0:00:32 > 0:00:33Oh!
0:00:33 > 0:00:34That's good.
0:00:34 > 0:00:38Picasso was so much more than just a painter.
0:00:38 > 0:00:41For most of his life, he experimented with sculpture too.
0:00:41 > 0:00:44His creative mind never switched off.
0:00:44 > 0:00:48He could see beauty and potential in anything, even in a junkyard.
0:00:48 > 0:00:53He'd come to places like this, find things that inspired him,
0:00:53 > 0:00:57take them home and turn them into something new.
0:00:57 > 0:00:59So I've found my own junkyard
0:00:59 > 0:01:04and hope that I'll get some inspiration for a bit of sculpture of my own.
0:01:04 > 0:01:08That's good. That's almost a finished emu. Look at that!
0:01:08 > 0:01:10Squawk!
0:01:17 > 0:01:19I'll have that as well.
0:01:21 > 0:01:23Yeah, that's good.
0:01:23 > 0:01:25Ah!
0:01:36 > 0:01:38Well, there's my junk.
0:01:38 > 0:01:43I'm going to pursue my idea of making an emu out of all this stuff.
0:01:45 > 0:01:48This problem of sticking things together...
0:01:48 > 0:01:52Picasso used to use anything that came to hand -
0:01:52 > 0:01:57bits of wire, plaster... He used to do some spot welding.
0:01:57 > 0:02:01I'm no good at welding, but I've got some epoxy glue.
0:02:01 > 0:02:06They say it WILL stick rusted metal together, so I'll try it.
0:02:06 > 0:02:11I want to use this as a beak for the emu. Squawk!
0:02:11 > 0:02:13It should work if I sit that there.
0:02:13 > 0:02:18Put some glue and that should just hold that in place till it sets.
0:02:19 > 0:02:23Picasso loved this construction type of sculpture.
0:02:23 > 0:02:28He didn't want to be constrained by the classical carving in stone or modelling in clay.
0:02:28 > 0:02:34He really liked the feeling that you could pick up bits and pieces anywhere, put them all together,
0:02:34 > 0:02:36'and get a million different textures.
0:02:36 > 0:02:41'He sparked a whole new style of sculpture.' Oh, look at that!
0:02:41 > 0:02:44You wouldn't believe that, would...?
0:02:44 > 0:02:47That's perfect for the wings!
0:02:48 > 0:02:53Good, I'll get some wire and hook those together.
0:02:58 > 0:03:03I've got an old brace bit without the bit - just the brace.
0:03:04 > 0:03:08And it goes through perfectly! Look at that!
0:03:10 > 0:03:13What I was thinking was that this...
0:03:13 > 0:03:16would be able to...
0:03:16 > 0:03:21create a perfect little support for the whole of that body section.
0:03:21 > 0:03:23Isn't that good?
0:03:23 > 0:03:25I love it!
0:03:25 > 0:03:27What about that?
0:03:30 > 0:03:32Yes, perfect!
0:03:36 > 0:03:38OK,
0:03:38 > 0:03:42it's going to be rickety, but then emus are a bit rickety!
0:03:44 > 0:03:46Now... Hup!
0:03:48 > 0:03:51It's the heaviest emu I've ever picked up!
0:03:52 > 0:03:56Still, his hips are in good nick! Look at that.
0:04:01 > 0:04:04ROLF LAUGHS GLEEFULLY
0:04:04 > 0:04:07Oh, yes! Oh, yes, yes, yes, yes!
0:04:10 > 0:04:12Now...
0:04:12 > 0:04:17I've got to get it all a uniform rusty iron colour.
0:04:17 > 0:04:21'Picasso would've had HIS sculptures cast in bronze,
0:04:21 > 0:04:25'but I'm just going to give mine a coat of emulsion.'
0:04:26 > 0:04:28Ah!
0:04:29 > 0:04:34Isn't it amazing that you can take a great pile of worthless junk
0:04:34 > 0:04:38and, with a bit of imagination, turn it into an artistic bit of fun?
