How did you get into art and concrete fabrication? What have been your favourite projects to work on?
I began to get into art and concrete fabrication firstly through my interest in art, materials and making, I have a degree in sculpture and a masters in painting. On these courses I got really into the technical departments and simply learning how to make things in as many different ways as it was possible, be it casting, jewellery, metal and wood work, printing. Processes, pigments, limes and mortars.. Looking around and seeing what things are made of in the city informed all of this, I find materials endlessly fascinating.
So inevitably I needed to make some money, having drifted in and out of various different self employed construction works I began to combine all my interests and fabricate things for buildings a little more creatively.
I worked with concrete on a good few DIY skatepark projects an so it became a material I used often. I helped with the construction of the Loading Bay indoor skatepark and was asked to build this big reception area, an interlocking three-piece design by Mara Bragagnolo.
At this time my good Friend Jack was spending a year carving marble in Italy. We share so many interests together, starting with skateboarding. Having met at art school he became partly responsible for a lot of my interest in materials / the city and totally stoked the fire.. So he’s in Italy I call him and suggest he move to Glasgow and we start this company Myatt-Mccallum, he made it happen and now we are working happily together from our workshop in Port Dundas – fabricating all kinds of different concrete and stone pieces. It’s fun!
The best bit is always the free-play messing around in the studio, we experiment a lot combining different materials and forms and seeing what comes out, this in turn informs our abilities and designs for commercial work. We often have excess material – wet concrete – and you have a limited time to make it useful, so we get creative in these moments.
Aside from this The Alchemy Experiment counter project was the best for sure, a long period of making and working out this complex counter design, we developed some new processes, worked with great people and are pleased with the results. If you’re in Glasgow swing by for a coffee and see some of the art work they are show casing from around the city.