The shift to a fabricator has pushed the design of the numbers to a different place. Mike Karmody of Stone Soup Concrete (www.stonesoupconcrete.com) has been working with me for about four weeks to find a balancing point between the intention of the sculpture, fabrication methods, and cost. My first drawings were for numbers that would have an extruded look. To do this, he would cut and laminate layers of sheet material. The look would have been amazing, but the cost was prohibitive. So it was back to the drawing board for me. After consulting with the folks at the RISF, I've drawn up a form that would have a bit of the extruded number on the top of each piece, and these will each sit on a tight-fitting plinth. These new forms resemble letterpress type. A new practical challenge is drainage of the interior voids on each letter, so a narrow channel will be placed under each number in the north/south orientation of each block.
The commas will be shorter, as has been the intention for a while. I've decided to have them come 3" above grade, to be parallel with the 3" of each number that will be articulated.
