Okay a quick two-parter....

I've come up with a possible new idea for the base of the sculpture, I'm going to look for a table to pull for the installation to set the typewriter on, something fitting the tone of the piece and to ground it in space.

I'm also simplifying the piece for now. I'd like to finish it to the way I described earlier with the wave over head and the pieces dispersing but for now I want to make sure it looks clean and finished for next weekend when we install. I'm going to keep the wave (?) I have and get that stable in the type writer. I'm also going to finish the back of it so that it has options for where it gets placed in the space.

Part Two!

As for the next project... While, I don't know exactly what that will be yet I've been thinking about layers and what's always there in the back of your mind. While that doesn't necessarily have to equate to torment it's at least one possibility.

I searched wire sculpture because the self contained seemingly tangled mess has always been an image that reads torment for me and I came across Antony Gormley. A lot of his collections include a lot of figure work but the work that caught my eye was his collection called Extended Polyhedra Works. On his website (www.antonygormley.com) he describes the collection as "In these dematerialised works the bodies are free, lost in space, weightless, and with no internal determination. They appear as emergent zones: you cannot be sure whether the bubble matrix is produced by the body zone of the zone by the matrix."

What I find so interesting about Gormley's work is that despite what I expect to be chaotic because of the wire it's still very structured. As seen in Touch (2007).

The Search for the Title

Okay so my plan for Spring Break is to finish Sculpture Numero Uno. What this involves (in no particular order) IS (drumroll please.....)

getting the base cut out

painting the base

finding a way to secure the "wave" to the typewriter

completing the wave

probably securing the typewriter to the base

finding an aesthetic and secure way to hang the whole thing

at least coming up with a second base option just in case hanging fails

I'm still on the fence about the base. I like the idea of it hanging but I'm concerned about it falling or looking bad or whichever. I'm also having problems imagining it hanging because with the suspension of the wave itself I'm wondering if it needs something to ground it.

Now that I'm thinking about it, depending on the placement of the piece in the space I'm not sure how to "complete" it. If it's going to be free standing should it be conical? Is it a volcano?

Back to making stuff land!

oh and I have to find a title

I get by with a little help from my friends

Like I said in my last post, I don't know many sculptors or installation artists. For me these blogs have been pretty empty as far as providing actual sculptural images but I've found it very helpful looking at everyone elses blogs and having ideas to bounce off of. So for now here are pictures from other peoples blogs that I've found useful. Thanks guys!

From Kim's Blog: From Rudy's Blog:

Let this be our little secret...

Once upon a time I realized I didn't know many installation artists. This was a problem because I was in this sculpture class that was doing an installation and I didn't really know what that meant. One day I remembered that every Sunday I read Post Secret, which is "an ongoing community art project where people mail in their secrets anonymously on one side of a postcard." (http://www.postsecret.com/).

The creator, Frank Warren, along with speaking tours, books and his own blog, also displays in galleries in what I would define as an installation. I began looking at these displays when I was thinking about font and text and how to take up space with flat objects.

Even though I'm not totally sure Warren counts as a sculptor I think the way he displays his work uses space in interesting ways. What I find most interesting in this picture specifically is the way the light interacts with the free standing walls and the shadows it casts from the

post cards. Considering the subject matter of the post cards I think the shadows can carry a lot of weight.

I know we've talked a lot about suspension but I also thought this was a useful visual of the impact of hanging things and reminded me to think about the height of the hanging objects and how people interact with the hanging elements.

'I can transform like Optimus Prime.'

So we've been on this Translations thing for two months. To be honest everyone seems to be saying it's so broad and I suppose it is but under the circumstances of what we started talking about it was a bit more reasonable. I mean we talked about facebook and technology and communication and how technology changes not only how we communicate but how we are able to understand each other, if in fact we still can. We're not translating any more from language to language but rather from interpretation to interpretation or tone to tone or emoticon to emoticon. I think we've all kind of taken steps out of this discussion in various ways but maybe breadth isn't a bad thing. We won't really be able to tell until it's all put together.

Personally, I think I've struggled a bit with translation versus transformation. So I looked them up.

translate (trans lāt')

v.t.

1. to turn (something expressed, esp. written) from one language into another.

2. to change the form, condition, or nature of.

3. to explain in simpler terms

trans·form

–verb (used with object)

1. to change in form, appearance, or structure; metamorphose

to change in condition, nature, or character; convert.

I feel like translation is the audial or the literal version of transformation or that transformation is the visual representation of translation. At the same time, when I think of transformation I think turning one thing into another where as when I think translation I think of pushing the understanding of something or maintaining the essence while presenting it in a different way. So then with the piece I have now am I transforming objects or am I translating ideas into a visual vocabulary? Or is it all just semantics?

Drop Beats not Bombs

I've made a step in a direction.

This Saturday I started on my see where it goes plan and while I know I'm not creating in a vaccuum I'

m not totally sure how this all developed.

I started by taking apart my typewriter and found to my surprise that a typewriter is all one piece surrounded by

it's case. I don't know why I was struck by this, it is after all a machine, but

once the case was off so was my brain. While the outside was somewhat shiny and new the inside was as old and dirty and thus to my eyes beautiful as I always romanticized typewriters to be.

Somehow this sparked in my brain a ton of paper flying out of it. So that's what I did. Ideally what I want these pages to do is to create a wave of sorts that extends over the head of the viewer and then trickles out across the ceiling.... that will make more sense with a picture.

But this image I realized reminded me of an illustration I can't find where there's a flock of birds flying into a tree and a group of fighter planes flying out the other side dropping bombs.

Vaguely, it's something like this. I think this is because I view the pages as flying out of the typewriter, or even exploding. I think the reason I connect my image to the birds dropping bombs because I think I see a transformation in the trickling out of the pages in the same way that the birds come out of the group that forms the feathers and bombs transform the birds into airplanes.

(www.Threadless.com)

I was really excited about this break through and I still am. Wednesday I went into

class to re evaluate what I'd done when I saw a subconscious inspiration.

Now I do still like what I've done even though I feel somewhat unoriginal. But this all got me thinking again on what made this piece - I don't know, original? Or more importantly I guess I tried to figure out what my motivations were .

I see it as a visual translation of my process aka my word vomit of the last post. It all comes out in a jumbled mess but through it one or two ideas trickle out or escape to actually be manifested.

So what's left? Complete the wave. Attach it to the typewriter. Suspend it from the ceiling? Hopefully more to update when these questions are answered