Title: Tangled Mind Size: Medium: Styrofoam Date of Completion: April 20th 2021
Exhibition
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ ‘Tangled mind’ is based on what society does with human mind’s over time. I believe that when we’re born, our feelings are straight forward, asit is seen as okay to have said feelings, but over time, our mind gets tangled because people try to change who we are, and we start to jump through hoops just to figure out what we’re thinking. This sculpture is inspired by ‘Fragments’ by Bruno Catalano, ‘non-violence’ by Carl Fredrick Reuterswärd, and ‘another time xx’ by Antony Gormley. |
Inspiration
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ I took inspiration off of ‘Fragments’ by Bruno Catalano. This art piece can be seen as a man who over time, is breaking down until he has nothing left of himself. When I saw this sculpture, I thought about how I could make something about being emotionally broken down as to the man in the sculpture physically being broken down and disappearing. I also took inspiration from ‘Non-Violence’ by Carl Fredrick Reuterswärd. He was a good friend to John Lennon and his wife Yoko Ono. after the death of John Lennon, Yoko Ono personally asked him to make a tribute to John, and his vision of peace. The sculpture was first installed in Central Park, NYC in the Strawberry Fields Memorial as such. Just looking at the picture of this sculpture, I was intrigued. After looking into the meaning behind the art, I liked the idea of having something have a meaning similar. So if the meaning of this artwork was about violence, and about how society practically encourages it, I wanted to make something about something else society was doing to us. I also liked the knot in the pistol, so I wanted to incorporate that into my own art, as well as having the sculpture move from place to place. Color inspiration was taken from the color meaning chart on the left. Colors were taken from the chart for very specific reasons. I needed a color for the mind, it needed to stand for our thoughts and passions getting tangled up; red. I also needed a color to represent what is being striped from us as we grow older, like our childlike ways, and our happiness; yellow. And lastly, I needed a color to represent what is replacing the happiness, like negative power, and evil, and mystery; black. After looking at those two images, and knowing I wanted color meaning incorporated into my art, I came up with the meaning of a sculpture that is about how everyone in some way is dealing with something that is messing with their mind. The meaning was compiled from the 'being broken down’ aspect of ‘Fragments’, and the idea that society is violent against its citizens from ‘Non-Violence’. I took inspiration from taking small chunks out of the head and being able to see inside the head from ‘Fragments’. I took inspiration from the knots in the head from ‘Non-Violence’. |
Process
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ The first thing I did was plan out what I was going to do with some sketches. At first I was thinking about cutting the head directly down the center and then proceeding, but I changed my mind and decided to just have a section of the head cut out. I knew I wanted to have some sort of tangled mess in the head, but I wasn't quite sure how I was going to do that, so I drew up a little scribble, and tried to draw around it to make it look like a rope that had been tangled. When I was first coming up with the drawing I was just going to put it in the middle of a road, but then I changed my mind and I drew up a sketch of it next to a park. And That's where I decided I wanted to put it. I thought that putting it next to a park would help with the symbolic meaning of the sculpture, with it about how society messes with our minds with age. I also wanted it to be next to a park so that any locals could graffiti on it if they wanted. I also drew up a small sketch for myself just so that I could keep in mind what this piece was about, with a yarn looking thing just in a neat swirl, but then turning into a tangled mess. After I was done with the sketches I moved on to the sculpture itself. |
Process
~~~~~~~~~~~~~ The first thing I did with the styrofoam head was cut out the section that I was going to be dealing with. I dug into the head about half an inch or so and tried to smooth it out the best I could. I then drew up two lines that were entangled with each other. In the beginning I also added a few random circles just to fill up some space, but I later got rid of those because I just didn't like the look, and I thought they were out of place. After that I started to sculpt into the head similarly to how I did my sketch of the Tangled line. A few of the pieces did break, as I was expecting them to because I'm dealing with styrofoam and I was making it really thin, so I used a hot glue gun to put those pieces back together. When I was done with that I smooth out the deepest part of the head as best I could. I was trying to make sure that the reds had as little texture as possible, but because I was dealing with styrofoam I knew it just wasn't going to be totally flat and smooth. When I was done carving the