Skills workshop - Sculpture

Making a piece mould 

 

Reflection

At the start of this process I was unsure of what to make, I knew though that it was the kind of thing that you could agonise over for ages, so I decided to dive straight in and let my hands feel out the sculptural, responding to the feeling of the clay and little else. The brief for this sculpture work shop said to make something that deals with concerns that your practice deals with currently, which in my case centres around the natural world and heritage objects. What I think is important when making a sculpture is allowing it to change and develop naturally through the interacting of making. With that in mind once I felt I had finished I didn't try and push the piece to far, instead I took a step back and questioned the work I saw in front of me. What struct me the most initially was how much these pieces looked like bone or rock fragments. As the clay started to dry I retraced the contours of its body with my fingertips, the oil from my hands created a sheen to the finish. Upon making the piece mould I found the process quite difficult at first as there are lots of questions that come to the surface, which became quite thought provoking as I had never had to concern myself before with the conceptual side of making before. Once I had gotten to grips with the process through I found myself enjoying it although it is quite laboursome and exacting. However once the mould were complete I got excited about the possibilities of the objects. The wax casts I made as a try out evoked connotations of the ocean which I saw as a natural progression as its original state as from the clay it had been birthed from or out of the earth. Still I wanted to make something more out of it, as the weight of the wax didn't do justice to the form of the object. Bronze was my next thought, since Its weight and status symbol projects the gravity of a final out come. The traces of human touch still visible however made more permanent, seemed an intriguing concept. I wanted these bronzes to act as a slice of a process of evaluation trapped in time.A sculpture that would highlight the connection between the man-made and the natural, that would display a surrendering of control. When thinking about how these objects should be displayed I would be inclined to display them either on the floor in a gallery space or outside at the base of a tree or amongst weeds, so to challenge the status symbol of bronze. If I were to make these again however I would make forms that could fit into each other better, as the nature of the objects I have currently made operate on a solo basic. Having forms that could have a dual function would open up the possibly of a greater dialogue between them.