Inspired by David Ireland’s Dumb Balls, I began creating these orbs from the leftover concrete used in my terrain tablets.
Much like Ireland’s, my process is repetitive and meditative.
A lump of concrete is gathered in the hands and rotated along a randomized axis until it hardens.
Each sphere is a unit, arriving in an indexical relation to location, and event.
A Score: How to make an orb
Add water to cement
Add pigment if you choose.
Blend till the mix is consistent
Do not make more than you want to hold for an extended time.
You will want the mix to be stable enough to hold in your hands.
Avoid adding too much water.
If you have to : sprinkle in more cement, or wait just a little while for the mix to set.
Once it is in your hands form it into a rough ball.
This is the last time you will exert your will and pressure on the object.
Now you hold it in space.
[You hold space.]
You will turn your ball over and over in your hands at random.
Your job is to suspend gravity for the material.
As the ball passes across your palms and fingers it will begin to smooth.
You do not need to do anything but be present to the randomization of your movement.
This is all that requires your attention.
Continue until the sphere has hardened.
It will warm as it begins to cure.
You will want to stay with it.
Rest.
Notes following:
You can’t not make it.
But you are also not making it.
You have to keep moving for it to be made.
But what you are doing is giving it enough movement for gravity to not take effect.
It’s a fast planet.
Everyday a new world.
“The rapid movements involved in a star’s collapse would mean that the gravitational waves it gave off would make it ever more spherical and by the time it had settled down to a stationary state, it would be precisely spherical.”
Stephen Hawking, A Brief History of Time