Design from line: Wire shoes
Design from line part II: Wire spider
For this piece I created a three-dimensional spider. I chose to create a spider for a couple different reasons; reason one being my phobia of arachnids. It’s a little known fact about me, but I am severely afraid of spiders. The second reason being the symbolical meaning behind spiders in works of art. Spiders often depict a symbol of creativity, mystery and growth. They communicate that we are the creators of our fate and we have the power to weave and create our reality. In order the meet the requirements for the assignment (which was to show movement) I decided against doing a spider in its normal position, and instead of making it hanging from a web from the ceiling, or inside of a web, I chose to make the spider in a defensive position, with its front four legs up in the air and its back four support itself. The ideal setting for this piece to be displayed would be on a table, on the floor, or on a shelf. I feel these are the most appropriate ways of displaying this piece due to the very nature of spiders, although spiders may be found in different areas, like in a web, given the defensive position that the spider is in, it would most likely be found in the natural world in a similar setting. When preparing for this assignment I did a decent amount of research on spiders. Looking into the allegorical meaning of spiders in artwork, the different spices of spiders and how they behave, as well as referencing multiple photos in order to correctly mimic the defensive positions spiders takes when they feel threatened. For the thorax and the head of the spider I used a single strand of the black wire provided in class that I coiled around and around continuously in order to form the figure/ body of the spider. Starting off with tight coils, and loosening them up each time around, until I got to a certain point, then I would make the coils tighter, creating a sphere for the head, and then again for the body. For each one of the legs I used a separate wire that I kinked, and angled in precise areas in order to mimic the spiders legs while in a defensive stance. Then I took the wired legs and spun a thinner gold wire around it not only to add the visual aspect, and create a striped like pattern. But more importantly, to attach the legs to the thorax of the spider. I wouldn’t say my effort had an effect on the final outcome, however this project was defiantly easier said than done, things went a lot smother in my head as opposed to when I actually had the materials in my hand. Keep in mind, this is my first attempt at anything three-dimensional.
LIquid, mold, solid: Plaster Wood Textures
For this particular project it was important to me to find a way/ topic that would unify the three different sculptures together. Upon various hours of brainstorming, and scraping multiple ideas, I finally arrived at the concept that I would end up pursuing. That being; the many forms of wood textures. The first sculpture was the texture of tree bark, the second texture was that of a wood door, and the final sculpture was the texture of hard wood floors. Originally I wanted to make the tree bark texture, the wood door, and instead of the wood floors I would have created a piece of notebook paper. Each piece would have progressively gotten larger. (Tree bark being the smallest, and note book paper being the largest) The allegory behind my original idea was the recognition of the decreasing resource of wood. However, there was not enough texture in a piece of notebook paper to meet the criteria of this assignment. So I curved my idea a little bit, and focused more on the texture rather than the concept. As for the ideal display setting of this piece, I have the two smaller sculptures (the tree bark, and the wood flooring) leaning on the larger sculpture (the wood door). The reasoning behind this is the fact that things in close proximity are typically associated with one another, if the viewer were to look at each piece individually it wouldn’t make as much sense, nor be as effective as it would if they were all displayed together. And as for them leaning on each other, that’s just because it would not be as visually appealing if they were all lying flat next to one another. Working with plaster was a lot more difficult than I anticipated. And because of this I gained a new found appreciation for sculpture artists like Michael Angelo. Needless to say, this project required an extensive amount of out-of-class work. After facing many hardships and struggling extensively, I noticed that the more familiar I got with the materials, and the more I got a hang of it, the easier and easier the projects progressively got. My first piece was a disaster (which is one of the reasons I did tree bark, because it was easier to hide mistakes). However, the final sculpture went over a lot smother that the previous ones. When all was said and done, I am happy with the final outcome.
Paper Pileup: Robot origami
For this piece I decided to create a three dimensional robot. The reason behind this idea is the fact that Origami and paper art is a very ancient form of art work, and a technique that dates back to 105 A.D. Needless to say, I thought the irony of using an ancient technique to create a futuristic figure would produce an interesting and compelling concept. I also utilized the notion of irony in the stance of the robot, as well as the environment that the robot is placed in. I made the robot in the stance of the dance move “the robot”. The environment I placed the robot in is one where a street break dancer may be found. The robot is place on a piece of cardboard, and on the opposite side of the robot figure is a small boom box. However, before arriving at this idea, and before scrapping my initial ideas, I did some minor research on the history of origami as well as look into various artist that used paper techniques to create their works of art, artists such as; Francene Levinson, Jen Stark, Andrea Russo, and David Huffman. Although very few of these works resemble the piece I created, they did help to draw inspiration, especially the animal heads created by David Huffman. The technique I used was basically creating multiple different cubes and rectangular prisms that varied in size, then arranging them in a way that would create a freestanding three dimensional figure. The most difficult part was connecting the shapes to one another, and making the robot stand on its own, as well as keeping the paper a nice crisp white with glue over my fingers. The ideal display setting for this particular piece would be on a large pedestal that is slightly taller than the viewer, forcing the viewer to look upward at the piece. The reason being that the robot symbolizes the future, and this display setting forces the viewer to look up/ forward to the future, I want the viewer to notice that the future is close enough to reach, but far enough that it will require work to acquire what you are striving for.
Cardboard Furniture: DVD case
For this piece I decided to create a piece of furniture that would serve a functional purpose to me, made merely out of cardboard. A little known fact about me is that I am a big movie enthusiast, and I own close to about one-hundred movies and television seasons, but lately I’ve been running out of storage space for my DVD collection, so I have decided to create a movie/ book shelf that could create some extra room for me, and allow me to continue my collection! The technique I used involved cutting four pieces of even cardboard for each designated shelf and side of the DVD case. After that I took all four pieces of cardboard and glued them all together in order provide more stability and reinforcement. Then, following that, I glued each chunk of cardboard together, mimicking the form of a bookshelf one might see that is made out of wood. The only trouble that I encountered throughout the duration of this assignment, was measuring errors. And as a result I had to tweak my original idea slightly. I eliminated a shelf so the DVD’s would comfortably fit in the shelves, and then I trimmed down the remaining shelves so they did not hang over the sides of the DVD case. The only research I conducted regarding this project was looking up a few of the suggested artists, (such as Frank Lloyd Wright, Frank Gehry, Verner Panton, and Philippe Starck.) As well as researching a few YouTube tutorials on how to create a bookshelf using only cardboard and glue. The ideal setting for this piece would be directly on top of the pre-existing bookshelf that is in my closet at home that holds most of my movies currently. Which will finally add more room for my DVD’s so they won’t have to be lying in a box on the floor of my closet, which makes it difficult to dig through to find a particular movie. This cardboard shelf will enable me to set all the movies up on their sides so they can easily be found and identified. Ideally I’d like to either paint the cardboard bookshelf, or staple cloth around it, just to give it more of a visually appealing/ homey look, just so it does not look like it is made out of recycled cardboard.