Art 14 Journal

Hello! This blog is dedicated to the U.C. Berkeley Art 14: The Language of Sculpture course. Here is the documentation of the development of projects throughout the Spring 2015 semester. Critiques, thoughts, comments, etc. are welcome. Enjoy your stay! ---Belinda

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Sculpture 5 - Final Critique and End

There isn’t much to post here - the critique went by smoothly and interesting. Most of the classes energy and work went into Sculpture 4, so this casting/hybrid project was more of a final tying of ends.

For my specific critique, no one really commented on the cat mobile, which I’m somewhat both glad and disappointed about since I liked it the most. My piece came after the short 10-15 min break so everyone was a little distracted and tired, and thus after one girl laughing at hypothetical “cat sculpture occurrences”, which made the whole class start losing it and laughing, I conclude that the critique ended positively. 

I didn’t get much out of it, to be honest, especially after people losing it. Since many people understood my frustration and disinterest with casting during the process, the talk turned mostly to a general agreement that casting wasn’t necessarily my forte.

The cat theme will stay, casting: probably not (though I have been interested in the use of resin as a material), though we’ll see in the future.

Overall: this class was very informative and fun. I enjoyed the more hands-on approach to making art, versus sitting in one spot and drawing/painting. 

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Sculpture 5 - Painting the Pedestal

I was originally going to leave the pedestal I chose dirty (this was before I even contemplated making the mobile part) because the plaster casts themselves picked up dust and dirt (from the thrift store + the studio classroom) that I thought they would match better.

The addition of the mobile made me switch to painting the pedestal, because the mobile is nice to me and not dirty in the typical way.

And I think that the whiter pedestal color makes the mobile be able to stand out better, since the bailing wire “cat toy” in the center can lead the eye (because of its dark metal color and vertical position) to the mobile.

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Sculpture 5 - Arrangement(s) and Additions

So putting the three cat/chairs on the pedestal was easier to think about than what to do with the three teapots, and I eventually scrapped using two of them since they just didn’t fit into the whole of the sculpture. For one of the teapots, however, I wrapped in bailing wire and kept the bailing wire spool so it kind of levitated like a cat toy (the pictures will make that clearer).

The bailing wire cat toy idea inspired the rest of the project, with the them being somewhat along the lines of “cat toy(s)” and “cats”. I made a mobile with masking tape covered styrofoam cat heads which I’m really am glad I made.

Here is the stuff:

Here a friend in the class had gold spray paint and sprayed one of them which looks nice. Though I like the “naked” masking tape look.

Two thin rectangular pieces of wood were used as the base for the mobile.

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Sculpture 5 - Real Casting W/Plaster

Messy and they both turned out much better than I thought.

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Sculpture 5 - Casting and Items

I got a little gold teacup and a music box (that works) in the shape of kittens on a chair.

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Sculpture 5 - Assignment

Here is a picture of the assignment. I went to a thrift store and got a wind up music box in the shape of cats on a chair I’m hoping to try to cast....

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Sculpture 4 - Critique Day Pictures

It was fun to see what everyone did.

Added ribbon near the tip of the giant arrow.

Overall, this was a very fun project and would probably do it again to make many many arrows - perfect my technique.

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Sculpture 4 - Getting Ready for Critique Day (Part 2)

Had to paint the wall and pedestal to make the metal and red ribbon look nice.

First: Spackle

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Sculpture 4 - Getting Ready for Critique Day (Part 1)

Some pictures of the Thursday before the critique day on the following Tuesday. The incorporation of the red ribbon made it look nice.

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Back from Spring Break - AKA: More Arrows!

Making more arrows, with the same techniques I expressed previously. I’m experimenting with different thicknesses for the shafts and for the arrowheads - I’m not really a fan of using the bandsaw on thicker sheet metals. 

Since another girl was using the welder last class, I decided to scavenge materials to make more arrows.

Thicker rods for shafts (right) and thicker sheet metal (left). (Failure with thick sheet metal).

Giant arrow! I actually really don’t like it that much...

Chisel and hammer for taking of dingleberries.

Setup for taking off dingleberries.

New arrows left + older arrows right. A lot of arrows! I’ve also noticed that the newer arrows are (unconsciously) getting fatter and longer. To be honest, I have no idea how I made the original four with the bandsaw: I didn’t have a set technique and was getting fingers scarily close to the bandsaw...

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Sculpture 4 - 3 More Arrows

Since I had 3 more shafts after the original 4, I made more arrowheads with the same thickness sheet metal. I accidentally made them 2 inches in height and the original 1 inch in width but they still turned out well. Since the metal of these arrowheads are smaller, they have more colors in them due to heat (I assume) spreading through them (it might also be because this sheet metal wasn’t completely rusted/corroded over so it’s easier to tell the colors) which I think is cool. The welds are also more sloppy in my opinion because I was working on a smaller surface - though that may be a novice experience.

