“A Tenuous Fortitude”
made at the world renown Digital Stone Project at Garfagnana Innovasione using a huge Seven axis milling machine and Italian marble. A descending rhythm recalling forms common to military monuments to fallen soldiers a natural stone from Canada was teleported to become a form tenuously balance at the top with a chain of human made forms pulling on the stone forever. What does a stone from the headwaters of the great North Saskatchewan River in Canada become precariously linked to human made forms down stream? What could it imply?
Digital Stone Project at Garfagnana Innovasione is the facilitation matrix that many leading artists use in Italy to see their sculptures realized. Jon Isherwood and Stefano Coiai have created a remarkable opportunity that I feel grateful to have been a part of once in 2018 and hope to go in 2021 since 2020 was cancelled due to Covid-19 pandemic. It seems that the human structures, shackles and structures supporting the natural forms are impending dynamic movement, possible collapse even, but is there hope, what could I do in the face of those fears but to make something to hold onto in appreciation.
Inside Fortitude 2020
this digital model is the prototype for a large marble sculpture being milled at The Digital Stone Project at Garfagnana Innovasione in Italy using seven axis robotics. The sculpture in a digital file is one thing but remarkably significant is the presence of the real thing in person.
the Laocoon sculpture, writhing East Indian Sculptures and the dire sense of urgency about this dynamic point in human history all factor to impress the studio work right now. Humans have unrelenting and resisting potential. But nuance and self awareness can change everything. And the change can be heroic and humble both.
Beyond a Tenuous Fortitude by Royden Mills , FAB Gallery University of Alberta, Edmonton Canada Italian Marble milled by Seven Axis Robotics at Digital Stone Project Garfagnanna Innovazione Italy and refined by hand at Digital Stone Project: Edmonton , over a month long residency at the home studio of Kelley and Vance Johner and steel studio support from Roy and Linda Mills Home studio.
Gerry Morital of Mile Zero Dance performing at Brighton Block Exhibition with Beyond a Tenuous fortitude by Royden Mills behind part of Edmonton Sculpture Project Initiative with Ken Cantor and Curation by Michael Cor of Artistsinthefallow after the refining at Digital Stone Project Edmonton
It is so exciting and so very useful to make digital models and print them and try to photomontage these into actual target venues. It is a terrific advantage to try things stretching or compressing proportions. It is an entirely other experience to realize models hundreds of times larger than the model. I have done many of these types of realizations. To give a community something beyond what they might have been able to imagine is a very rewarding process. One doesn’t earn that skill easily. So much physical labour and so much care and so much support from an enlightened community is needed. I have nothing but gratitude to have served as well as I possibly could have done.