"Hold"

I was really interested in making a piece where something was actually suspended midair. I had been deconstructing this chain-link fence for a project in my advanced sculpture and and installations class, and I thought the wires would make great supports. I rescued a block of wood from another class, and that was kind of the concept for the piece.

When some of the other people in the class said it might be better without the block, I took it out to see what it would look like...

Personally, I kind of still liked it with the block of wood in there. It gave it mass in my opinion. But then again, taking out the block makes the piece a lot more conceptual. What I liked best about the piece as a whole, though, is that it looked like a little creature. I was trying to avoid it at first, but by the end of our time together, he had grown on me. I mean, as long as I'm having fun, I think the work that comes out of it is a good thing. And always an exploration.

"Lead"

I really wanted to use paint as a medium, and I thought this would be a good piece to do so. Since I’m so uncomfortable with oils/ acrylics/ watercolors, I thought I’d try to approach this work with some leftover acrylic spray paint I had. The intention was to use the frame from my “Shape” project as a means of leading the paint into a pattern it wouldn’t otherwise achieve. Additionally, I decided to “lead” with a different color for each portion of the piece. First a black background with yellow/orange on top, then an orange background with yellow/black on top. I liked how the project turned out, but as I expressed in class, it didn’t have quite the profound affect on the respective portions that I was hoping it would. That’s when I added the gridded mesh.

I also tend to agree with those who said my hand wasn’t really evident in the work. Anyone else could have achieved the same result with the same tools. I guess that’s been one of my greatest struggles, mostly because I’m not entirely sure what my identity as an artist is yet, which makes it hard to stick to.

"Move"

This was a little harder for me, because I wanted to craft an adequate portrayal of the word "move" without it being too obvious. I started with a pretty obvious drawing tool, a walking motion cycle, but once I sketched it out, I decided to ink the lines in a colored pattern, and I thought it added a really nice dynamic quality to the piece. I also added the skirt on a whim at the last second as kind of an afterthought, and I think it was a pretty successful additions. I always like to think that the most impulsive decisions can have the biggest payoffs.

"Shape"

For this week, I wanted to use a staunch and familiar shape to create a shape that was more organic and aesthetically pleasing. If I had more time, I probably would have added more wire of the same color, just to build mass and add to the effect. I also thought that hanging the frame a bit from the wall would add a dynamic sort of interaction, with the wires and the shadows from the wires projecting onto the wall. tony told us not to consider the verb shape, and not just the noun, and I enjoyed that the manipulation of wire around the different sides of the frame demonstrated that duality.

"Reach"

For this piece, I kind of decided to do the exact opposite of the previous week. I wanted to kind of used a more literal interpretation of the word “Reach,” just to see the contrast between last week’s and this week’s pieces. However, I also didn’t want to use some sort of inspirational platitude to achieve the image, so I tried to steer the narrative of my image in a darker and more dismal direction. I think the charcoal medium lent itself to this mood.