3D, week 8

Last week in drawing class we were "crating" in 2D, and now in sculpture class we are crating in 3D. The brief was to make three cubes or 3D rectangles, and put another shape of the same scale within one of them. Material could be wire, wood, card - I wanted to try all three, but was seduced by the idea of making wooden cubes of variable size using the same size sticks, with different amounts sticking out at the corners. But how to get the sizes -- and how to hold them together?
Wire was a nuisance - I should have known, from my rather negative experience with the chicken-wire chicken. What a relief to use string, drapey, compliant, familiar string! It took quite long lengths to loop round from every direction and angle. And to my delight, the sticks could be pushed along even when securely tied, making different sizes of solid possible.

Try as I might to get all the corners the same (ie, each side a proper square), it just never worked. One stick was always in the wrong position... But there were lots of possibilities for configuring the three. Pinning together one stick on each block would have been elegant - like something heavy lifted effortlessly into the air.

The configuration of choice turned out to be a kind of toppling tower. The other shape, in the top cube, is the sphere of tissue paper -- with its flaring tail left on -- a comet that has crashed into the top. The extra strings hold the three cubes together; and I couldn't resist adding more, thinking of Rapunzel trapped in the tower, letting down her hair so her lover could climb up and visit. (Other stories, interpretations, views are possible, of course.)The people who bent and taped metal seemed to be making the fastest progress on this project. And I liked their delicate structures. Perhaps wire is something for "next time".