Project #5- Wax Sculpture
Exhibition Text
This project is a candle wax sculpture that is about 10.16 cm x 5.08 cm and was inspired by Rebecca Stevenson and Paul Thek. I was inspired by Stevenson's choice of technique and design of her piece because she took a head of a cow that looks as if it was cut off and beautified what would be a gruesome event. With Thek I was inspired the color and style of his sculpture because it was very lively an childlike. The meaning of this piece is to beautify the humanity because it is believed that we don't pay attention to how much we put onto the earth and the wax is somehow what we leave behind. Making a strong ecological footprint.
Artistic Inspiration
Rebecca Stevenson
Pastorale
2006, polyester, resin and wax, (55 x 60 x 41 cm) |
Rebecca Stevenson is a sculpture artists that creates sculptures that are almost as if they are transitioning from life to death. However it is not something you are able to see right away. The longer you look at her sculptures you are able to find how beautiful, yet gruesome her creations are. Stevenson drives to make her sculptures into feminine objects. The artists also likes to reference art historical conventions such as, still life paintings and portraits. I was inspired by Stevenson's sculptures because I had noticed the way her sculptures were in a transitioning stage and I wanted to illuminate the idea and make my sculpture into transitioning stage that was from wax shavings. I was attracted to how the cow is covered outside and inside with flowers which is seen as something precious to the environment. However, when looking more closely to the color and details I was able to notice the change and became more unsettling.
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Paul Thek
Paul Thek (1933-1988), Untitled (Hand with Ring), 1967. Wood, plaster, paint, and metal, (18.5 x 11.5 x 11.5 cm)
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Paul Thek is a multimedia artist that creates many different types of pieces. However he is mostly known for being an American painter, sculptor, and one of the first artists to create environments or installations. Thek became known for his sculpture in New York galleries in the 1960's. The first pieces he made were called "Meat Pieces," because they were meant to represent flesh and were encased in clear boxes. Towards the end of the sixties Thek ventured for Europe as he explored different mediums creating extraordinary environments, incorporating elements from art, literature, theater, and religion, often employing fragile and ephemeral substances, including wax and latex. However in the seventies he aimed towards small paintings, but continued making sculptured for international exhibitions. It is said about the artist that he creates works that show everything around us as it should be seen. As everything in the environment is great, but we don't choose to recognize so until someone does for us. With that I was inspired by the color scheme and unsettlement of how the fingers were organized. With care yet, having an action towards something. What had drawn me was how large the sculpture was and the difference of the ring to the hand. So, with inspiration from Thek I was able to use a specific technique to create my sculpture.
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Meaning
The meaning behind this piece is to provide information and value to the people who view my piece. As I want to contribute to how I view humanity as it is not exactly the most caring being and recognize the things we do, but don't care to take notice. Every year there is about 14 billion pounds of trash in the ocean. Americans make up 5% of the world's population, and yet, produce 30% of the world's waste and use 25% of the world's resources. I would like to say I appreciate the culture of those who care about the way we live and how should take notice of how we pollute the land everyday. However I wanted to give voice to this popular discussion with my wax sculpture. Using the scraps from the wax candle I wanted to portray how even the slightest amount we produce and compose makes a change into the Earth. So, I gave a face to the scraps by molding the wax peelings and formed a deformed face that was falling apart.
Process
Brainstorming
Sketch #1
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Because of my inspiration from Stevenson I first wanted to make my sculpture into a trash can that looked like the old metal ones. Although I wanted to beautify it with flowers that looked looked elegant. As well as, making them look as if they were sprouting from the trash can. Similar to Stevenson's "Pastorale," I was brainstorming how I would be able to incorporate the same on edge feel to my sculpture.
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Sketch #2
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While I was drawing out the shape of the trash can I contemplated on how I would be able connect humanity to how we create pollution. So, I came up with the idea of making a head that would be the base of the sculpture and what would look like a bag of trash coming out of the persons head. So in my sketch I choose to make odd structure of the human so it wouldn't be detectable as a "normal," person. And the bag on top almost pouring out of the persons head. To entail that the connection is the brain and trash pollution.
