Sculpture week 4

First off, an impromptu lesson on identifying woods by their grain, density, etc. Although I deeply admire David Nash's knowledge of the qualities of the woods he uses, I have to confess that I didn't take notes on which woods these might be, apart from the squarish block, which everyone agreed was mahogany.And then a lesson on using the melting pots (rubber on the left, wax on the right) -
The missing worksheet turned up and was no great shakes at the start of the day, but much richer at the end. It was a day of quietly working in sketchbooks etc while everyone in turn got final input on their Statement of Intent, so I was able to develop this worksheet on slashing and puncturing paper, a la Lucio Fontana -
The notes speak for themselves -


Who knew a seam ripper could be such a useful tool?
On another worksheet, development of the idea mooted in ceramics class on how a life-size staircase might fit into the teeny space each of us will be allotted -
and another thought - get rid of the cumbersome "door/wall" and have it rising into a corner - simple and beautiful, if it works -
So, how to get it to work? Thought and action. First, some model making of free-floating steps, and how to suspend them -