To whom it may concern,

My name is Olivier Duhamel of 49 Church bay road, Oneroa. I am a self employed artist working from home where I make small bronze figurines. I sell these works through art galleries in New-Zealand, Australia and France. I derive a frugal but growing income from this activity.
I have prepared this information to inform, consult and call for feedback, comments, complaints and suggestions on any aspect of my activities that could cause disturbance or concern.

General activities.
The work consist of
• modeling small figures in clay or plasticine,
• making silicon and plaster molds,
• casting molten wax in silicon molds,
• making ceramic molds around a wax replicate,
• melting the wax out of the ceramic molds,
• casting molten metal in the ceramic molds,
• cleaning and polishing the resulting bronze sculptures,
• oxydising the bronze sculptures (patina),
• marketing the finished sculptures,
• general administration.

I have started this activity less than 2 years ago in late April 2006.

Training.
I have been trained in all aspects of bronze casting by New Zealand sculptor and founder David Reid. In the 1970’s David founded the Artworks foundry in Avondale, New Zealand’s largest art foundry.

Location.
I conduct this work from my family residence in Church bay road. While this is in Land Unit 12 “Bush Residential”, the Hauraki Gulf Island District Plan permits “home occupations” activities to be conducted in this Land Unit to allow people to work from home.
To ensure that any work undertaken from the home is ancillary to its principal use as a residence, such activities must:
1. be performed by a member of the household residing in a dwelling on the lot;
( I am the owner and permanent resident of the dwelling which I share with my family. I am the only family member taking part in this practice.)
2. be carried on either wholly within the dwelling or within an accessory building erected or modified for the purpose, provided that the activity shall not occupy more than one-third of the floor area of all buildings on the lot;
(The garage is a suitable building to conduct most my activities and to store various tools and consumables. It occupies far less than a third of the entire floor area.)
3. employs not more than one person residing elsewhere than on the lot;
( I had one assistant working with me for 6 month until February 2008. I am generally the only person at work on the premises. Occasionally, a model will be invited in my studio.)
4. involve no retail sales from the lot other than of handcrafts produced on the property or fruit, vegetables or other natural products grown on the property;
(The vast majority of my products sell offshore in art galleries. I do however welcome visitors and have made a small amount of sale from my home .No fruits, sorry. )
5. generate or cause no objectionable noise, smoke, smell, effluent, vibration, dust or other noxious or dangerous effects, or significant increase in traffic.
( I am of the opinion that my activities only generate an occasional and minimal amount of disturbance. These potential sources of nuisance are described below.)

Noise disturbance
Modeling figurines in clay or wax and mold making are very silent activities. There are however some other aspects of the process that are indeed noisy. Some involve the use of power tools, some others requires the use of an LPG blow torch.

Noise restrictions for our Land Unit are 45 dB from 7am to 10pm Mon to Sat and 9am to 6pm on Sundays; 35 dB on public holidays and at all other times than listed above.

In a effort to keep my activities well within these restrictions, I am careful to only operate power tools or blow torches between 10am and 5pm, never on week ends or public holidays.

For the first year, from April 2006 and until May 2007 I have operated a LPG fueled furnace once every 10 days on average. Melting the wax and melting the metal involves burning a LPG blow torch for several hours at a time and is by far the noisiest part of the casting process.
Although I had never received any verbal or written complaints, I have decided in June 2007 to stop melting wax and metal at home out of concern of the noise disturbance this could cause to the neighborhood and therefore the long term viability of my operation. I have then permanently moved the furnace to a rural part of the Island. I am also now contracting out this part of the process to professional foundries.
I am still burning a smaller LPG blow torch to heat the metal sculpture to about 200 centigrade for patina application. This requires considerably less energy than melting the metal does and should not be of any concern. Safety considerations dictate that I operate this blow torch outdoor. I normally patina for a couple of hours twice a week.

I am also operating a number of power tools such as electric drill, bench grinder, angle grinder, belt sander, vacuum cleaner and an air compressor. These are all small households DIY ttype tools, not the heavy duty professional kinds. Their use is confined within my workshop and again, always well within the noise restriction hours. Their operation is not a very frequent occurrence and I can be several days or weeks without using any power tools.

While I am convinced that the noise output at the boundary is well within the decibels legal limits for our Land Unit, I am nevertheless conscious that their operation can, on some days, become a genuine nuisance for the most immediate neighbours. I have regularly consulted these neighbours and have never received negative comments.

