Thursday, January 12, 2012

"The butterfly counts not months but moments, and has time enough."

~Rabindranath Tagore
Spring 2011, I took the second semester of Sculpture class at my local community college. I had the same instructor as the first semester, and two classmates from that class joined me. The instructor didn't want to hamper our creativity and decided that we could collectively decide what we wanted to do. The three of us came up with six projects/subjects to tackle during the semester, and timed things so we would present our works on the same days as the Sculpture 1 students were.

We decided on the following projects:
  1. Use colour to convey an emotion
  2. Use texture to convey a touch-sensation
  3. Use of light/shadow on the human body
  4. Convey the passage of time
  5. Use three or more malleable materials together to create something new
  6. Found object: manipulation or assemblage
For my first project, I couldn't decide what to do. I tend to prefer monochromatic works, even better if it's black/white/shades of gray. I have a hard time committing to colour, especially in art.

Several years ago, I was at the San Diego Zoo in the gift shop, and I saw some beautiful butterfly specimen shadow boxes. I loved them, and wanted them, but had a hard time justifying both the expense and the thought of displaying something dead in my home (houseplants being the exception). So I decided to make my own butterfly specimens using paper and Prismacolours. I made my mom a Blue Morpho and my sister a Monarch. And they were, if I say so myself, spectacular. I had meant to make some for myself, but the project was perpetually waylaid for other shiny things that caught my attention. But this sculpture project gave me the perfect excuse to make some butterflies again!

First I collected as many high quality photographs of butterflies as I could. I decided to limit my palette to blue butterflies. I made wing templates for each butterfly so I could ensure both sides were as symmetrical as possible. I then traced a set of wings on I used plain white card stock paper and coloured the wings in using Prismacolours. I tried to make them as realistic I could. In all, I had completed 5 different types of butterflies. I made the decision to only colour the top-side of the wings, and painted the backsides using flat white acrylic paint. After I cut the wings out (leaving a little extra "tabs" on the inside of the wings so I could insert them into the bodies), I ran the edges along the tip of a chartreuse Prismacolour to call attention to the edge.

I made their little bodies out of Sculpey III polymer clay, and inserted 28 gauge steel wire for legs and antennae. Before I baked them, I made slits along the thorax so I could insert the wings later. There was a slight baking mishap (darn Josh!) and evidently polymer clay EXPANDS greatly when fired at 500 degrees. Who knew? But I rolled with the punches (and cursed Josh under my breath), and used the bodies anyway.

I typically struggle with coming up with bases for my sculpture pieces. A bad base can ruin a piece pretty easily. I got it into my head that a crumpled piece of galvanized steel would be cool, so I grabbed some roof flashing from Lowes and beat the crap out of it on concrete using a hammer. I then made a square base by stacking/laminating together several sheets of MDF and then spray painted it gloss black. I drilled two holes in the top and inserted short lengths of dowel that had also been painted black. Then I hot-glued the crumpled flashing to the dowels, and then glued the butterfly legs to the flashing.

This is the finished product:
View from above, complete with Albert's socked kitty-feeties. Note that the red on the sheeting is the reflection of my red wool coat on the coat rack.

View from the side.

I was pleased with how the piece turned out, but didn't have a whole lot to say about it. So I polled friends. Here's what I/we came up with:
  • Butterflies are the second life-phase of a creature.
  • The butterflies are vain, and they're trying to look at themselves in the shiny reflective surface of the metal. (which makes my decision to keep the underside of the wings matte white interesting, since the reflection of an individual butterfly's wings is plain white)
  • The crumpled, shiny metal energizes the space between the sculpture and the viewer, compelling the viewer to look more closely.
  • I've always been fascinated with how quickly nature can take over after man relinquishes control of something. This piece kind of shows that. This idea could have been amped up by using rusted metal.
  • My sculpture instructor, a painter by trade/obsession, said he was YEARNING for some orange in the piece.
So there you have it. Click here to see more pictures of the piece.

No comments: