A Journey Through Lake Light with Todd Costa
Todd Costa. My Lake Light Sculpture Journey
My journey with Lake Light Sculpture began back in 2002. It was the inaugural event. Being an electrician, I was approached by Michael Gow, who was setting up the event, to provide and install lighting for what he described as a theatrical sculpture exhibition. He aimed to bring the sculpture exhibition to life at night through illumination. I managed to obtain appropriate lighting and extension leads through sponsorship.
As time got close to the event an overseas ski trip that I had planned was cancelled. I had set aside six weeks for the trip, so I had time on my hands. There was a buzz around town for this new event, so I decided to exhibit at the exhibition. I had never made a sculpture before, but I did metal work in high school and knew I could make a full-length copper Drizasbone jacket. I pondered on how I could hang it. It was then I made the commitment to cutdown a dead tree and carve a life size figure to wear the copper jacket. I carved the figure in my garage with a constant stream of visitors checking on the progress. Including the local paper who did an article on the work prior to the event. The result ‘The Pioneer’ was a success and I received an encouragement award for my effort. The sculpture is now on permanent display at the National Parks building here in town.
Martin Bannnister and I spent a lot of time at the first exhibition. He gave me a lot of advice on art and sculpting. With all the excitement of my first exhibition I was hooked. The following year I did a life-sized female figure with an abstract copper dress. In the early years I also did a few installations relating to the bushfires of 2003 and several regarding environmental issues. I won a couple of minor environmental awards for my effort. As the years went on my sculptures turned into carved timber forms and I incorporated a light in the base wrapped with a copper diffuser. I have always loved timber and copper. The timber with its natural grain and the copper with its golden glow. I have won the Illumination award four times.
This will be my twentieth year exhibiting at Lake Light. I am the first person to reach that milestone. I have also exhibited at Sculpture Bermagui on many occasions, SWELL Currumbin, The Botanic Gardens Sydney and Sculptures on Clyde. I also have several commissioned works in bars around town.
From the first exhibition I continued to install the lighting each year until 2013 when it was apparent that the original power supply was now out of date for the event. We managed to obtain a $50 000 government grant to upgrade the power supply. I carried out the upgrade and once it was complete I went to a committee meeting to discuss the new setup. It was at this meeting I was informed the event was going to fold due to lack of support for the committee. I was in shock. We had just spent all this money, and I knew that if the exhibition didn’t go ahead that year, it may never happen again. Being nieve and thinking that all the systems were in place I decided to take on the running of the event. I was fortunate enough to coax a few locals to join a small committee. It was hard work for all of us, and it cost me a fortune in loss of income as the workload was immense. It was hard to get sponsorship in those days. I managed to get the funds required to run the event through a lot of personal contact with sponsors. I also took a different approach to the exhibition. Prior to me running the exhibition, entries were around the forty to sixty mark. I contacted the artists and encouraged them to bring several sculptures. A major piece, and some smaller pieces, to cover their exhibition costs. This was a major success with several artists bring multiple small sculptures. I even had locals coming up to me excited that they could afford to purchase sculptures from the event. The number of entries increased dramatically even to the point that we were thinking that we may have to limit the number of entries. These days we are around the 100 plus entries. I ran the exhibition for three years during that time I was also the Artistic director, and I continued to install the lighting for the event.
As this will be my twentieth year exhibiting at Lake Light, I am going to exhibit my original sculpture ‘The Pioneer’ as well as a new sculpture created for the event.
