Advanced Sculpture, 2014

Project 2: Place

Justin Masterson

Dr. Scheer

For this project my intention was to create a series of pictures of the same sculpture and illustrate how the context of the place can contribute to the meaning of the sculpture.  By placing a sculpture in a variety of associative settings I was hoping to explore themes directly deriving from the object interacting with it’s context.  With certain places in mind I started thinking of emotions or ideas I wanted to create a situation that told a narrative.  This narrative would change based on the setting but be consistent in the sculpted object.  For this intention statement I will explain myself through the final spaces that best executed my intention.  

First, almost obviously, I placed the flower in the flower bed.  This is an obvious pick in my opinion.  I knew I wanted to make the metal flower the entire time with sharpened petals to show a sense of realism but also lend itself to looking dangerous.  When a flower comes out of a flower bed it is emerging on a canvas, it’s life pushing through layers of soil and mulch.  you could extend this idea to when life emerges in spring.   In the pictures I took the metal flower sits with both dead and newly living plant life.  A thought I had here would be that a metal flower would never wilt like the flower it sat adjacent to.  However, a metal flower will rust, and never return to life.  This I thought would be an interesting idea to explore but it is not immediately accessible in this piece so that would be a failure.  The metal flower in a real flower bed is welcome or unwelcome?  It makes the garden into sort of a literal sculpture garden interacting with the living and the imitation asking which is more beautiful and overall bringing the flower to attention.

Second I took the flower to the fountain.  The leaves in the fountain release iodine which makes the water appear red.  This was something I thought could be immediately interesting.  It would provide high sharp contrast with the silver of the flower.  This word “sharp” was a word I liked while working with this piece here. I wanted to play with the juxtaposition of the weight of the metal being something that should sink but the structure depicting a flower which is very light and could feasibly sit perfectly on top of the slowly rippling water.  That was the main point of putting the flower in there.  I also saw a spot in the fountain where the water hits the ground which I thought would be good with the flower positioned right underneath.  This setting to be honest was not that conceptually driven which I am fine with.  I wanted to create an aesthetic balance with both the water, the sculpture, and the features of the fountain.  

The graveyard is a place of memorial.  The flower is not an uncommon occurrence in that setting.  Tombstones leave  a mark that lasts for a substantial amount of time unless destroyed by man or nature.  Flowers left by mourners blow away or are tossed as they die.  I figured the metal flower could make sense in this setting because it’s impermanence has a nice contrast with the stone.  I also thought they could add a nice contrast with the living flower because the metal flower could stay longer.