David Bradshaw Photos - Vol. XI

[bradshaw]

Seasons44.... tried in vain to punch into the utube piece; shall type it in, try again...

Buckheart.... PONTCHARTRAIN is the title sculpture of a series of steel & dynamite works made a bit west of Slidell in 1994 and exhibited at the Contemporary Arts Center----CAC----on Camp Street in New Orleans. (The D-Day Museum is now across the street.)

I blasted intermittently for six hours, adjacent to a golf course. The greens were full of divots when we were done. I was later told that a woman complained to the mayor of Slidell that when the blasting started, her six year old son started to cry, and cried for 12 hours. The mayor smelled gold digging, as the woman hinted at settling her son's emotional distress for about one hundred thousand dollars. The woman lived no closer than a mile to the site. The mayor declined her offer.

PONTCHARTRAIN consists of two sheets of 3/8" treadplate steel, separated by 3 or 4 inches. I placed the charge on top of the plate, to conduct the blast downward, into a muddy trench filled with water by the previous night's rain. I make my own shaped charges. The shaped charge for PONTCHARTRAIN shot involved stick powder, C4, a specialized military explosive, and det cord. I used the water in the trench to cushion the blast.

Controlled blasting is a world apart from entertainment. And it is a world apart from the ugly world of evil people.
David Bradshaw

[cj3a]

m.youtube.com/#/watch?v=rouk7QPeMaM&desktop_uri=%2Fwatch%3Fv%3Drouk7QPeMaM

[buckheart]

Controlled blasting is a world apart from entertainment.
Entertainment has been my only experience with any thing explosive. Like the day my then 14 year old son and I spent part of the afternoon blowing up tree stumps and half rotten standing trees with tannerite.
I wonder how many of the viewers of your explosive pieces have any idea of the forethought and planning that went in to thier making. I expect that for the most part they think "oh he stuck some dynamite on metal and boom". Pretty much what I thought until you added a few details.

[bradshaw]

Buckheart.... I shall not detract from your entertainment. Nor detract from skilled pyrotechnics----from the 4th of July to Hollywood. That class of pyrotechnics involves chemicals far more sensitive to static electricity, sparks, and shock than professional explosives. Not that EBC's (electric blasting caps) are immune to static heads of electricity or lightening.

Not to detract from your fun, because stump blasting a a lot of fun----as long as no houses or people or cows are within several hundred yards. Stump blasting is the MOST inefficient use of dynamite, as you work against earth and air----very spungy materials----and the object it to tear the stump out of the ground. Debris HAS to fly. I dynamited a barn, after the demolition contractor could not pul it over with a bulldozer. A lot of holes, stick powder, tied together with det cord. Locals gathered: "Where should I stand?"

"Behind me," I said. "Way the hell back." Some folks brought food, and sat down like it was a picnic. "Get up," I said. "STAND! Face the shot! Be ready to dance!" An old hand hewn barn of mortise and tenon construction, erected on the heft of neighbors and horses, shares the flex of great tree, able to soak up tremendous loads imposed by blizzard or bull dozer. Against that resilience, the modern barn is a joke.

Real professional pyrotechnics involves skill, experience, and uninterruptible attention to detail. The same applies to controlled blasting, with this difference: there is no illusion with high explosives.

The blaster is first on the scene to examine his work. No one else moves until he inspects for unfired powder and shouts "Clear!" A blasting cap sheared in half by rock----unfired, imbedded in dynamite----is his job. No one else's. To think of these capers abides in me a special respect for the cold sweat of a bomb disposer. Horrible job, very simply because the object at hand was made to do harm in the first place. A very different place from ART and construction blasting.
David Bradshaw