The three new ones on the right are also more crooked - one of them kept moving before I got a good initial weld hold (forgot the term). They’re cuter than the first 4 and I think the whole set makes a nice group.

Bonus

Even with (nearly total) body cover protection and gloves, dinkleberries can still get you.

I think it cauterized almost totally and I don’t feel it at all - nor did the initial pain last longer than 5 minutes. 

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Sculpture 4 - Connected Arrows

I have much room to grow, but the results of welding the arrowheads to the shafts make me happy. I’m going to keep working on them with the grinder, chisel (for the dingleberries and extras), and pliers (for extra copper metal strands). 

Since I had 3 extra shafts I decided to make more arrowheads for those. I just realized I don’t have close up pictures of the actual welds on them so I’ll try to get some.

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Sculpture 4 - Welding

Today was a very successful day (in terms of giving life to the arrows as a whole): I was able to attach the first four arrow heads to shafts with welding and it was exciting and a little challenging getting comfortable with the welder’s shade glass darkening everything around me. 

Had to prepare first:

Then I practice on scraps of metal for a bit until I was more comfortable and until the mechanic told me I was doing well.

Next post will be the results.

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Sculpture 4 - More Arrowheads!

Since there were only two original 6 inch strips of the material I used for the first two arrowheads, I tried using a different material. It was a lot thinner and shinier - I made one complete arrowhead out of it but I trashed it because it wasn’t imperfectly perfect enough (if that makes sense). 

Anyways, I found a thicker large sheet of metal that was around or the exact thickness of the original metal material I used, so I used that instead.

I used a slightly different order of cutting the shapes out too: I drew the shapes, then cut out them into smaller tiles/squares, made the slits first into them so I had more material to hold onto when I cut them out, and then cut out the outside arrowhead shape.

I actually lost one of the halves in the scrap bucket/trashcan and was really sad for about 25 minutes. (I eventually found it though at the bottom).

This is the last picture I took of the progress since last class. I didn’t have time to take a picture of the completed 4 arrowheads because of a midterm right after the class. 

I’m very very excited and happy with my progress - I have a lot to learn about everything still.

Next class, I should be on the way to learning basic welding skills, to attach them onto the shafts. I’m not sure if I’ll have to make any modifications to the shaft ends because of the unevenness of the bottom of the arrowheads, or visa versa, so we’ll see.

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Sculpture 4 - Metal Arrowheads (Cool!)

Making the arrowheads was a trial and error process on paper, but a relatively very successful outcome for my first time doing more “intense” (to me) work with metal. 

At first, I wanted a flat, kind of 2-D piece, in the shape of a arrowhead to be welded on the end of each staff, but the mechanic told me that it would be kind of interesting and cool to make a more 3-D type arrowhead design where two pieces interlock by slits. I didn’t explain that well - so behold: pictures.

The sketch says the arrow shafts are 15 inches, but they were reduced to 12 inches during the measuring and cutting.

Found some discarded sheet metal - kind of thick and heavy. Each is about 6 inches long. Here’s a before and after of two identical pieces of the material. I took of rust with the polisher/sander thing.

The first two halves of one arrowhead. I tried to make each one about 2 inches tall, with the slits about 1 inch down. Very intimidating to cut such small objects with the bandsaw (I used gloves but still). Not perfect, but I’m proud I was able to do this! Also used a hand grinder/sander to curve off the edges more.

(This one is probably my favorite).

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Sculpture 4 - Slight Change of Plans + Arrow Shafts

Talking to the head wood/metalshop mechanic and my professor about my potential ideas was helpful. The ideas of the bow(s) were the most successful for all of us, however the “change” that I’m talking about in the title of this post references to that the bow(s) might be put off - the idea was switched to making arrows first since they are “simpler” for a basic beginner like me.

I cut a relatively thin solid rod into seven 12 inch sections for the shafts (below) with the metal bandsaw (my first time with a metal cutting machine hurrah). Definitely a different feel than my experiences with wood material.

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Sculpture 4 - Preliminary Sketches/Ideas

I’m still very excited to try my hand at (basic/simple) metal skills and techniques. Here are my sketches I’m interested in. Very unsure how I’ll incorporate the idea of “skin” into the bow ideas - but the bow ideas are what I’m leaning towards the most so we’ll see.

I also want(ed) to make a metal wing because I love the concept of angels, birds/flying things, and wings in general. Probably more complicated and may come back to that project in the very far future...