Fire hazards.
Operating an LPG blow torch may be perceived as a dangerous activity. It is in fact very safe when used for what it is intended for in a suitable environment.

I am using domestic LPG cylinders of the type used in a family barbecue. These cylinders are filled and regularly checked by a duly authorized agent. All equipments such as hoses, pressure valves and nozzles conform or exceed New Zealand safety standards. As an indication of my consumption, I use on average one 9 KG LPG cylinder every 2 months.

The other flammable product I use regularly is modeling wax. This is a mixture of bees wax, mineral oil and paraffin (candle wax). I often have a need to melt a small batch of about 3 litres of molten wax at 100 centigrade. I use an old electric frying pan to that effect. These frying pans are equipped with thermostats and do not present any more fire risk than heating cooking oil to fry a batch of whitebait on a kitchen bench.
To use another analogy, a lump of wax is about as flammable as a length of wood.

I have a fire extinguisher and a water hose readily available.

Chemical hazards.
I store a number of chemicals in my workshop. These consist of regular household chemicals such as methylated spirit, mineral turpentine, isopropyl alcohol, and spirit of salt.
I use these products very sparingly and only keep small quantities in plastic containers of one litre. I treat them with usual care and store them in a cool, dry place, away from direct sunlight on a child proof high shelf.

For the patination of the metal, I also use some more specialised chemicals such as Potassium Sulfide, Ferric Nitrate and Ferric Chloride. These oxidising agents are non flammable and non explosive and their use and transport do not require any kind of permit. I keep small quantities of about 200 ml of each.
The patination process requires heating the surface of the metal to a temperature of about 200 centigrade and the application of very small amounts of oxides with the tip of a paintbrush. This produces very small fumes readily dispersed and no smell or bad odour can be discerned more than a couple of feet away.
I keep a bucket of sand readily available in my patination area ( car port) to catch any accidental spillage of these chemicals. Such spillage would in any case be of a very small magnitude given the amount I use.

Other products kept in my workshop are plaster of Paris, Molochite (a kind of clay which has been baked and ground into a flour. 25Kg bag), colloidal silica (silica dissolved in water. 25 litres drum), sand blasting glass beads, modeling clay, modeling wax, silicon rubber. These products are chemically stable minerals and, when sensibly used, do not present any kind of risk to people’s health or to the environment.

Bronze is a generic term for many kinds of copper based alloy. I use either Everdur (95% Copper, 4%Silicon , 1%Manganese) or Herculoy ( 92% Copper, 4%Silicon, 4 % Zinc)

Environmental impact.
• Waste.
These activities generates a minimal amount of dry waste which I collect in a bin and dispose off in a standard Council pink refuse bag at the rate of one per month. Bulkier waste such as blocks of set plasters and large plastic containers are stored alongside the garage and taken to the transfer station for disposal or recycling once or twice a year.
• Effluent.
Other than occasionally rinsing off plaster mixing containers with a few litres of water, I do not produce any kind of effluent.
• Dust.
Mixing plaster and grinding metal does produces some dust that can occasionally escape in minute amounts from the tool’s collecting bags. This dust is confined to my workshop which I vacuum regularly.

Traffic impact.
No significant traffic increase is derived from my activities.
• I am advertising in the Waiheke Art Map where I invite Island tourists to visit my studio by appointment. I receive on average one visit per week, less in winter. I do not expect this to increase significantly in the future.
• In addition, I organise once a year an “Open Day Studio” where I invite the local community to view and purchase my latest pieces. I normally advise neighbours in advance of the date of this event which this year attracted about 100 people during the course of a day.
• Some of my consumables are delivered by courier vans. I estimate this to be no more than 6 deliveries per year.

Long terms plans.
I intend to grow my artistic practice to the point where it can generate a substantial income for our family. I will continue to operate out of my residence in the foreseeable future or as long as practicable. However, as the demand for my sculptures grows I will gradually contract out more parts of the manufacturing process and focus on the modeling aspect, therefore limiting the amount of potentially noisy activities.

I am currently making fairly small pieces, rarely taller than 30 centimetres. Should I decide to start making bigger pieces, my garage will no longer be a suitable space and all phases of the creation of larger sculptures will have to move off site in a larger, more practical workshop.

Conclusion.
Thank you for reading me thus far. I am hoping that you have found this information useful. If you have any further questions or concerns, please do not hesitate to contact me in the first instance.

Olivier

 
 

Contact

Olivier@Duhamel.bz

© Copyright Olivier Duhamel 2003-2009