Metaphoric Water Vessel

Whenever I think of a vessel I automatically think of something that carries either water or a soul. Before the semester began, I started reading "The Hobbit," so I had elven metalwork on the brain, thus the elven appearance.

 

Since this has to be both wood and metal, the base and stem are going to be molded sheet metal and the cup itself is going to be a turned wooden bowl. In order for this goblet to stand on its own, I am planning on weighting the base with a scrap piece of wood.


Two things occurred to me while I was planning this:

1) In order to get the bowed out shape I wanted in the stem, I'm going to have to cut the metal taller than the desired dimensions

2) Because of the twisted nature of the stem, the flat pattern is going to have to be off-set


(You can see most of the math for the circumferences of both the top and base of the goblet in the bottom right corner.)

 

On a grander scale, though, the goblet can be used as a metaphor for the mind or body. (I'm not going to go into much more detail because otherwise I won't have anything left to say for crits.)







(The startings of my pattern for the metalwork.)

Vessel of Time

So when I think vessel the first thing that comes to mind is something that carries things through time, whether that be a large boat with precious cargo, a space ship leading astronauts to new discoveries, or in a more simpler sense which i will use, a time capsule,

Growing up I used to enjoy an idea I saw in a movie Crossroads where these girls put their most precious items in a box and buried it. They waited until they graduated high school to dig it up.

 For my project I want to center a focus on time and growth. Our bodies also are vessels of us, everything we contain is in this vessel we spend our daily lives in.

I want to make this a wall piece, The center will be a clock, Surrounding the clock I will make shapes to resemble leaves or petals, objects in nature that can symbolize growth. 

Similar to this, but mixing wood and metal together.

The circles that look to have grown out further in time will be items that signify movement over time, I haven't decided if i want to make it on a person level with pictures, or do random objects that can give the viewer a feel of progressive time.

I want to mix the media in this project because i feel as though the wood can signify natural growth, while the metal can give more of a space look of time travel

Kayla Tompkins' Vessel Project

When thinking of a vessel, I thought of the mind being a vessel to solve problems and I will be using a maze-like form as the way to portray this idea.  The audience will interact with the piece and will try to solve the maze, however it will be unsolvable.  I hope that the metal will be easier to control than the paper and will hold its shape more permanently.  Also it will be hanging on the wall in sections and I may incorporate fabric in places in order to create an interesting contrast.

Light Vessel

I thought of wood and metal and felt like I had to come up with some kind of mechanism or device: So let me present the light vessel. It is super complicated and it is still in the process of figuring out what goes where. All advice and suggestions are welcomed! And I apologise if the sketch is not understandable!

So basically you have to imagine a typewriter with lights inside shining out. and when you press on the button a stencil comes up projecting a shadow in the back. the basic structure is made out of a shoe box in here:

so when i push that piece down, the string would pull the stencil heart up. i tried using flashlights for this demo but because of the infinite reflection (physics) that it is designed to create it doesn't work for this project too well:

so I used the traditional candle which allowed the light to be radiated(term confusion) to a single focal point:

as you can see the heart shadow is much clearer and here is how it would look like when the button is not pressed

obviously there is much more to the mechanism but this is just the general overview! I am also looking to build a basic circuit in the most efficient way- will also consider light filters? Again, I am open to any comments or suggestions! A few footnotes: the heart shape is just an example I want to put words in the final presentation and also add a bottom layer (if you somehow managed to decode my sketch..) :) See you all tomorrow morning!

Wood Metal Fruit Hybrids

                                                           

I plan on carving wood to make the inside of the orange. The sheet metal will be the peel.

I'm worried about turning the flat sheet metal into a sphere. Maybe if I pound it around a round object?

The wood will make up the inside of most of the fruits.

I hope to get really detailed with the wood carving in order to show the pomegranate seeds.
I might stain the wood to hint at the different fruit colors.

The pit will be the metal component of the peach.

I thought about dropping solder into water to make the papaya seeds.

 I think I prefer wood over metal just because of the amazing things wood can do naturally, I love the look of this modern wooden "sculpture" by Michael Kukla
(http://www.woodindesign.com/2012/08/15/sculpture-michael-kukla/) 

This is a simple painting I did on my closet door (not my favorite but you get the idea) I really like meshing the ideas of the body with nature, specifically eyes and trees. I believe that eyes are windows to the soul and you can tell a lot about how someone feels by looking them in the eyes.

http://www.thisiscolossal.com/2012/09/wire-trees-by-kevin-iris/

These metal trees are incredible, and go along well with my ideas.

Beginning Stages- Kaye Saxe

This is a quick beginning concept for my wood/metal project. I am a little stumped on how I want to execute my project. But one thing is for certain, I am certainly gravitating towards the use of chairs; I'm drawn to the idea of mismatched pieces of chairs or one chair in disarray. In the picture above I have drawn one idea of chopping a chair into pieces and attaching them onto the gallery wall. To make it a little more enticing, I've drawn some pieces literally coming out of the wall. Although these are elementary steps for what my final idea will be, I want to research more into how to cause disorder with chairs. I was suggested to give Performance Art a look, but as I was researching I was left very confused. Especially after watching Marina Abramovic's "The Onion." I've been involved with theatre throughout my life, but performance art is completely different. It actually kind of scares me; but I want to look into it some more as my concept starts to actually develop.

Island or Turtle? Turtle Island

To get a better idea of what my end-result will look like, I decided to use Play-Doh to make a model of my wooden vessel project.

Aerial view

I originally wanted to make puzzle pieces for the shell so that they would fit together in the shell and have the outer ring of the shell as a base to hold the puzzle pieces. I feel like this would make the project dynamic in regards to the concept of the turtle as being a vessel as well as becoming an opportunity to work on my wood carving skills. If this ends up take too long and meticulous, I may just end up making a whole plate for the shell and using various tools to make engraved markings to sort of imitate the look of puzzle pieces.

A model of project, in Play-Doh.

I got my idea and concept of a 'vessel' from a turtle being a vessel in itself because where it may travel, there would be a shell always with it. After further thinking and researching about a turtle's mythology, I learned that the turtle is representative of stability and holds together other structures and can be a basis for anything from a home to small organisms to an island for a community (myth). I really like anime, and one anime I watched called Avatar the Last Airbender, had lore about a turtle who was actually an island (see picture below). I wanted to use this idea as a basis but incorporate puzzle pieces so that my project can fulfill both aspects of the word vessel.

Lion Turtle, the basis of a living ecosystem.

Some ideas that I saw over the summer

WELCOME TO BEGINNING SCULPTURE!

Evolution by Rune Gunierson

Sample in progress blog post

Hi everyone,

Today I did the first test run of the performance with butter on my face. I tried two different types of butter products, a spread and sticks of butter. The spread did not get the melting effect I was looking for, but ended up making a really compelling image.

 Below was the aftermath of scrapping butter spread off of my face. Anna is great at capturing really great moments during my performances! And her sister Kayla was an incredible helper, she is holding the butter spread bucket.

Take two: with stick butter, which worked way better! It had more of a clumpy look, but I'm still happy with how the stills came out. It melted after about 5 minutes under the heat lamp.

Now I'm working on editing the video Anna and I shot. Yay! I'm pretty happy with the way this is working out!