Art 308 Sculpture Studio Portfolio

Molly Burtenshaw

Project 1- Process

For my work on process I was very interested in how the process of time itself affects a work. In particular, I wanted to focus on how a particular material would change, following the exploration methods of Eva Hesse and Tara Donovan. Due to the limited time period, I wanted a material that changed very rapidly depending on environment so I chose fruit – apples to be specific.

This particular material was interesting for its various religious (in Christianity at least) and scientific (other fruits will rot quicker if placed near an apple, the seeds have trace amounts of arsenic, ect.) properties. I didn't want to emphasize these in any way, but to let each viewer bring their own knowledge and identifications to the piece.

Joseph Beuys's environmentalist work, specifically his 7000 Oaks featuring a changing and unchanging material, influenced me in the choices for setup in this project as a way of emphasizing the process of the apples decomposing. The wire is unchanging, while the apples decay rapidly. The black poster board with the stickers at the bottom was a way of recording the times and names of people who had participated in the process (each piece of apple had a bite taken out of it by a different person). Instead of using a video to record the process, I wanted to have the various stages of it all apparent at once, so each apple piece was left out to rot at various stages over a one week period.

The view apparent at the end of this process oriented work was how imposing the element of time is on familiar objects, and how it can change something visually, tactilely, olfactory and gustatory. Process is something humans contribute to, but cannot be avoided as nature itself will effect any work of art after a period of time.