As you guys learned from the many pictures of me sporting a dust mask and goggles, I’ve been taking Metal Sculpture this semester! I’ve learned, welded, sliced, sawed, bent, heated, created, and gotten really sore over the course of the past few months. Here’s some of the projects I’ve finished so far!
Project #1: This project was pretty simple, just so we could get used to working with the equipment. The guidelines were to create a structural form with a “linear” form that pushed the boundaries of stability. For my piece, I crafted a triangular-hexagonal prism with “linear” wings. It wasn’t very big, but I was pleased with it considering I’d never worked with metal before this year!
Project #2: The next project we were assigned was meant to incorporate a material other than metal in the sculpture. Called the “Hard and Soft” project, the “soft” material could be virtually anything; people in my class used cotton, velvet, pennies, colored velum, even pipettes from a biology class. Inspired by the rock hunting my dad and I used to do in the desert when I was a kid, I chose to create crystalline structures that were accompanied by flowing blue fabric that suggested water. This has been my favorite piece I’ve made so far.
Project #3: The most recent project I finished was one inspired by an artist of our choice! Because I’ve always been fascinated with street art and its culture, I decided to pick Banksy as my artist. If you’re unfamiliar with him (first of all I’m a little surprised!) he’s a pretty famous, anonymous street artist whose stencil work usually features striking images with some sort of social or political commentary and sassy slogans. Running with this theme, I decided to make a steel stencil with a pretty grotesque image–a child holding a beer bottle and, well, losing his lunch. It’s covered in steel flowers as well, because I wanted the first thing that jumps out at you to be something beautiful, sort of a disguise for the not so pretty image that would be left by the stencil. Here’s what I mean! The stencil before painting…
…and after! (featuring a heart not included in the above picture)
Honestly I was just impressed/glad that the image came through when stenciled!!
I’ve had a ton of fun in this class so far. My next and final project is going to be an expansion on the crystal project; I’m going to focus on creating an environment, rather than an object, by essentially turning one of the rooms in the studio into a crystal-filled cave. It will be lit with string lights under more of the same fabric, making it like a glowing waterfall. If all goes like I plan, it should be pretty cool! I’ll be sure to post pictures of the finished project.
Until then, I’ve got LOTS of metal to mold.
