Copper Sacs

These (collectively) are the first official piece made in grad school.  Really rough, larger than my previous works, and the first in a long time to lack an architectural/industrial structure to them.  When formally displayed, they will be suspended from the ceiling with monofilament (clear fishing line), staggered at eye level (give or take 5 feet from the ground).  I am considering adding another element to them, but for now this is it.  In two weeks CGU will have a show representing all the first year students called 27+3.  This is my piece for the show.

The piece references an organic fragility.  While made of metal, the forms are light, airy, and delicate like egg shells.  They will be patina'ed black and sanded lightly to reveal shiny copper highlighting the bumps and wrinkles in the metal.  Construction techniques include raising, forging, and soldering.

Paper Vessels Installation

So I am in this gender studies class, and one of the projects is an Exquisite Corpse.  Equisite Corpse is a method of collaboration used commonly in classroom settings to provoke and encourage outside the box thinking.  In this case we are starting with an empty room and each student in the class gets the room for an entire week to create anything they want on the theme of gender/sex/sexuality.  I chose to go first which means a blank slate (save for a few words written on the walls from our professor during the first class.

I thought about this for a few days and the recurring thing for me was the notion of women as vessels.  I'm more of a tomboy than anything and experiencing pregnancy over the summer was a strange thing.  Dresses and makeup have not been a part of my definition of womanhood or being female, but pregnancy and giving birth is.  A lot of people mentioned to me "women having been giving birth for thousands of years..." and it made me think about the birthright of being female.  I decided to make a bunch of paper forms.  The forms are reminiscent of cups or bowls, flowers, and the female body.  Each one is a little different in shape, size, and color.  I stacked them in the room given to us to work with, and drew lines on the floor leading to them.  The lines are alluding to sperm and men in general, as they are a part of this "woman becoming vessel" process.