MetalSculpture from Spring 2012

Practice Welds

The project assignment was to make something heavy, or make something that looks heavy. My instructor was very adamant about not telling us to make sculpture because people can fall into the trap of just making what they think is sculpture or making sculpture that they like or have seen before. 

For the following project we had to make something site specific, meaning that we have to create something to exist in a specific space, so that it cannot exist anywhere else. I came up with this contraption that slides onto this cart from the side, then you move it back, and there are metal parts that go around the wheels in order to contain them, and prevent the cart from moving.

This was my last project for metal sculpture. I wanted to do something about the Native American culture and found all sorts of stories about something called a Green Corn Ceremony. I chose to do something from the Yuchi culture because found a very useful book in the library about that culture written from an anthropological stand point. Also, that culture is more open to "outsiders" than the Iroquois. The Green Corn Ceremony takes place in August at the end of summer to celebrate the harvest. It lasts for three days. There is a ceremony to prepare the ceremonial grounds on the first day, the Green Corn Ceremony on the second day, and a soup ceremony on the last day. 

The Green Corn Ceremony is a story about a wise man taking teenage boys into the wilderness. He tells them not to wander off and not to go into the holes of any trees. One boy wandered off and went into the hole of a tree and there was a giant lizard that ate him. The wise man set a trap out to catch the lizard. On their way back to camp the put the head of the lizard on the top of different trees. Each tree died except for the Oak Tree. The ceremony is about this story. There are dancers that enter the square ceremonial ground and dance around in the circle counter clockwise. At a certain point there are 4 gun men that enter and circulate the dancers. At some point the dancers leave the circle and take a symbolic cleansing bath and the 4 gun men fire of blank rounds. The book I read had different interviews of different participants within the Yuchi culture, but who celebrate at a different ceremonial ground. The main point of the guns firing was to try to replicate thunder and lighting.
I made 8 dancers and 4 gunmen, using beads. Originally I actually wanted to make a totem. I kind of feel like these little figures are like totems because each bead represents something.
The gunmen have beads that represent the lighting, the lightning in the night sky, thunder, and rain. The dancers have beads to represent lizards, sea shells that are worn to make noise, and blue beads for the cleansing water. I kept repeating the numbers 4 or used multiples of 4 to keep in line with that tradition. Also, the yellow more twine like waxy string is meant to represent the east because that is where the sun rises, and the opposite side has dark string.
I used a metal square frame and this rebar grid and wrapped rebar wire. I didn't do any welding for this because I felt like the idea of permanence conflicts with the Native American tradition. I found some butcher string that I used to wrap around the frame, and I made sure to do this counter clockwise, (as I also did with the weaving of the rebar wire.)  I drilled holes in two cylinders to run a metal rod through the lower set of holes for this whole piece to rest on. 

Drawing from Spring 2012

My drawing class this past semester helped me understand space a lot better. The semester started off with tedious exercises, but eventually I appreciated the point of the work. I feel like I better understand how to plan and imagine space and objects on a two dimensional surface. This has also helped me in planning sculpture.

Contour line drawings seem effortless but can be hard. Weight and thickness of line can imply so much, or so little. For these homework exercises I had to choose an area to draw, then change my point of view, so either physically move up, or move down. 

These exercises where I had to change the point of view helped to teach me how I can say certain things, and what different points of view can imply or impose on the viewer.

For this exercise I had to change my point of view from the left or from the right, and layer the drawing. I also had to maintain a pivotal line, so I kept the corner of the walls consistent. 

It's interesting how simple these foundational concepts are because they can be so easily forgotten. At this point in the semester we were supposed to learn about scale. This artichoke is on 18x24in paper and takes up the whole sheet. I used dry pastels.

This is a 4x6in, post card size drawing of the view outside of my friend's window. The assignment was to draw a large space on a small paper. Some people felt the need to use a border and some people didn't. Certain decisions can have a great impact on what an artist is trying to say or create in the viewer's space.

Towards the end of the semester we were given more time for projects in order to use skills that we learned in ways that we wanted to. For this project we had to choose 10-15 objects to draw on 10x60in paper. I chose to draw my pointe shoes, and initially I drew sketches on tracing paper. I wanted to be able to figure out arrangement/composition for the finial product. In the end I drew 3 pairs of pointe shoes, front and back from the view as if I am looking down and about to put them on. I drew each shoe 4 times (twice front and twice back.) 

I eventually decided to layer these drawings. I had drawings on the actual paper, evenly spaced apart, and then layered the drawings from the tracing paper on top. If I kept the drawings all separate and spaced evenly, it would have appeared very sterile as if being examined. Although I like that idea, that doesn't mean anything to anyone else. Being a dancer, and more sculpture oriented, this project helped me understand how to create movement and dimension on a flat surface. 

For this project I was supposed to expand on a previous idea or process. I started with drawing a medicine bottl

e and drew a bunch in tracing paper, but that idea expanded. I had a new little notebook that had paper with a Date box on the front and graph paper on the back. I decided to use a date stamp I have and use a piece of paper from that notebook to represent each month I have had a prescription for ADHD medication. I use clear labels to print fake prescriptions that had for each month. (I looked up my rx history.) the front also includes a large image (printed on a label) of what the medicine looks like. The back of the paper has the number of pills for the prescription. All of these papers are hanging from that window ledge. The length of the string corresponds with the dosage. I used white string for fast acting med, black for extended release, white and brown for medicine I had to take when my regular fast acting was on back order, white and green for when my regular extended release was in back order, and red string for then prescriptions I could not get filled because it was on back order. I used clear vellum computer paper to print text and images from my visual journal and drawings. I drew on the window at different vantage points with crayola window crayons. I was basically tracing what I saw through the window. The strip that goes across is a contour drawing of a medicine bottle repeated. The text is information about ADD. I feel like that string represents a fuse and the direction it hangs is trying to keep me grounded, the layered drawings are my thoughts, while everything coexists within a containment, but the containment (the glass) doesn't contain my eye (imagination).