Sculpture Studio Spring 2012

Project 1: Process

Douglas Pelaez, (Untitled,2012)

The first project was about Process Art. I decided to make a sculpture that would show my struggle recovering from knee surgery. It was difficult to come up with an idea that incorporated “process” and at the same time show the recovery process. My goal at the beginning of the project was to make something more objective and realistic but the changed as I was making the sculpture and it affected the final product.

When I initially got injured, my knee was very unstable and then after surgery, I was not able to move it at all. The first couple of weeks after surgery, it was very painful to move around. During the planning period for the project I wanted to use screws to imitate the screws that were used to fix my knee and rubber bands to acting as the ligaments that I had torn and were replaced. The action that was repeated throughout the entire sculpture was wrapping or tying some material. It took a long time to wrap and tie different materials to the leg and bone which can be interpreted as the time it took for my knee to recover.

The strengths of my sculpture were that I was able to show the intended meaning. It showed a process of recovery and the length of time it took to recover. The materials used helped develop a meaning that could relate to the human body. The silicone that did not dry up was helpful in the end because other students could feel softness and stickiness of the silicone and it was like human flesh. The sculpture may have incorporated the “process” aspect which was the repetition of an action which was the wrapping of the rubber bands, screwing the screws into the boot and tying the fishing line to the bone. The weaknesses of my sculpture were that the final product was not how I intended for it to look; it seemed unfinished due to the fact that there was some space left uncovered in the connection with the concrete leg and the bone. I did not like the appearance of the final product. It was unorganized and there were too many colors. I would have liked for the final product to look more realistic but that would have prevented me from using the “process” aspect of the assignment. The space that was left uncovered was a problem but it would have been impossible to fix without the concrete cracking. Overall, I achieved my goal of showing the struggle of recovering from knee surgery. I was disappointed with the final appearance and I probably would have done better if there was more time to work on it. I would have done a more detailed sketch and have a more organized and realistic sculpture.