Since I’ve begun experimenting with aluminum foil, I’ve taken the time to look at some of Dee Sands’s work. I think especially with Sands’s work, the act of crunching a hard material puts so much energy into the objects. It has completely transformed from a blank flat surface (I assume) into something filled with motion.
Final day working on my sculpture brief “To Mend”. I was a bit stuck on how to develop this idea into a completed work. John suggested incorporating text and comedy, so I went out and bought some supplies to make price tags and some kind of signage. I bought some reflective tape not having any idea what I was gonna do with it. I just ended up using the tape to add some small details but I feel it completed the work well. I think the final result came together pretty well, it looks kinda like a shitty pop-up shop to me.
The first idea I developed was the stitched Redbull can. I didn’t get a photo of it before I spray-painted it, but here it is afterward. I wasn’t expecting the paint to catch every detail of the thread but I like the effect of it.
I wanted to work with pins like someone had suggested in critiques. I thought that sticking the pins into some patched-up frames would be funny.
I ended up making two different bags. The white bag I punctured and put some fabric inside, then tried to pull fabric out from the inside but I didn’t really like the result. I liked how the brown bag turned out. I think that working with the tin foil was better than stitching the holes up. I think the contrast between foil and paper work pretty well.
Experiment
I got some cool ideas and suggestions from my group during the critiques. It also gave me a little more confidence in what I was working on.
Some people suggested I expand the imprint/contour idea of taking casts or molds of objects or land. I think I’m most likely to go forward with the mending idea I’ve started with jeans.
This week we began casting and working with slip. It took me maybe 3 or 4 tries to get a fully formed pear without each half splitting apart. I really enjoyed working on this process and it was satisfying to eventually find success with it.
I didn’t remember to photograph my other attempts but I still liked the outcome of the collapsed pears that I tried to make. I would’ve liked to experiment more with some other fruit or vegetables and shape them in different ways before they were fired.
This week, I began the process of mold-making using plaster and clay. I have some mold-making experience, but I enjoyed learning more about the hows and why’s of the process.
It was really helpful having a breakdown of all the steps of the initial process and learning about details I hadn’t even considered like making registration holes and mixing plaster properly.
Editing these works in photoshop was really helpful and refreshing for me. At first when I saw the original works I wasn’t interested in them, they seemed dull and I didn’t really care to put them on my wall. But inverting the colors and brightening them brought a new life and personality to them.
