Concentration #6

             As mentioned in my last post, I came up with the idea for my nest piece as I was brainstorming for my fifth concentration piece. I really like the aesthetic of a piece composed with a bunch of crazy twigs juxtaposed with something metal. When I first sketched it out in my sketchbook I had thought of utilizing a metal wire with hole's in it.

 So I created a bowl on the wheel while I was fine tuning my thoughts about my industrial part. Above is my initial sketch, and here is the metal I was thinking of. I wasn't exactly sure how it would translate into the sculpture, with the holes and the firmness of the metal, but I really liked the idea when I was sketching it.

 After trimming the piece I started to pinch the sides up and attaching clay to make the metal looked like it was folding in on itself. I realized pretty quickly that the idea was a failure as the metal sheet had too many soft angle that it was looking more like a fabric. So it was time to go back to brainstorming. Mrs. Ferguson helped come up with the idea of using metal sheets bound together and I went to work.

I started by chopping off the industrial side and rebuilding it, using the shapes I had cut to act as the individual metal pieces.

I thought the lines looked too rough, and the shapes weren't very defined that I wanted to give it more dimension. It also looked rough-as in sloppy- with the lines being etched on so I decided to attach separate "sheets" to make the shapes look cleaner. 

And then I started on the nest part which was coils on coils on coils. It was very fun! Slightly tedious but nowhere near as tedious as the chains links were.

And then I started on the inside!

I also decided to put lines looking like the sheets of metal on the front translated into the inside. My goal was for it to look like the back of the sheets riveted together.

I started making the rivets for the metal sheets, and actually decided to go with a more screwed-in look. I started with making small little clay balls and cutting them in half , and then I indented them in a cross using a really tiny loop tool.

The little balls dried out really quickly so I ended up storing them on a slightly damp sponge before attaching them. I put a ton on every piece...which I later started to have second doubts about.

I compared the multi-screwed metal sheets to the sheets where the screws were only on the corners and ended up liking the 4-corner placed sheets as they looked cleaner. With fewer on the metal sheet, the screws looked more uniform with less variation among sizes. Also the multi-screwed sheets reminded me a lot of Legos and it was hard to unsee and forget about that thought once I had picked up on the resemblance.

Final picture before bisque firing! I spent a lot of time smoothing out the outside surface areas of the metal sheets so they would slick after firing. I also redefined the industrial line on the inside as well as touched up any coils.

Reflection:

I had a little difficulty with keeping the screws looking uniform but overall the piece turned out nicely. When I had to put the screws on the lower sections I had to tilt the piece to attach the screws and might have squashed a few of the lower coils on the nest piece. Looking back I also wonder if I should have put more clay on the inside of the raised metal sheets so the looked like they were the same length. Overall the piece didn't have very complicated elements, there was just a lot of layering and repetition. I love the way the nest side turned out and feel confident about the industrial sheets, however I am not exactly sure which position I will place the piece for the camera.