Tangled lines, I started painting. I first used my red paint to do the lines, because I knew that if I started with the dark colors first the lines would get lost, or I would paint over some pieces. After I was done painting the lines I mixed a little bit of red with black and painted the inside of the head with that, as well as the sides of the lines. I wanted to do a very dark red, because I wanted it to have some contrast with the black on the outside of the head. speaking of that when I was done with the inside portion of the head I moved on to the outside. I had already had a few nicks in the head from dealing with it and moving it around, so I just accentuated those to make it have some of the chunks taken out of it, the symbolize the whole ‘ Society breaks us down’ thing I wanted. I first painted with black because I wanted to be able to have the edge of that black show under the yellow. because when I was done painting the yellow I went back with the black and got the more details. as for details I mean I drew in more streakiness, because I wanted it to look like the black was going over the yellow to show the evil and mystery of the black covering over the childness and happiness of the yellow. When everything was dry I went back to do the details inside of the head. it was a good thing that I went with the red first, because I was easily able to see what the lines are supposed to look like, and how they were supposed to flow. if I were to have done the dark color first there would be some portions of the line that was supposed to be red that would have been covered up. because looking at just the first go at the paint on those lines the dark color did go over some of the red, but because I did the red first I was able to see where the line was supposed to go and if they just stopped abruptly I was easily able to go over that and fix it . |
In between painting sessions and moved on to the portion of the project that needed to show the playground. I had two pieces of styrofoam that were about 1x8x38in. I got two of these for two reasons, one was because if I messed up on the first board I had a second board to rely on, and two, was because I knew I needed some extra styrofoam to be able to make a little person that would stand next to my sculpture. so if I messed up on the first board I would still be able to use that styrofoam to make my little person. but if I didn't mess up on it and it turned out good the first time then I could just go ahead and use the second Styrofoam board to make my little person.
To make my little person, I first drew up a little sketch on a small chunk of the Styrofoam board that I had cut out. At first I drew him a little too small, so I just flipped a little chunk around and redrew him. Then I did a block cut of him, meaning I just did a rough cut around him so I could get into more details after. speaking of details I then went in and did my details. After I had cut all the way around my drawing I then made his arms thinner than the rest of his body. This was hard to do because if I went into deep I might have cut off his arms and would have had to start over which I did not want to do. When I was done with his arms I gave him a little twirl and noticed that I needed to make his neck thinner, because the way it was at the moment his neck was as wide as his body and head which is not correct and it also just looked really weird. After I did that I made his head a little bit more round than it was and made his legs a little bit thinner than his chests. I then painted him black and moved on to the actual playground portion.
First I needed to cut one of my longboards in half, so that I could have one part of the styrofoam where my sculpture stands on top of and another part of my styrofoam perpendicular to the ground styrofoam. I then needed to find a good reference photo of a playground, which was for some reason extremely difficult to do when looking up ‘drawing of a playground.’but when I found a decent enough reference photo I started to sketch my playground on a piece of printer paper. I did this so I could then put the piece of printer paper on top of my styrofoam and I took a dull edge of a marker and went over my lines so that there would be an imprint of the playground drawing on my styrofoam board. When that was done I grabbed a black permanent marker and just drew over it, and gave it some shadows.
Then on the second piece of my styrofoam I found a place where I was going to want to put my sculpture. I drew a circle around the base of the sculpture and then I drew an organic circle like shape around that. I then cut into that styrofoam about a third of an inch in and then started to dig into it, keeping the bottom looking organic, but also making sure that I wasn't piercing through the styrofoam. I then propped up the two styrofoam pieces, the one with the drawing as if it were a wall next to the base styrofoam piece. I had to make sure that with it looking like this that the drawing of the playground looked like it was in the distance and not just a drawing on a flat piece of styrofoam. I then drew a sort of outline around the playground and made a trail from the playground to where the sculpture was going to sit.
