Meagan Chevrier

The task is to create a non-representational sculpture using 100+ found objects.

Things to think about:

• What type of objects?
• How should this sculpture be displayed?
• In what different ways can i fasten these objects together?

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Brainstorming: After the lecture/introduction given in class, I began brainstorming ideas on my own. The materials and the fastening methods I originally brainstormed are not the ones in which I ended up using. It’s interesting to see how one idea can lead to another and become a whole different thing entirely.

 

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Experimenting With Materials: I brought in some of the materials from my brainstorm and began arranging them in different ways and trying different ways of fastening them together. The money rolls were very interesting to work with since some of them could fit inside of each other and this could be used as a fastening technique. But, I was not pleased with my progress thus far… so decided that my next step was to take to the internet and look up sculptures to give me more inspiration.

 

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Inspiration: Out of the many sculptures I looked up online, one that I came across accidentally struck me most. This is a photo from the Toronto Sun newspaper which pictures an igloo made with coloured snow and ice. I began thinking about ways that I could incorporate coloured ice into an abstract sculpture based off of this igloo. This posed a lot of questions to me… Is ice an adequate medium and could I use the frigid weather to my advantage in order to transport my sculpture to Lebel?

 

 

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Here are some other sculptures I found interesting:

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Preparing: After deciding to use the cold weather to my advantage and stick with ice, I began preparing for the project by gathering ice trays and making different coloured ice. I also drew a sketch of what I wanted my structure to look like. I figured I could fasten the ice together using a spray bottle of warm water to melt each ice cube to the next.

 

Of course I had to work outside to keep the ice from melting!

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Change in Ideas: After several attempts to get the ice to stick to each other and to stay all in one piece, I realized that my original plan was not going to be possible. The sculpture thus far was too delicate and breakable… So I began looking around for other materials. I wanted to stick to the same idea to use ice, though.

I began to rethink the original goals of the project. Rather than creating my own ice blocks, I began looking around my yard for other solutions. “Found Objects,” that is. The icicles hanging off the structures around my house caught my eye, and my entire vision of the sculpture changed immediately. Why not use my surroundings to my advantage?

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Progression: Moving my ice-cube sculpture aside, I began experimenting with the icicles I had grabbed from all around my house using a ladder. I grabbed a long-skinny/shallow cardboard box and taped round kitchen dish-sponges along the sides in order to create grooves along the edge of my ice sculpture upon finishing. I then placed a garbage bag along the bottom of the box and filled it about an inch and a half with water. I then took a bit of snow and mixed it in with the water to create a “slush.” I did this to allow the icicles to stand up easier in the box.

One by one, i carefully placed 109 icicles into the water with tongs or tweezers, depending on the size.

 

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Challenge 1: Throughout this project, I found that when one icicle tipped over, it had a domino effect on the other icicles. There were many times when I had to go back and hold the icicles back up until they froze enough to stand on their own once again.

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Progress: Once all 109 icicles had been placed and frozen together, (left overnight), I took food colouring and put a drop on the top of many of the icicles in different colours. I decided to leave some regular-coloured, too.

 

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Challenge 2: Getting my sculpture to school was challenging. I held it in the back seat without heat. Luckily it was really cold out on crit day!

 

 

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Presentation: After getting it to school,  I carefully cut off the box and pulled out the garbage bag from underneath the ice sculpture, which was surprisingly effortless and went surprisingly smooth. I also got to see the grooves from the dish-sponges for the first time! They turned out better than I thought.

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Here is my finished project:

 

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Critique: During the critique, I was glad to have the opportunity to get feedback on my work and to be able to explain my creative process behind it. The comments I got on my crit-sheet were both positive and critical, which is good. Here are some sample comments I received:
“Very creative! Colour adds nice dimensions” – A.B.

“Creative sculpture, not a fan of the colour within EVERY icicle. I believe the blue points are stronger” – A.R.

“Amazing! Kudos for braving the cold. Love the asymmetry” – S.S.

“Absolutely beautiful! Creative idea, great colour contrast & positive space between each one” – A.D.

“Maybe using black ink instead of colour to unify the colour palette more” – A.F.

 

From these comments, I could see that the class was very torn on the use of colour. In my opinion, I think it is very effective, but I do take these other comments into consideration, especially the one about using ink. I think that could be a cool concept! Overall I agree with most of the comments I received.