0:04:51 > 0:04:56Eight miles north of Liverpool, on Crosby Beach, stand 100 iron men staring out to sea.
0:04:56 > 0:05:00They were only meant to be here for 18 months, but now the sculptures,
0:05:00 > 0:05:04collectively called Another Place, are a permanent fixture.
0:05:04 > 0:05:06He ain't going anywhere!
0:05:11 > 0:05:15The success of Another Place should really come as no surprise
0:05:15 > 0:05:17to their creator, Antony Gormley.
0:05:17 > 0:05:23Gormley is the superstar of public art in Britain, having also dreamt up the Angel of the North.
0:05:23 > 0:05:29Now more icon than sculpture, the Angel marked a watershed moment in public art.
0:05:29 > 0:05:32'I never imagined'
0:05:32 > 0:05:38that my work would be popular, but it's sort of become so.
0:05:38 > 0:05:43And I guess the fact that it's bodies and not boxes
0:05:43 > 0:05:46probably helps.
0:05:46 > 0:05:50But I think the most important thing is that it's actually out there -
0:05:50 > 0:05:54it's not framed by a museum.
0:05:54 > 0:05:58You are part of the work, and I think people like that.
0:05:58 > 0:06:02I think there's also that thing in Another Place that...
0:06:02 > 0:06:08looking out is what we all do - it's why people go to the seaside,
0:06:08 > 0:06:10to see the edge of the world.
0:06:10 > 0:06:16Because most of us spend most of our time in rooms.
0:06:16 > 0:06:20What do you think that public art should achieve
0:06:20 > 0:06:24for people wandering past? What is the point of public art?
0:06:24 > 0:06:29I think it's to make the world a little bit more interesting.
0:06:41 > 0:06:45I'm a sculptor. I work directly with the land,
0:06:45 > 0:06:47working in materials I find in the landscape,
0:06:47 > 0:06:51whether it be Japan, the North Pole.
0:06:51 > 0:06:56But it's the landscape around my home that's the most important to me,
0:06:56 > 0:07:00and it's that landscape to which I keep returning,
0:07:00 > 0:07:05and is the place that I can learn most about nature
0:07:05 > 0:07:08and my relationship with it.
0:07:08 > 0:07:14The slate is so much about layering, the way that it's formed.
0:07:14 > 0:07:19And when you get a block of slate and slice it up or something,
0:07:19 > 0:07:23it's extraordinary seeing this book of stone being revealed,
0:07:23 > 0:07:29and as you lift one piece off another, how you're looking back in time, really.
0:07:31 > 0:07:33With the slate being dry,
0:07:33 > 0:07:37it has this wonderful capacity to be drawn on -
0:07:37 > 0:07:39slate against slate.
0:07:39 > 0:07:43I like that between these two things you can produce that.
0:07:43 > 0:07:47That, for me, is fascinating.
0:07:47 > 0:07:50And that the line
0:07:50 > 0:07:53is not just drawn on the slate.
0:07:53 > 0:07:55It's drawn OUT of the slate.
0:07:55 > 0:07:59It's not as if I've come here with a white crayon
0:07:59 > 0:08:02and made these lines.
0:08:02 > 0:08:06Today, there's obviously a little bit of tension with the weather
0:08:06 > 0:08:11because this is a dry work, a work made with dry slate, as it is now.
0:08:11 > 0:08:14But the weather is showery.
0:08:14 > 0:08:19At first, I didn't know whether I was just going to do a line.
0:08:19 > 0:08:23I've decided to fill it in somewhat,
0:08:23 > 0:08:25I think to, um...
0:08:25 > 0:08:30to balance it up with the solidity of the slate.
0:08:31 > 0:08:33And hopefully something will emerge
0:08:33 > 0:08:39where the drawing will appear to have more presence than the slate itself,
0:08:39 > 0:08:43so it sort of floats over the slate.
