this kind of work. "It's physical, it's noisy, it's dusty and I think it takes a special kind of personality to embrace it and say, 'I like doing this.'"
Watch the video:
For Binkley, the emotional response his work can receive makes it all worth it. "I hope that after all my hard labour's been put into making this object, that it will transcend some kind of emotional response to someone, either by looking at it or by touching it." Indeed, through much of Binkley's work he intends to reconnect people to their sense of touch which he feels is programmed out of us in childhood with instructions to not touch.
He has a specific idea of how this slug sculpture will be interacted with: "I'm hoping that it's going to be something that kids are going to want to run to and stroke and pet and want to climb on. I sort of picture sick kids wanting to maybe read a bedtime story to the slug."
"How people react to your work, that pleases the artist's heart."
See more of Michael Binkley's work below and on his website.
Art Minute is a CBC Arts series taking you inside the minds of Canadian artists to hear what makes them tick and the ideas behind their work.