The aim of today's workshop was to look at how we represent nature from a human's perspective. The workshop was focused on experimenting with found and easily sourced materials and explore what these materials say about our relationship to the world around us.
We brought in 3 objects from home; the aim was to look at how everyone in the group interpreted 'objects'. I chose 3 decorative objects; a wooden elephant (I have 100's!), a pair of plastic steampunk goggles, and a little pink decorated box. We discussed the objects in the group and found that many of the ways we treat materials when making artworks come from our reaction to them, which I found interesting. I do always like to look at pretty and intriguing things. We were told that this can often be a subconscious or 'conditioned' way. The aim of doing this was also to come up with a language to describe them and understand their significance to us. I found out that mine were decorative but also quite sentimental and represented good times in my life where I felt happy. I also found that I like to embellish objects and aesthetic is important to me within my practice.
I gathered red leaves due to their beautiful colouring, glass that was covered in blue and green plastic film, some unusual stones from the floor; some smooth pebbles, some jagged edged stones with what looked like white paint on. I found some electrical wire that I thought might be interesting, again due to the colour. When looking at what I had collected, I realised again that I could refer back to the first task of bringing the objects in; I chose decorative colourful pieces. We also had access to some man-made materials inside. I chose some material for the textural qualities of it, some clay, some polystyrene and some clear plastic coloured tiles. I didn't end up using all of them.
I worked intuitively with the materials and wanted to create something with the leaves. I gathered them together and placed them symmetrically, wound round the stalks and placed them between the two plastic coloured tiles. I wanted to use a glue gun to stick them together but after advise from the tutor I decided to cut some polystyrene rectangles at each corner so the leaves had room. Which, in the end worked great as it was able to stand on its side so light could pass through. I love working with light and making things that light can pass through as it brings another element to the sculpture.
It also looked great either way you looked at it as one side you could see the wound round stalks and the other way you could see the veins of the leaves.
When placing this sculpture outside I wanted it somewhere that light could pass through. I took a picture holding it as it was a very windy day and the sun was just going down.
I also placed it under a tree and resting on the tree. It was like the leaves were caught in time as they fell. Another aspect that was successful and intended when making it was to combine the plastic with the leaves and think about how much plastic is in the environment now. When reflecting on it, its like the plastic has captured and encased the leaves, yet there is still some beauty in it.
The other sculpture I made was out of polystyrene and a plastic tube. I inserted the tubing through the polystyrene squares and glue gunned them into place. I wanted to create a tree sculpture, again, playing around with the inside/outside theme and making an object from the outside, out of objects from the inside. I placed the red leaves in the top of the tube and wound the coloured wire around the base. I attached the tubing to a blue plastic tile and wrapped bubble wrap around the tubing. This worked ok, I wasn't 100% happy with the end result as i rushed it and didn't have a lot of time to think about why I was doing certain aspects of it. It could have worked better with different sized polystyrene squares, going from small at the top to larger at the bottom.
Putting both of the sculptures side by side there was an obvious theme of inside/outside and they complemented each other with the red leaves. I did prefer the leaves encased in the plastic.
Placing the 'tree' sculpture in various places I wasn't convinced. However the last one I felt worked well as a plinth for it. The green warehouse store behind reminded me of the tip and where people go to discard unwanted things. Putting it there reminded me of a Christmas tree being discarded and no longer loved. The background colours of the red and green also reminded me of Christmas.
To take this further I would like to combine the natural materials with man-made materials and make some more plastic encased leaf pictures/sculptures. I think they worked well and also it will be interesting to see how they look once the leaves start dying and shrivel up and whether or not that will change the look/feel of them. It will show an obvious message of how much plastic is impacting our environment; plastic stays and does not disinter-grate yet nature dies and then sprouts again next Spring. It would be interesting to look at how I contain nature within plastic.
I did these as a last minute idea to do before the end of the studio day. I had planned to get a lot more materials but in the end I made do with what i could find on campus at Uni.
Reflections:
- When I was making this I ripped off the piece of cardboard and it looked like a mountain and i really liked the layering of the top of it. This informed the piece; mountain and nature.
- I would have liked to have included more man- made materials, however didn't have them at the time.
- I like how the leaves are changing colours, and would be interested to see the natural parts of it will fade and disintegrate as time goes on.
- It actually looks like a crown or head dress someone would wear; a tribe, a wedding. It would be interesting to do more research into this to see what inspiration I could get from it to inform my ideas. Possibly do a series of head dresses.
- The colouring of the leaves suggest the mountain is burning, so its quite narrative too.
- There is a lot of texture which I think is effective.
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