I do not like wire. I can’t seem to get it to cooperate. I don’t know if it is because I’m not patient enough or if it because I just haven’t had much practice with it, but making a wire frame for my piece was the most difficult part. I went through several different frames to increase the size and try to adjust my techniques, but in the end… I really just prayed that the plaster would do most of the work. I guess one positive thing I could say about the wire was that it created a biomorphic, unsymmetrical kind of appearance which gave my final piece a very interesting shape. I decided my voids would be shown through the spaces between the “legs.” Though most people designed theirs to be more like a “hole” through their piece, I was thinking more about negative space and how it shapes the sculpture as a whole. Void, defined by google, is an unfulfilled space. So I also incorporated a small dip in the center of my piece to evoke the feeling of emptiness. Most people commented on how or what they would fill the space with.
Though wire doesn’t seem to be my thing, plaster was a totally different story. I loved the entire process! Learning how to make the right amount of plaster at the right consistency kept my attention and forced me to really focus on how I was going to smooth this thing out. I found a couple different strategies. First, I discovered if I started out with thin plaster, I could quickly dunk my burlap in and make a general “skin” around the wire frame. Then as it hardened, I just dove my hands into the bucket and started piling it on. After one layer of burlap and many layers of plaster, I eventually covered the entire piece. Though it wasn’t the prettiest, I at least had the entire thing molded out and covered.
My final step was to smooth it out. I knew I wanted it to be smooth, though near the end of the process I started considering other texture ideas. I used a rasp to smooth out the big chunks. After carving away at it for a while, I made my own personal plaster mixture that was SUPER thin. This filled in some of the cracks I over-grated and helped smooth out any little imperfection. After doing this about three or four times, I let my piece dry over the weekend. Then before bringing it to class, I gave it a finally sanding to get it as smooth as possible. Though there were a few spots I could have smoothed out a little more, I think my final piece was pretty good! I was really pleased with the outcome and am interested in making another! I also may try hanging it on a wall; maybe making similar pieces of different sizes and shapes and displaying them all together… like little amoebas clustered together.
[New final photo coming soon!]
Kendra Carper 