So this week I don't have any amazing finds for you, and instead of being at work this week I'm spending most of my evening at the sculpture studio at Bradley University. These next few weeks are critical for my sculpture class as we are finalizing our pieces to exhibit at the Studios On Sheridan in Peoria, IL. I will be displaying several pieces (at least 3) alongside those of my classmates and professors. We have about two weeks left, and we're all pumped for the event.
Conceptually, my personal projects are about the relationships that wild animals have with humans and with themselves respectively, that humans have with the environment, and the effects of man-made disasters on the environment. My first piece is a surrealistic themed tortoise, with the shell folding up on one half to reveal a house built into the tortoise's body. All of this acts as a metaphor for the fact that the home is often more fluid and easily destroyed than we'd like to believe, just like the shell of a tortoise. These animals are known to shed their shells as they grow, which is similar to the way that people grow and change in the non-literal sense. The shell will always grow back and keep the turtle protected unless it is destroyed, but once it is there is most often no repairing it. This piece is nearly finished, I only have to cast it in aluminum and refine from here on out. It's in pieces and covered in plaster for now so the details can't be seen, but the pictures I include should show them all with their venting systems (these are so the metal doesn't trap air when being poured into the mould).
The second piece is a rabbit, twisted by the effects of a man-made disaster, which in this case is nuclear radiation. In places where disasters such as this have occurred—Chernobyl, for example—the wildlife has been almost permanently genetically mutated and/or stunted, in some ways very grotesquely. My rabbit has two heads on an otherwise completely normal body, which is a known and observed mutation caused by radiation. This one is nearly finished in wax and ready to be coated in plaster.
My third and final piece is a head with a hairdo, only the head is in it's most basic skeletal form and the hair made of old and useless cables and cords from that pile that arguably most people have had or seen in their home at one point or another. There's nothing wrong with the phrase "it's just an extra," but when the extra becomes trash to us it can often become harmful to the environment it's thrown out into. Being made of synthetic material, odds are they will never decay in the average human lifetime if ever at all as the bones they are attached to in this case. I have yet to start this piece, but I feel it's crucial in visualizing the concept.
In a nutshell, that's what I'm up to for the foreseeable future on top of the heavy project load for my other classes as well. It's gonna be a fun few weeks.
Until next time
Upper Tortoise shell and limbs
Lower turtle shell, house visible
Two-headed rabbit, happy easter.
Behind is a 5.5' tall sculpture being done by Liz Johnson
This is interesting. I like your designs so far I know they will come out nice you just have to push through. This is the final few weeks of class so I feel like everyone is feeling the heat of the end of the semester. You got this good luck
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