Sculpture Studio Spring 2012

Project 1: Process

           
            When I thought of process, my mind was focused on repetition. Process to me, embraces the act of making. I wanted to make a sculpture that spoke of an obsession, an extreme repetition. I wanted something that would relay the process by which the forms were created, more so than the product.
            I feel that my piece is not purely about process. From some of the feedback I have received had been about the form and the shape. I heard someone say “I feel like I’m inside a body” which made me reconsider just how much about process my piece really is.  Many people have also commented on the texture and have started to go up and touch my sculpture. The form itself engages people, and invites you to touch it. The form is very body-like, due to the color and nature of the form.

            I intended for the material to be an integral part of my sculpture. I chose the material due to its stretchy nature and flesh like tones. I wanted the color to show around the stuffing and I purposefully used different opacities of panty hose to exhibit the color in varying degrees. Part of the inspiration for this piece was based around Tara Donovan’s pieces. Donovan chooses her materials very carefully and before she starts using them. To her, material is an important aesthetic and she transforms objects. I was not trying to transform an object necessarily, but to stretch its limits.

            I have worked with wood a lot in the past, as well as rather hard and industrial materials. I wanted something more organic, and like Donovan, I set out to find my materials before I decided necessarily what I was doing. I knew that I wanted to work with some sort of fabric, or something that would stretch. I wanted to manipulate a material that was very stretchy and forgiving to create bulbous forms.
            The process for me was about the experience. I am happy with the end result, but the knotting and the accumulation means the most to me. I chose the form of circles, because using the panty hose, there would be no guarantee any uniformity in shape or size. The knots would be the only control. The knots, for me, were a huge part of the process. After every mound I stuffed, I would knot the end to close it, and begin the cycle again.

            In a way, the process transformed my piece into a story, a telling of the process in an almost cryptic manner. Once you touch and get close to my piece, you are able to see the hand knotted qualities, feel the differences, and perhaps even get a feel of my own process and observations as you run your hands along the forms.
            The process started my thinking about the arrangement of the final piece. As I kept knotting and stuffing, a length started to develop. I loved how these forms grew and I wanted the forms to fall from the ceiling to seem to grow above the viewer’s head. I did not have time to create hundreds of these forms, so arranging them from the ceiling gave the impression of a somewhat daunting amount. When I laid the chains out of the floor in a heap while I was working on them, they formed a dialogue with each other. I loved the way they fell on each other, and I wanted to incorporate that into the final design.

            I am satisfied with the way that my piece is installed, and my only wish is that there were more. The light behind the piece accentuates the circular forms, which demonstrate the repetition of form. This relates to the process and the extensive nature of the repetition.  The product definitely has a relationship with the process, something which I wished there was more of.
            The process is very evident to me, most likely because every time I see it, I remember the hours I spent stuffing and knotting, stuffing and knotting. Every knot and act of stuffing led to the final result, a documentation of the hours I spent, and of every movement involved. This was exactly my intention.