When all of my pieces were done I took a very thin skewer like piece of wood and put that into the base of the styrofoam head and then put the styrofoam head on to the styrofoam base. I also found a spot for my little man and took a sewing needle and hoped that through the bottom of the bay styrofoam so that the pointy side was sticking out of the top of the bay styrofoam piece, so that I could put my man onto that.
To make my little person, I first drew up a little sketch on a small chunk of the Styrofoam board that I had cut out. At first I drew him a little too small, so I just flipped a little chunk around and redrew him. Then I did a block cut of him, meaning I just did a rough cut around him so I could get into more details after. speaking of details I then went in and did my details. After I had cut all the way around my drawing I then made his arms thinner than the rest of his body. This was hard to do because if I went into deep I might have cut off his arms and would have had to start over which I did not want to do. When I was done with his arms I gave him a little twirl and noticed that I needed to make his neck thinner, because the way it was at the moment his neck was as wide as his body and head which is not correct and it also just looked really weird. After I did that I made his head a little bit more round than it was and made his legs a little bit thinner than his chests. I then painted him black and moved on to the actual playground portion.
First I needed to cut one of my longboards in half, so that I could have one part of the styrofoam where my sculpture stands on top of and another part of my styrofoam perpendicular to the ground styrofoam. I then needed to find a good reference photo of a playground, which was for some reason extremely difficult to do when looking up ‘drawing of a playground.’but when I found a decent enough reference photo I started to sketch my playground on a piece of printer paper. I did this so I could then put the piece of printer paper on top of my styrofoam and I took a dull edge of a marker and went over my lines so that there would be an imprint of the playground drawing on my styrofoam board. When that was done I grabbed a black permanent marker and just drew over it, and gave it some shadows.
Then on the second piece of my styrofoam I found a place where I was going to want to put my sculpture. I drew a circle around the base of the sculpture and then I drew an organic circle like shape around that. I then cut into that styrofoam about a third of an inch in and then started to dig into it, keeping the bottom looking organic, but also making sure that I wasn't piercing through the styrofoam. I then propped up the two styrofoam pieces, the one with the drawing as if it were a wall next to the base styrofoam piece. I had to make sure that with it looking like this that the drawing of the playground looked like it was in the distance and not just a drawing on a flat piece of styrofoam. I then drew a sort of outline around the playground and made a trail from the playground to where the sculpture was going to sit.
When all of my pieces were done I took a very thin skewer like piece of wood and put that into the base of the styrofoam head and then put the styrofoam head on to the styrofoam base. I also found a spot for my little man and took a sewing needle and hoped that through the bottom of the bay styrofoam so that the pointy side was sticking out of the top of the bay styrofoam piece, so that I could put my man onto that.
Reflection
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Overall I really enjoyed doing this project. I don't have much experience with making sculptures like this, my main form of art is drawing and painting. This was definitely an adventure, but I still like how it turned out. It's pretty much exactly what I imagined. If I were to do this project again I would make sure that when making my little man that I would have my blade straight, because I noticed that when I was cutting him one side was smaller than the other, because my blade was on a diagonal. another thing that I might have changed was maybe moving where the head was going to be more towards the right of the baseboard, that way you could see the playground in the back better. but other than that I wouldn't really change anything else.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Overall I really enjoyed doing this project. I don't have much experience with making sculptures like this, my main form of art is drawing and painting. This was definitely an adventure, but I still like how it turned out. It's pretty much exactly what I imagined. If I were to do this project again I would make sure that when making my little man that I would have my blade straight, because I noticed that when I was cutting him one side was smaller than the other, because my blade was on a diagonal. another thing that I might have changed was maybe moving where the head was going to be more towards the right of the baseboard, that way you could see the playground in the back better. but other than that I wouldn't really change anything else.
Similarities and Differences
Similarities-
- pieces of the sculpture taken out - about society breaking us down Differences- - 'fragments' has a full body - shows stages of time - material |
Similarities and Differences
Similarities-
- knots - a meaning on society Differences- - material - 'non-Violence' is about a specific issue |