In school, I had a 3D design class. I was horrible at it - I only made one thing I really liked - a piece of sheet metal that I twisted to form a shape that could stand on its own, much like a spring. The form itself was nothing but a plane - hardly three dimensional. I was caught sleeping at *least* once in class, I was caught working on a painting at least twice. I remember my teacher thinking my idea of a kinetic sculpture of taking balls of paper and throwing them into a trash bucket was a joke (I thought it was great). My block of wood that was supposed to be changed to resemble a rock, didn't.
I just didn't really get anything out of the class - I don't really blame anyone except myself - perhaps I should say, I didn't *take* anything *from* the class.
I think my strength was more in translating what I saw in three dimensions into two, a much different process than creating something to live in the third.
A few things I did take from the class, now looking back:
+ Seeing my professor in the wood shop. He had a piece of styrofoam and was cutting it on a band saw and sanding it on the belt sander - a little here, a little there. I asked him what he was making. He said,
"I... dunno"
And smiled at me and went about doing... whatever. I wasn't his favorite person, but it was nice, to see him so at ease, seeing the gears sort of turning. It was a completely different experience than when he was in class.
+ His first slide presentation (with *slides*). He showed some of his work - lots of these post minimalism pieces using nothing but pennies in interesting locations. He'd sort the pennies based on what color they were - new pennies where shinier and light, older pennies were duller and darker. These compositions of his were gigantic, using thousands of pennies. Cheap to make, terribly laborious. Anyways, there was this idea of economy of materials. There's usually a way to get cheap materials and the problem solving of using these materials plays into the actual piece.
He used another example from a different artist - Constantin Brancusi -
The Kiss
I really fell in love with this piece. It may be that I like to kiss, but the simplicity of the sculpture really hit me. It's *also* very two-dimensional, more of an extruded drawing than anything else.
So,
A few years later, I'm in my last semester of school - insanity - I honesty took a trip to whacky land afterwards. I had too many credits to complete and a semester that was something like 10 *weeks*, then to graduation and then, the Real World&trad;
I did some pretty silly things during this time.
For example:
About two weeks before graduation and without anything to show at the grad show (And I've hated recycling stuff, even though I had a large amount of work - *good* work), I decided to go on a road trip to Seattle and back and plunk down sculptures every where I went. I mean, hey, why not? I am horrible at sculpture! Let's make *that* illustrate the apex of my higher learning!
The sculptures themselves weren't really the point of the project - none of them would be shown. I was photographing them all, and *just* showing the photography - I had a little idea I was working on. In that sense - I could take a rather mundane subject that repeated and work on basically composition - something I knew how to do.
It was a fun project. Here's one example:
If you live in Seattle, this was in China Town,
I also visited the space needle. Another one of my favorite things to do, is to be in pictures of landmarks, in front of a cardboard background, depicting the landmark I was in. This is the one from the Space Needle.
TELL ME why the statue of liberty is hanging out in the shot with me. It's so very awesome. One more, just for comparison:
Looking back, I think my prof's penny compositions had some inspiration for this - who knows.
I got back from the trip (Or maybe I did this before - I forget) and I started going to the thrift stores, and buying up as many puzzles as possible - they go for anywhere from .25 to a dollar, each puzzle contains hundreds to thousands of pieces.
I thought - well, these are almost like parts of a painting already - all I have to do is intelligently put them all back together. Sort of like, make a mosaic out of the bits and pieces of, well basically photographs. Like a digital picture but instead of pictures - you use puzzle pieces - yeah you get the idea...
It sounded like an awesome idea, so there I was, in my studio, with plastic bins on one side and a stack of puzzles on the other - sorting these damn pieces by color and luminosity. I thought of this as a painter would - get your paint tubes in order, or your palette, before you start painting.
And I sorted thousands upon thousands of puzzle pieces, graduation becoming eminent and nothing really to show for much of the semester.
And then before I knew it, the semester was over. I had done nothing with the puzzle pieces.
I brought them home. All of them, still sorted. I moved a month later. I brought the puzzle pieces, throwing away quite a bit of my possessions.
A month later, I moved, *again*. Brought the puzzle pieces. Still, didn't do anything with them.
Over two years past.
A blizzard hits Denver. I have a cracked rib. I am gimpish.
I asked Mike to set up the ladder in my room, so I can reach a *very* high shelf. There's a project I started a year ago in London I want to work on and it was up there and -
Oh,
there are the puzzle pieces.
I take a few down and start to play with them. Why...
"I... dunno"
And my 3D design class from yarns ago resurfaces. (Damn you, professor!)
Here's some sketches I made, like the pin photos, a lot of these pieces is composition and less about the piece itself. I'm still not the best at sculpture and much better at placing things, what can I say.
First sketch, the line. I took a bunch of puzzle pieces and just basically glued them all together. I used acrylic medium - just something that was on hand.
Sort of circumvented the idea of what the puzzle piece was supposed to do - first off, connect with another puzzle piece in a very exact way and also, being available to show itself, to fulfill being a, "piece of the puzzle", literally. Naw, fuck that:
I also made it stand up (without support):
*usually* puzzles are flat.
And have at least a noticeable area:
Second sketch - The shape.
Again, I just glued puzzle pieces together with acrylic medium. The pieces are still pieces of something, yet the concave/convex parts are useless. Half the pieces aren't even showing the, "right" side.
I could stand this one up as well:
I like looking through circular things like this. The background seen through the puzzle pieces seems to somehow become removed from where it was and sort of come forward.
From above!
Third sketch - back to surface (tear!)
With a little bit of effort and patience, you can make any old puzzle piece fit into any other puzzle piece of a similar size. There's something sort of humorous about doing so - since the entire *point* of a puzzle is finding a piece's, well, buddies. If you just mash them in, it's like conforming by destroying conformity. Perhaps I just like jokes like this - who knows.
Obviously, a little color theory as well. The pieces aren't necessarily from the same puzzle - I just have bins of puzzle pieces - you know?
The best I could do in getting this sort of 3d is by leaning it against a wall:
That did make me look at the negative space a bit, so what do you do when you want to see something in more detail? Hold it up towards a light!
I don't know about you, but I think that's beautiful.
I can't help but see the light pour in and make sort of, reverse silhouettes of faces laughing and winking, or a frog jumping, blue birds flying, a duck in the water, a crescent moon, a weirdly deformed foot, someone in a hockey mask, or a mustache.