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Sketch #3
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After my idea with combining I explored the idea and decided that my sculpture should be a human facing melting away. Using the shavings of the candle would insight towards the pollution that occurs from all production that we make daily including the candle. I made a sketch of a distorted human face to show how humans are destroying our own way of living by major productions in the world.
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Step-by-step Process
I first wanted to carve the candle into a cylinder form for the image of a trash can and have accent flowers coming out of the trash can. So, I started carving away from the square candle to make it circular. Although while I was cleaning my shavings from the candle I had made a pile and molded the pile together. Which where I came up with the idea of creating the sculpture from the scraps themselves. Once I came up with the idea with using the shavings from me carving away from the candle I decided to carve away from the candle so I could mold the shavings together to form my distorted human face falling apart. I first formed some shavings into a ball like form so the sculpture wouldn't be 2- dimensional. After I felt that the head, which is the base of the sculpture was about how I wanted it to be I started to create the eyes. However when creating the facial features it was not how I expected it to come out because my drawing wasn't logical for it. However I made it work with making an indent in the part of the face that where the eyes would be. Which was a bit of a struggle since the piece of scraps weren't combining to finely. Rather it was sticking together than becoming one piece. As for the nose I found it a little easier because the shape was smaller which made it easier to make it compacted together. When I was creating the mouth I wanted it look like it was falling apart so, I pushed away the wax that was formed from the face and formed sides of the face to make it look like it was still attached. I then surrounded the face with the rest of the shavings from what I had carved away from the candle. To make the sculpture look as if it was falling apart from the face.
Compare & Contrast
With Rebecca Stevenson I was inspired by the way she produced her sculpture to look both beautiful and chilling. However i was mostly inspired by her use of structure and skill of the movement of the flowers and detail in the cow. I used this in my piece and wanted to do the opposite by making my sculpture look unrecognizable producing a message on how human and inhuman we are as people. I sculpted the face to be molded but, falling apart. I didn't incorporate color into my piece either because my argument towards humans not caring enough about our actions and productions onto the planet. So, color didn't seem to fit to my message. I was inspired by Thek's large hand sculpture because of the color and texture. I wanted to incorporate how Thek used texture to define the natural folds and creases of the human hand. I wanted my piece to seem unnatural that the normalities of the human face would no longer be normal. However being inspired by Thek's use of color I wanted to be simplistic and keep the colors minimal to the yellowing of the wax. Although if I had wanted to have various colors it would have been similar to Thek's color palette.
Style and Technique
As I was creating the piece I had found out the various ways of sculpting. When I first started carving my sculpture I initially wanted to carve away from the square shape of the candle. So, the face shape would be apart of the candle and when I lit the candlestick it would have melt and deformed into an odd shape. Although as I was cleaning up the scraps from me carving I had found that they molded together nicely and formed them into a ball like shape. Once I came up with my other idea I started to carve away from the candle, but using the shavings as the medium to create the sculpture. I learned how to use specific tools for candle carving or carving in general. I used similar tools used for carving block print. Which are (No. 1) Small "V" Gouge, (No. 2) Large "V" Gouge, (No. 3) Small "U" Gouge, (No. 4) Square Gouge,(No. 5) Large "U" Gouge, and (No. 6) Knife. I used these tools because they are usually easy to navigate in hard surfaces.
Experimentation
When I started off thinking of my idea for my sculpture I first though of creating a trash can with flowers spouting from the can. However, I didn't truly understand how the connection would work because it wasn't too obvious that it was towards human pollution. I then came up with the idea of making the figure be a face and would carve away from the shape of the candle. To light the candle to make it look like it was oozing from the face. Although as I was cleaning the shavings to make room for the sculpture I molded them into a hemisphere shape and reflected on the idea of the face I wanted to make. I continued to play with the idea and went forth to the new idea sculpting from the shavings. It was a bit difficult trying to put certain parts of the face together because I made them separate. So, the pieces kept falling apart and would ruin the shape I created.
