Thoughts on materials, timelines, training, and 37 years of building things that look like they grew there.
Most people, even a lot of contractors, look at a finished piece of scenic rockwork and think about it the way they think about a painting — they see the craft, the color, the texture, and file it there. But convincing rockwork is a materials science problem as much as an artistic one.
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This is the question every project manager eventually asks, usually after the budget conversation and before the panic sets in. How long does this take? The honest answer is that it depends — here's what it actually depends on, after 37 years of finding out.
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People ask this a lot. You drive past a resort, a zoo, or a themed attraction and see a massive cliff face or cave system and wonder what it's made of. The short answer is concrete. The longer answer is that it depends on the job, and getting it wrong is expensive.
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Part of the fun of working in this trade is the unavoidable contact with the natural world. Getting out in the field to see real rock or waterfalls and trying to recreate them is where the inspiration comes from — mother nature can be a tough teacher.
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The beautiful work students in this industry produce is genuinely exciting to see. But working only in controlled environments doesn't teach a student how to deal with adversity in the field — and that, in this view, is a failure to train properly.
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Chaos applies to rockwork construction in a variety of ways, from armature all the way through to sculpture and finish paint. Mother nature is constantly changing things with wind, rain, seismic activity, and heat — and simulating nature effectively means using those same forces.
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There are pros and cons to each method, and nowadays the line between them has blurred. Steel and backing is the widely accepted standard across the industry — an honest take on where foam core fits, and where it still concerns him.
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