ECU Sculpture

Thursday, December 8, 2011

Final Project-"Longing"

Well, its FINALLY here. After working on this for what feels like an eternity, I can finally say that my in-the-round sculpture is finished and that I am very happy with how it turned out. Those of you who had class with me were able to witness the long process I went through to get it to where it is now, but just for how long of a process it was I ended up not documenting the process like I should have. After discussing what I wanted with an Ace worker, I chose a clear lacquer that wasn't too thick, would protect my piece, and give it the honey color I wanted. I chose to do people for this piece because I haven't done a lot of work with figures, and I wanted to challenge myself with this piece and boy did I ever. I was also inspired by the work of Auguste Rodin, one of my favorite artists. Along the way, I began to derive my own meanings from this piece and for doing this piece. I also learned a lot about myself as well, like even though I am a patient person with my work, working with wood (and in-the-rounds in particular) may require a little more patience than I am currently blessed with. However, I will not let this deter me and I will continue challenge myself.

Wim Delvoye

Wim Delvoye is a contemporary, Belgian artist, who is also referred to as a non-conceptual artist. His work pushes the envelope and rides the line in several areas, between innovative and insane, riveting and repulsive. In fact, his tattooed pigs idea (which was actually named "Art Farm")was so outrageous that he left his home of Belgium for China so that he might legally pursue his artistic ideas. Much of his work is related to the body in one way or another. One of his most famous pieces being a digestive machine he put together, named "Cloaca", which actually creates excrement. Finally, his other work that he is well-known for are his "Gothic" pieces, which involve x-rays of sexual acts put into gothic style windows to imitate traditional stain glass windows. Upon my first looks at his work, I couldn't help but think that this man was utterly crazy for the ideas he had, but also appreciating them even more for their boldness and originality. While creating art out of my own excrement or using live animals for my work isn't exactly something I aspire to, I do hope that I can one day find a style or concept as particular to me as he has.

Cram. Who?

In my last blog, I didn't include how I made my plaster sculpture. My first step was to research how to make and pour the cast. This took me weeks of reading books, watching videos, and calling supply companies. I decided to work with aginate, which is the material that covers the model and makes a skin. After covering the model with this goo, I secured the skin with cut pieces of burlap covered in plaster. This hardens in 5-10 minutes and then it was time to pull the skin off of the model which came off really easy. The edges of the skin pulled off of the plaster so I secured it with clothes pins (photo) I then poured the mixed plaster into the mold and let it set over night. The next day I cut off the burlap and the skin which took me hours and saw the plaster figure. I repaired the figure and attached it to the wood base with plaster. I painted the figure with three colors of acrylic paint. I went to the paint store and matched the colors with regular paint for the background. I added the tree branches because I wanted to tell a story with my sculpture. It's about the feminine identity associated with nature.

The process didn't come out perfect and in the end I had to adapt my ideas, but I never gave up. I really love the end results and I have found that in making sculpture, sometimes what was meant to be is meant to be. The sculpture seems to take a life of it's own and I was there to just assist. The other students might think this is crazy but I have real conversations with my art. In the end, we become friends.

Sol Lewitt

Sol Lewitt was an American who gained his fame in the 1960's as one of the founders of the Conceptualism and Minimalism art movements. His "structures" (as he preferred to call his three dimensional work) and wall drawings, along with most of his other work, largely consisted of geometric patterns, repetition of slight variations in patterns, and basic architecture; the cube being the basis and inspiration for many of his pieces. The sheer number of pieces he completed is astounding; over 1200 wall drawings alone were completed. I feel that his ability to execute so many pieces successfully could be attributed to the fact that he always had a plan laid out before hand so the creation of his piece went smoothly. Even with his later work based on seemingly random, curving lines in highly saturated colors was also planned with set guidelines. This artist instantly piqued my interest when I saw his work for the first time here recently. It was his use of vibrant colors in his later work that first caught my attention, and it was the geometry of his early work that held it. I hadn't seen so much color used in a sculpture, nor had I seen such a strict structure used in a piece. The open, but still stable, look of his other pieces allows you to see the essence of his work without "weighing it down" so to speak. Seeing his work allowed me to look at sculpture from a different view and appreciate the structure, discipline, and planning behind his work, something of which I could use more of. Below I've pasted another brief bio (Wikipedia.com this time) as well as a link to an interview.

"LeWitt was born in Hartford, Connecticut to a family of Jewish immigrants from Russia. His mother took him to art classes at the Wadsworth Atheneum in Hartford.^[2] After receiving a BFA from Syracuse University in 1949, LeWitt traveled to Europe where he was exposed to Old Master painting. Shortly thereafter, he served in the Korean War, first in California, then Japan, and finally Korea. LeWitt moved to New York City in 1953 and set up a studio on the Lower East Side, in the old Ashkenazi Jewish settlement on Hester Street. During this time he studied at the School of Visual Arts while also pursuing his interest in design at Seventeen magazine, where he did paste-ups, mechanicals, and photostats. In 1955, he was a graphic designer in the office of architect I.M. Pei for a year. Around that time, LeWitt also discovered the work of the late 19th-century photographer Eadweard Muybridge, whose studies in sequence and locomotion were an early influence. These experiences, combined with an entry-level job as a night receptionist and clerk he took in 1960 at the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) in New York, would influence LeWitt's later work.

