So it has been a little bit since I've posted pictures of what I'm working, so I thought I'd do that now. This is a picture of a fellow student wearing a piece I made. The piece, though small represents one of my new concepts. (New as in this year.) It is part animal in shape, and part armor. This ambiguous-ness between technology and nature is a common theme for me.
The next piece can be looked at as ribs or spines, or even an insect. Each steel rod was hammered to shape and then welded to the steel base. There is this progressive curve created through the shape of the ribs. Its about 6 feet in length and about 2 feet tall. This is my first welding project here at school and has given me a fair amount of practice. I engineered the piece to have the welds out of view in case they were sloppy, as well as to remove the construction of the piece from the context of the work. This piece is still being worked on, though the last few things are finishing touches.
This thing hanging on my wall is a piece made of tape and wooden dowel rods. Again exploring line as a way to create movement and progression within a piece, but adding ideas of cellular or plant-like growth to it. I also wanted to make something outside of metal, and this is very transportable and does not require the same stamina and energy to work on as the steel work. I am planning to fill the entire studio wall with this, and have been spyed at coffee shops and riding shotgun to Los Angeles while working on this in my lap. I am making about a yard at a time. This represents about 5 yards. The spacing between the dowel rods varies but the "height" remains constant. I'd like to take the finished version of this and do some guerrilla photographs at a corporate building lobby, maybe a bridge or piece of architecture. So that's what is going on in my studio. I am nearing the end of my first semester at Claremont and am planning on utilizing winter break as a time for major production in the studio, along with reading a lot.
