Paper Stacking

Assignment:
Read the sections I highlighted in Touch, A Natural History of the Senses by Diane Ackerman.  A hard copy was handed out at the beginning of the semester.  Post your response to the reading on your blog.

Create two stacked paper forms.  The first is observed from life.  The second is your own design.

Objective:
Observation through sight and touch as well as invention and development of individual idea. Introduce concepts of mass and volume.  Continue to explore proportion and develop observation skills.

Materials:
Estimate about four to six sheets of Rives gray paper, wood glue, scissors, Exacto, a vegetable or fruit for observation purposes (prefer to observe from life, but plastic fruit/vegetable is acceptable). Clamps can also be helpful when trying to get glue to set - some are available in the woodshop for checkout.  Do not use any other paper besides the paper I assigned. The paper I assigned is extremely thick and works well with stacking.  If you did not purchase the paper I assigned, or you run out, you easily find comparable paper at Hobby Lobby or Michaels.  Just take a swatch of paper with you and find one similar.

Process Work:

Paper stacking is perhaps one of the most frustrating projects thus far. Cutting each individual circle and adhering it together to create a larger shape became exhausting, fast. Though straightforwards in parameters, the process is anything but easy. 

 Six hours later...

 Uh oh. It is drying at a tilt. I had to break apart the layers in order to fix the angle.

 Much better!

Yay! It looks like a pear.

 Complete:

Original Design: 

 Inspiration:
I was inspired by my Memento project in terms of structure and color. The idea of space and color were important to the design. Also, I found various screen savers to be of interest, as most presented on my blog are are light moving in space. Finally, tetris. Yes, tetris. The geometric block shapes helped me visualize a meas to achieve the final form of the main, stacked construct.
 

It's About Time...

Assignment:
Carve two forms from life (a small, plastic animal) using soap as your medium. Observe and depict proportions.  Apply concepts of time to one of your carvings so that the form no longer represents your chosen animal.  Use the same animal for both forms.

Materials:

-One good quality bar of soap - two bars are best.  Visit Marshalls or Ross in town to purchase large, good quality soap.  Do not use drugstore soap (Dove, Irish Spring).
-Kemper ribbon carving tool set
-Banning wheel
-Small plastic animal or figure (if needed, you can borrow from me)
-Toothpicks can sometimes be useful for detail work. 
-Butter knife can also be useful.
-Ivory soap is VERY soft. I do not suggest using Ivory soap for this assignment. On the other hand, Ivory Soap floats...so, maybe it is worth it for you to use if your idea involves floating.  ---Glycerin soap is transparent, so it can be used for this quality.  

Process Work: 

 Final Carving:

 Destruction Process Work:

 Cut off the paws

 Inserted bits of paper clip into the feet, back, neck and head

 Wet the soap and rolled in soap shavings

 Carved a hole in its belly

 Filled belly with red Mountain Dew and placed in freezer

 Baked in oven on 400 for 15 minutes

(The overly sensitive fire alarm went off...thus I took it out of the oven)

 Poured wax over still warm carving

 Back into the freezer to cool off...

 More wax...hot wax over very cold carving made an interesting effect...

 This is what the bottom looks like when I peeled it from the foil...

 Cut in half and reassembled...

 And that's all folks!

Lick and Lather video response

Antoni uses different media and a vast array of unusual techniques to create art. It was strange to watch as she used her hair and a bucket of paint to create a painting on the floor. As was seeing her make a mold out of lard in a tub. But what was amazing was her relationship with her art. She sought to embrace concepts that were abstract and embraced them through out of ordinary means. She epitomized the limitlessness of artistic capacity. It begs the question: What is art? Is it the end result or the process? Both hold meaning.