Allan Llewellyn's rolling ball sculptures are part of 'Play' at Modified Arts in Phoenix
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What is play? How do we distinguish it from work? These are questions raised at “Play,” the current exhibition at Modified Arts.
The Show went to the exhibit to speak with an artist who creates rolling ball sculptures.
By day, Allan Llewellyn is a computer programmer. But in his free time he makes kinetic sculptures that sort of look like roller coasters for marbles.
"Well, my sculptures are just copper wire and wood and a little solder, and that’s really it — and then it’s just your imagination after that," said Llewellyn.
Llewellyn made his first sculpture in 2017 as a gift for his grandson, Nolan. He used the wire to spell out Nolan’s name on the top.
"He loved balls. That was the theme for his birthday, was balls. They had a ball pit and all this other stuff, and so I thought, well, I’ll put one of these together. So I made him a little rolling ball sculpture — he still plays with it today," Llewellyn said.
Llewellyn’s second-ever sculpture is on display at Modified Arts. The artist twisted copper wire around an upside down tree root to make a complex track for marbles. There’s a mechanism to the side that catches and releases them so multiple marbles run down the track at the same time.
"The copper root 1.0 is what I call it because it’s the first root that I ever made… This root I got from my son in law up in Flagstaff. He goes out and gets wood and I told him, well, look for some wood that I can use to make a sculpture on," Llewellyn said.
Llewellyn has two other sculptures at the gallery. One is what he calls a one wire, which he made with a singular 57-foot long piece of wire. It doesn’t run mechanically like copper root 1.0, but it has two sizes of marbles that take two different paths.
Well, at the very end they both end up in what’s called a flat spiral. So they’re spiraling down and then the smaller marbles will fall through the track onto another track while the larger ones will continue on to go the other direction.
"Nolan likes those because they crash at the end," said Llewellyn.
Llewellyn’s sculptures can get pretty complicated — with mechanisms in place to hold marbles at a certain point or set them on separate paths. But he insists it’s not complicated at all.
"The switch is like a teeter-totter," he said. "So it’ll go one way or the other based on the ball falling onto it… so it’s really, you know, very simple. And the tippers are kind of the same way, I make ‘em as simple as I can. And my tippers are simply just two wires bent around and then a counter weight, which I usually use a marble.
Llewellyn has made a total of 14 rolling ball sculptures.
"Play" was curated by Melissa Koury. It’s dedicated to her father, who passed away two days before the opening reception.
"When I was originally writing the description for this show, I had said that play and work both can be tools for building social connections, for harnessing creativity and learning. I also added a bit later we’re loving and surviving," said Koury.
She says Llewellyn’s sculptures are labor intensive, but it’s more than just that.
"They really exemplify the ideas of doing something as a labor of love, not just for others, but also for Allan, he did that for himself as well," she said. "Without really any prior knowledge of how to create these kinetic sculptures, he just started, you know, using creativity. He taught himself but he did it so that he could have some connection and time with his grandson and inspire wonder in him."
Also at the show there’s a glove made of candy, mixed-media pieces reminiscent of childhood drawings on your parents’ fridge and a painting of magnetic letters. You can see three of Llewellyn’s sculptures on display at Modified Arts in downtown Phoenix for its “Play” exhibit, which closes Feb. 11 with a reception.
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