WORK OF THE WEEK: Philip Rae-Scott, All This For A Stitch, 2022

Philip Rae-Scott
All This For A Stitch, 2022
1899 Singer sewing machine, eco epoxy resin
Height: 195 cm / 6ft 5 in.

'A project spanning a decade, ‘All This For a Stitch’ is the most risky sculpture I have made. Pouring resin at this scale without cracking or discolouration is beyond the rule books, and more likely to fail than succeed. After months of careful preparation, testing, much research, and with luck on my side, the pour worked perfectly.'
- Philip Rae-Scott

During his foundation course at Oxford Brookes University, Philip Rae-Scott was tasked with a project called 'Appropriations'. Students were encouraged to find an object and from it compose an artwork. Searching second-hand shops, Rae-Scott came across a Singer Sewing machine, gathering dust on a far shelf. Now part of the sculpture, the tag read, '1899 Singer Sewing Machine. Perfect Working Order. £1.' On discovering it, Rae-Scott 'felt compelled to expose its exquisitely engineered components, to champion mankind's resourcefulness and inventiveness, whilst damning our wasteful culture.'

On his course, Philip Rae-Scott didn't have the time for a project of this scale, it was 'all very fast paced.' His first attempt went wrong and the idea was parked. It was only after a few years, when a friend who visited his studio asked what the haphazard assortment of sewing machinery was for, that the idea was re-excited in Rae-Scott's mind. It was eight months of work, most of which comprised research and development, as there were two big challenges to overcome.

Courtesy of Philip Rae-Scott
Photography by Alister Thorpe

Firstly, when working with resin this way, one would pour in stages, pouring a layer of liquid resin into a mould, dropping in the objects, letting it set and repeating this process. This does however, result in a line where the new resin is poured over the old, and would not create the harmonious encasing of the machine that Rae-Scott sought to achieve. To overcome this, he lay the piece on its back, with the first shelf running from the top to the base. He let it cure, sanded it flat, then dropped all the pieces in and carried out 'the big pour'. Afterwards, he cut the chamfers to line up. Where one plane meets another, exactly down the line where the resin hardened, it refracts the light and tricks the eyes so that one cannot see it, giving the impression of one solid, unfractured piece.

The second challenge to overcome revolved around scale. Rae-Scott wanted to carry out as few pours as possible to avoid resin joints. Six months into the eight month process, he carried out 'the big pour'. £1200 worth of resin was poured, and Rae-Scott stayed up for thirty-six hours with the fans, gradually encroaching them across the surface. The fans must be sped up gradually, as otherwise the surface of the resin will ribbon. After thirty-six hours the fans were going full throttle, and Rae-Scott went to bed plagued by dreams of cracking resin. He awoke to find that his innovative plan had worked. It took another two weeks to fully cure, followed by ninety hours of hand polishing to achieve its spotless finish.

Courtesy of Philip Rae-Scott
Photography by Alister Thorpe