0:08:43 > 0:08:48In all the time that I've worked here,
0:08:48 > 0:08:52I've never yet managed to make a rain shadow,
0:08:52 > 0:08:56which is what I do when it rains.
0:08:56 > 0:09:02So I lay down and the rain wets all around me.
0:09:02 > 0:09:05Then I get up leaving a dry shadow
0:09:05 > 0:09:07where I've laid.
0:09:07 > 0:09:10So if it does rain...
0:09:10 > 0:09:16I will do one of those - probably just here.
0:09:16 > 0:09:19It's quite nice laying alongside the work.
0:09:19 > 0:09:24So what is causing the disappearance of one work
0:09:24 > 0:09:26is creating the other.
0:09:28 > 0:09:31That is rain!
0:09:39 > 0:09:44Picking the moment when to get up is always tricky, too.
0:09:44 > 0:09:46I think it's a good time now.
0:09:49 > 0:09:53Getting up off the slate is awkward.
0:09:53 > 0:09:57I don't want to reveal any wet.
0:09:57 > 0:10:01My hand is just out a little bit.
0:10:01 > 0:10:05That's always the difficulty of making it on a very rough surface.
0:10:05 > 0:10:09I like the roughness but it loses the detail.
0:10:09 > 0:10:13It's beginning to dry now around the stones.
0:10:18 > 0:10:22It is important to take a chance on a work
0:10:22 > 0:10:23to see if it succeeds.
0:10:23 > 0:10:29There's been so many things that I've told myself that will not... are impossible,
0:10:29 > 0:10:32but I've tried anyway and succeeded.
0:10:32 > 0:10:37I returned to the slate quarry two days after making the piece
0:10:37 > 0:10:40and even though it had rained heavily,
0:10:40 > 0:10:45the outline of the work was still there.
0:10:45 > 0:10:47So I redrew the work.
0:10:47 > 0:10:52It was wonderful to be able to go back and revive a work that had been made previously.
0:10:52 > 0:10:54I like that idea a lot.
0:11:09 > 0:11:12Degas' Little Dancer never left him.
0:11:12 > 0:11:16He kept the wax sculpture in his studio all his life.
0:11:19 > 0:11:26His dealer suggested casting it in bronze to produce multiple editions, but Degas resisted the idea.
0:11:26 > 0:11:31He said, "It's too much responsibility to leave behind anything in bronze.
0:11:31 > 0:11:35"That substance is one that lasts for eternity."
0:11:38 > 0:11:42But the Little Dancer WOULD achieve eternal life.
0:11:42 > 0:11:48A few months after Degas' death, his heirs signed a contract to cast his wax sculptures in bronze.
0:11:48 > 0:11:53The Italian bronze caster Albino Palazzolo was in charge.
0:11:54 > 0:11:59In this foundry in Germany, bronze replicas of the Little Dancer
0:11:59 > 0:12:03are being cast by the traditional lost-wax process,
0:12:03 > 0:12:06the same technique Palazzolo used.
0:12:09 > 0:12:13First, a wax copy is made from the original.
0:12:13 > 0:12:18This is the wax that will be lost in the casting process.
0:12:18 > 0:12:24The wax is encased in a ceramic mould that can withstand the temperature of molten metal.
0:12:38 > 0:12:41The mould is fired in a kiln.
0:12:41 > 0:12:43The wax is lost.
0:12:43 > 0:12:47As it melts, the gases burn away.
0:12:48 > 0:12:54The mould is filled with molten bronze at 1,200 degrees centigrade.
0:13:06 > 0:13:09The mould is chipped away
0:13:09 > 0:13:14and the Little Dancer is reborn as a bronze.
0:13:14 > 0:13:21Finally, an elaborate finishing process with chemicals adds colour and texture to the bronze cast.
0:13:21 > 0:13:28The 28 bronzes cast from Degas' wax original found their way into the major museums of the world,
0:13:28 > 0:13:34where visitors might think they're looking at the original Little Dancer.