Sculpture fixed to the body

I quite enjoyed this project, getting to focus more on the form of the sculpture and not on the concept. I decide to address balance especially that of girls on nights out that have become a little too inebriated. I created a dress that added balance to the wearer and was quite similar to the idea of stabilizers on a bike of a young child

Hunt Museum Research Project

The object that I chose for this project was a bronze, Roman fibula (broach, although I did not know this from the beginning). There was little information about the fibula in the museum so I began by photographing it from a number of different angles and making some quick sketches. Afterwards I did some research on what a fibula was and what it's purposes were. I discovered that it was mainly used for fastening cloaks in iron age times. This influenced me into taking shapes from the fibula and using them to create a fabric structure. I also played around with different aspects of it, making it out of different materials and turning it into a solid form. Here are a number of images in chronological order of the processes i applied to the original form and purpose of the fibula.

My doll self

For this project we had to make an illitteral doll version of ourselves or of the human condition. The only restriction is that it had to be exactly half our height. I made two different dolls, one was a bundle of my own cloths with a charity collection sticker on it tied in organic twine with a bow on top. This was inspired from my brother recently moving to Cambodia. I aimed to address the idea we have in the western world that our cloths fit for the bin are a present and also dealing with the idea of excess. The work ended up being quite similar to that of Shinique Smith. The second doll I created was a small cage made out of old rusted chair frames. This idea came from the fact that the sculpture had to be half of my height, this made me think about when I was younger and half the height I am now. Back them education seemed very restricting and limiting. I wanted create this feeling of being trapped through a simplistic method of just stacking the chair frames. I have quite an interest with chair frames basing most of my work in the first semester on the them, I'm not sure what it it is, maybe the simplicity of their form or maybe it's that close relationship we all have with them. I'm not sure but all I do know is that the evoke powerful feelings and imagery

1 day Project

So for the one day project we had to come up with new units of measurements. I began my measuring the distance to my home from college in steps. I then measured how many licks were in a step. After I figured that out i found out how many licks were in a cornetto and then in turn how many cornettos would it take me to get home. The answer ladies and gentlemen is 5.9

Easter Project

So I was making a cast of a done to play around with it's structure when a happy accident happened, I managed to pour plaster everywhere just as my tutors were coming in. My immediate reaction was one of dismay but this was swiftly changed to confusion as my tutors told me not to do anything more with it and that it was now a sculpture in it's own right. Being completely honest I had no idea what they were talking about so I just nodded along. They didn't explain it to me anymore but told me to step back and to figure out why this sculpture was good. It took me a long time and a solid reading of the book UnMonumental to finally see where they were coming from. I began to realize that art doesn't have to be intentional and clear, in fact the best works of art are open to the viewers on opinion, the best art creates questions not answers. I feel as though this is my eureka moment of the year. Any who the goal of my project now is to create illiteral portraits of the human form. I plan to pick different points throughout  the human condition and try to evoke these images through the use of ready made objects. Here are some images of the turning point.

Forget me knots

I was playing around with different knots and creating different forms, for these flowers I used two different knots, the monkey fist and the carrick bend knot.

knotting new

 So for our sculpture elective we had to pick a verb that we found interesting from a list we made as a group at the very beginning. I chose "to bind" as I found it very interesting as it's not necessarily a verb I'd use in my regular day to day life. I brainstormed about different materials and processes that could be associated with binding. I ended up focusing on knotting as it was something close to home ( my dad was a fisherman, so I grew up learning a range of interesting and different knots ). I chose to use twine in this process as it was easily accessible and seemed to fit in nicely with idea of the fishing knots that i grew up with. I made a series of the same knot and arranged them in different geometric shapes. Whilst doing this repetitive sequence of process I was left with a lot of time to think almost like meditation, I found this a very interesting aspect of the whole procedure.

the big pink chair frame in the middle of the room

as the project is coming to an end I find myself wanting to carry on and take it as far as I can but I also feel quite relieved and very excited to start the electives. Over all the first semester was a lot of fun and I learned a lot from just being allowed and even encouraged to fool around with different materials and being given room to make my own mistakes. The whole idea of working out ideas like this was such an alien task coming straight from leaving cert where everything is just laid out for you. Over all I've had a great experience and I hope I've done enough to be able to continue that on, for my last piece of the project i created a 6ft tall, pink steel chair frame. I was able to find a space that allowed me to this and someone to guide me through the welding. it was a lot of fun to make and I'm quite disappointed I can't have it down for my assessment but bus eireann didn't seem to keen for me to strap it to the top of the bus down, but oh well. The concept behind this is just where i naturally progressed from my project, it's all about taking the everyday boring, mundane and banal and making you pay attention to them, taking them out of the light and context you usually see them in and forcing you to look at it and consider it properly and not just let it sink into the background.This topic has been explored by great artists such as Alice Maher and Claes Oldenberg