26 October 2009

Sculpture week 6

The first 5-minute presentation today
was about architect Renzo Piano -with special attention to his "ship building" - the science museum in Amsterdam - which is meant to be a mirror image of the tunnel underneath. Note the colour, which helps it to blend in to the environment (imagine what it would look like in orange...)
The Centre Culturel Jean-Marie Tjibaou in New Caledonia is amazing too - its form is similar to the villages in which the Kanak people, whose culture it preserves, live -
The other presentation was about sculptor Eva Hessewho was working in the context of minimalism and heavy steel sculptures - exploring materials such as direct use of latex; process driven. Subtle and understated work. She said she wanted to "get to non-art ... another kind of vision". The Tate has five works of hers, including "Tomorrow's Apples" - Shortly before her early death, she described her subject as "the total absurdity of life".

The morning's project was to release our cement cast from its plaster mould - by chiselling all over the surface
until chunks break off
That looked easy enough, but goodness what a mess it made - and it took quite a long time.
After careful removal of as much plaster as possible comes the scrubbing. I'm going to have to get a long thin pointy thing to get the green plaster out of the keyhole -
After cleanup and mopping of the floor, with people walking over it the whole time, we got back from the lunch break to find it had dried in a wild way -
The afternoon was spent developing our ideas for the sculptures that will go at the front of the building. I got diverted onto a new idea
but really should stick with the original one -
it will give me more focus, and a way to integrate the sculpture and ceramics elements. Gotta think ahead to that final project....

1 comment:

The WestCountryBuddha said...

I can't tell you how much I'm enjoying watching your progress through your course. Fascinating stuff and makes me want to be there to. Thanks for sharing!