FIN 230 Unit 2 – Dales Art Gallery

HEADER: EXERCISE 1 CREATING AS CONVERSATION

Man Made Flowers

When starting this exercise, I had a completely different plan for what I wanted to do, however while unspooling the wire I had an unexpected surprise. The wire I cut kind of resembled a flower so I began to wonder what kind of questions would a flower made of wire pose, so instead of whatever I was going to make I decided a wire flower would be more interesting to make as I found the idea of it popping out of the ground next to real plants would be a good muse for a photograph. While outside I found one of my moms unused flowerpots and began to think about how that might look either by itself or beside a real plant side by side. I found that while in the flowerpot the wire flower began to rock back in forth like it was alive, if there was more wind today I would have captured it moving in a video, but there was practically no wind at all today. I added more wire flowers to the pot to add more to the piece but found that I liked the larger flower as a standalone statement as it was more dynamic by itself.

Part 1 How is?

The main idea I take away from “Returning the Gift” is a concept as I am personally invested in the idea of returning things back to nature and having those objects to be transformed and reclaimed by nature. In some weird ironic way the wire flower I left outside has already been turned mostly rusted and the soil I used has begun to sprout new fresh blades of grass. There’s a sense of mystery and wonder that comes from seeing a man-made object turned into rust and overtaken by invading plants, of course abandoning a metal bed frame or a broken-down car within the forest is an immoral practice which is harmful to the forest itself. So having the wire being rusted and the soil sprouting new grass is in itself a thought-provoking statement about the environment being filled with the unwanted scraps of metal we all use and rely on.

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Artist Statement

Mind Root

My initial idea for my final project was something completely different from what I decided to go with; my initial idea was a performance piece of an aluminum wire version of the album Art of Stairway to Heaven by Led Zeppelin. I wasn’t too into performance pieces, nor was I into hurting my back by picking up wire sticks and putting them into my wire basket over and over again. Finding 12-gauge aluminum wire was really difficult as it was scarce, so I decided to buy some 9-gauge wire from Amazon for 20 bucks to at least make my next idea; I wanted to make an idea I had in my head of a cleaver mixed with an anchor as a fantasy melee weapon. The fun part was unspooling the big 9-gauge into a stable hilt; I was able to get something sturdy; however, I overestimated how long I should make it, so I ended up with something that was more staff-sized. When I got to making the tip of the weapon, it seemed more natural to twist it into a root-like shape, just like the hilt; the entire thing looked better as a root-like staff, so I just ended up making it into a staff. I was rather pleased with the staff as it turned out quite good and was quite fun to hold; I wish I was able to make the staff sturdier, but I ended up using most of the 9-gauge wire. The backstory I had in mind was a willow tree made out of a metal root with minds connected to the drooping leaves as a tree of consciousness; I always found the idea of a shared consciousness in fiction to be really interesting as well as inspiring. I imagined a world on the rings of j1407b, a harsh radioactive world filled with something I call “MindRoot”: a type of root that grows when exposed to consciousness. I imagined that the inhabitants of this world would use this tree to forge weapons; they would put their hands upon the base of the roots and use their mind to shape the roots into a given form; the weapon they would forge would indicate their rank. I decided to try and make this willow tree of wire; however, I used way too much glue, which resulted in me not being fond of what I made but then the entire thing fell apart as I melted the glue too much, which resulted in it completely falling apart and to top, it all of I ran out of wire completely so I couldn’t salvage it. I do plan on remaking the Mind Root tree later when I have lots of 9-gauge wire; instead, I worked on making a short 3-minute atmospheric song to go along with the staff, I had a short 1-hour nap last Friday, woke up and recorded the short song in about an hour and a half. My greatest challenge was learning that I could have saved time and wire by being smarter and using stronger glue, so I don’t ruin my next wire piece.