Into the Light
‘Into the Light’ by A Curios Boy
A little while back Nigel Shearing (A Curios Boy), the creator and curator of the Gallery of Piano Curiosities in Weymouth contacted Pianodrome. He had been playing around with some ideas using piano parts; keys, keyslips, slices of lids, interesting parts of the action; arranging them into pleasing geometric formations and illuminating them. And he was dreaming big.
I was immediately charmed by Nigel’s creativity and enthusiasm. Together we made a plan to collaborate on a sculptural furniture piece for our new space in Bruntsfield. The brief was to make a standard lamp. Nigel spent weeks in his workshop on the South coast of England meticulously cutting a piano lid with a panel saw into very thin slices and arranging them at the top of a splayed array of piano keys, all the while sending me pictures and films featuring his beautiful wee gallery and his cat as he went. The day arrived and he drove 8 hours non-stop the length of the isles to the Pianodrome warehouse workshop in Granton with three beautiful, intricate and fragile lampshades in the boot of his car.
My old piano teacher visited us in the derelict Debenhams a few years back and was very much taken with an ancient Collard and Collard grand with beautiful carved legs and sides that had been donated to us. However, over the intervening years, despite the best efforts of our Adopt team to repair it this beautiful old instrument with a century of song inside it, this very special piano had found its way into our sculpture workshop where, it transpires, it was waiting for just this moment.
Nigel had a vision. I could never have dreamed it. He would turn the entire grand piano up on its end and create the most extraordinary and characterful lamp stand the world has ever seen. After all, so big and beautiful was his lampshade that nothing less would suffice to hold it aloft. He meticulously carved back the side and strings of the grand old grand working into the soundboard until he had the precise shape that he wanted. Together we lifted her vertical, built her out ‘til she was stable and reattached her beautifully carved legs. We transferred to Bruntsfield where, on the stage, she could light the way in our developing piano cafe. Filling her base with a heavy weight of piano pins as ballast we cantilevered out her glorious lampshade, wired in a bulb and turned her on.
TaDaaa! Come and admire ‘Into the Light’ by A Curios Boy at the Piano Cafe in St Oswald’s.
Thank you Nigel for a wonderful week and for lighting our way in the dark. Happy solstice all and we look forward to more collaborative piano creations in the New Year.
From A Curios Boy
Just a short note to say a massive thank you to the Pianodrome team for being so open and welcoming. I love this place. And everything it stands for. It was a joy to explore and deliver a vision that tested boundaries.
As Tim said, an “outrageous audacity and triumph”. That makes me very happy. I hope it lives to offer light and reflection for many years to come.