At the MoMA, LeWitt’s co-workers included fellow artists Robert Ryman, Dan Flavin, and Robert Mangold. Curator Dorothy Canning Miller's now famous 1960 “Sixteen Americans” exhibition with work by Jasper Johns,Robert Rauschenberg, and Frank Stella created a swell of excitement and discussion among the community of artists with whom LeWitt associated. LeWitt also became friends with Hanne Darboven, Eva Hesse, andRobert Smithson.

LeWitt taught at several New York schools, including New York University and the School of Visual Arts, during the late 1960s. In 1980, LeWitt left New York for Spoleto, Italy. After returning to the United States in the late 1980s, LeWitt made Chester, Connecticut, his primary residence.^[3] He died at age 78 in New York from cancer complications."

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3CV3iYNn0y0&feature=player_embedded

Auguste Rodin

Auguste Rodin was a French sculptor who was born and raised in Paris. Despite his classical training and becoming well known in the late 19th century (and being world-renowned by the turn of the century), he never received academic recognition from the art world until after his death. His realistic style pulled away from the classical style that can be seen in other works of that time (more specifically Greek and Roman); exhibiting the natural features and musculature of his models, rather than over-exaggerating the figures and having a mythological or allegorical basis. This stray from conventionality stirred much controversy and rumors of cast making, which followed Rodin for some time until his exhibit of "Saint John the Baptist" which was larger than life-size and still showed his own personal style and technique. Several of his later pieces were inspired by events and people in his personal life, his mistress and colleague (Camille Claudel) in particular. She posed as a model for several of his pieces and was the source of the inspiration for the many depictions of lovers in passionate embraces. Long before knowing anything about Rodin, or even knowing that it was his work I was looking at, I was and still am greatly inspired by his work. Knowing that he became a success despite his challenges, only deepened that respect. In my opinion, the beauty of natural form and humanity he captured sets his work apart, which is a repeating theme in his work. Below I've also posted a brief biography from Answers.com.

"(born Nov. 12, 1840, Paris, France — died Nov. 17, 1917, Meudon) French sculptor. Insolvent and repeatedly rejected by the École des Beaux-Arts, he earned his living by doing decorative stonework. Not until his late 30s, after a trip to Italy, did he develop a personal style free of academic restraints and establish his reputation as a sculptor with The Age of Bronze(exhibited 1878), whose realism was so great that he was accused of forming its mold on a living person. His Gates of Hell, a bronze door commissioned in 1880 for a proposed Musée des Arts Décoratifs, remained unfinished at his death, but two of its many figures were the bases of his most famous images, The Thinker (1880) and The Kiss (1886). His portraits include monumental figures of Victor Hugo and Honoré de Balzac. Though these and many other works caused controversy for their unconventionality, he was successful enough that he could establish a workshop where he executed only molds, leaving the casting of bronze and the carving of marble to assistants. To his sculpture he added book illustrations, etchings, and numerous drawings, mostly of female nudes. He revitalized sculpture as an art of personal expression and has been considered one of its greatest portraitists.

Read more: http://www.answers.com/topic/auguste-rodin#ixzz1fw6jGlAs"

Wednesday, December 7, 2011

wayneath in one of my sculptures,Gaither

See its so big a person can fit inside. Yes thats Wayneath.

its done, Gaither

I am so glad that it is over i cut myself some more and burned my hands,

but the end of it i am so happy that it looks like it dose because i put a lot of work on these three different sculptures. My math felled on me again the pedestal are two to three times to big. The body parts and the tools didnt come out like i wanted them to look so i left them out. The one that won was the one that has three pedestals. I did fell bad about throwing it away seen i spent so much time and money on
it, but i really need the angry relies.

I forgot I needed to share how I made my pieces. First of all I bought 45 ft of copper wire, although when you look at the pieces together they do not seem to equal that amount, but they are there in fact. 2 big blocks of candle wax, boiling bags and an endless supply of cupcake holders. I used candle wax after melting and poured them into the holders for the form. These would become my heads for my mushrooms. After letting them dry but not completely I peeled away the paper layer. I would take the formed wax and drop it into the pot of boiling water, this smoothed out the tops and removed the ridges from the cupcake holders. I would then take one of the long copper rods and insert it into the bottom of the head. After I made sure they were standing nice and tall without the heads falling over, I continued. I like that I did not keep with one size, that I changed it up to have a nice variety of sizes. It was a crafty idea which became brilliant. I burned myself only a few times, but hey like they say if you don't get burned then whats the use....at least i think that's a saying. Apparently I've had one to many days without sleep.