Reflection
I overall feel like I was able to not only complete the project, but fulfill my theme on humans contributing the Earth's pollution. I mainly focused on how my audience seen the message within my piece. So, I changed the visual of my piece often because I wanted it to be clear and inferenced at the same time. This project was probably the one that involved more though process because it was 3-D and not 2- D. So, it was harder for me to visualize how the piece would come out because the drawings were not as detailed with information on multiple perspectives as they could have been. If i were to change anything from this project it would be to add color to the sculpture with different colored wax that would have been melted onto the sculpture. I think if I had more dark neutral colors it would have made more sense to the connection to human pollution. However, I am still satisfied on how it came out.
Connecting to the ACT
Clearly explain how you are able to identify cause and effect relationships between your inspiration and your artwork.
Because of the inspiration I had chosen the cause to how my style had represented had shown throughout my work. In my piece I was working towards the message of the piece and focused on the piece in an a expressionist way through out the work.
What is the overall approach ( point of view) the author has regard to the topic of your inspiration?
The approach the author made regarding the topic of my inspiration is to inform me on why they developed their form of style and their biography as a whole. To gain knowledge on their pieces and the artist. As well as, the history and how they had incorporated themselves into their work.
What kind of generalizations and conclusions have you discovered about people, ideas, cultures, etc, while you researched your inspiration?
The kind of conclusions I had made when I had discovered the two people I had researched is that they both have the same theory upon developing a style of representing the movies. They are both contemporary artists and contained almost the same amount of attention and reaction in their work during their time even till today.
What was the central idea or theme around your inspirational research?
The central theme around my inspirational research is trying to develop a new idea of culture within an understatement of the condition of our human pollution and how we have to recognize it. Which I want to show towards my audience to reveal the production that is happening today.
What kind of inferences did you make while reading your research?
The inferences I had made while reading my research had been showing how to connect both of my artists as they worked within the same periods, yet had differences when it came to style and how their work is perceived.
Because of the inspiration I had chosen the cause to how my style had represented had shown throughout my work. In my piece I was working towards the message of the piece and focused on the piece in an a expressionist way through out the work.
What is the overall approach ( point of view) the author has regard to the topic of your inspiration?
The approach the author made regarding the topic of my inspiration is to inform me on why they developed their form of style and their biography as a whole. To gain knowledge on their pieces and the artist. As well as, the history and how they had incorporated themselves into their work.
What kind of generalizations and conclusions have you discovered about people, ideas, cultures, etc, while you researched your inspiration?
The kind of conclusions I had made when I had discovered the two people I had researched is that they both have the same theory upon developing a style of representing the movies. They are both contemporary artists and contained almost the same amount of attention and reaction in their work during their time even till today.
What was the central idea or theme around your inspirational research?
The central theme around my inspirational research is trying to develop a new idea of culture within an understatement of the condition of our human pollution and how we have to recognize it. Which I want to show towards my audience to reveal the production that is happening today.
What kind of inferences did you make while reading your research?
The inferences I had made while reading my research had been showing how to connect both of my artists as they worked within the same periods, yet had differences when it came to style and how their work is perceived.
Bibliography
“Bio.” Mysite-1, www.rebeccastevenson.net/bio.
“Paul Thek: Diver, A Retrospective.” Hopper Drawing | Whitney Museum of American Art, whitney.org/Exhibitions/PaulThek.
Reiner, Luke. “34 Facts about Pollution ←FACTSlides→.” Eiffel Tower Facts: 26 Facts about The Eiffel Tower ←FACTSlides→, FACTSlides, 1 Nov. 2016, www.factslides.com/s-Pollution.
“Paul Thek: Diver, A Retrospective.” Hopper Drawing | Whitney Museum of American Art, whitney.org/Exhibitions/PaulThek.
Reiner, Luke. “34 Facts about Pollution ←FACTSlides→.” Eiffel Tower Facts: 26 Facts about The Eiffel Tower ←FACTSlides→, FACTSlides, 1 Nov. 2016, www.factslides.com/s-Pollution.