Torrey



I designed my piece to tell the story of the Marie Antoinette and her death, of her extravagant lifestyle and the price she had to pay for it. Since she had died moments before the muscles in her face have now relaxed, so that is the facial expression she conveys. After it has been fired and glazed, I will complete the piece with various fake flowers, ribbons, and birds to decorate her hair, a sign of extravagance and overindulgence at the time. But on her neck and shoulders I will paint with red glaze to show how she was killed, providing a stark contrast between it and the delicate birds and flowers.

The lessons that are important for me to take from this project into the concentration process are to work faster in the beginning, and recognize from the start whether or not it is possible to take it home and work on it, and what ways I can make up for this lost time if bringing it home is impossible. For this project I made lots of minor changes in the beginning, changes that don't really matter, and ended up wasting my time, so I will take that lesson learned during this project and apply to everything else that I do.



-My project has evolved from its beginning stages through my exploration of different materials, mostly due to problems I encountered based on ideas that went wrong or failed. This can be explicitly seen with my soda can necklace. Originally, I don't even remember what I was planning on doing, but it was not this. I've been making that design for months on note cards with a straight pin while I was bored watching tv, but I never thought to apply it to my art. And suddenly one day in open studio I realized that the soda cans would be perfect for the design, so I started cutting out the form, and slowly punching holes in it. The first one I did was the Sprite can piece on the left of the necklace, towards the middle. At that time I was playing around of course, and I decided it might look nice if I left the middle un-punched, so I did and I left it. I think it adds an extra detail to the piece. -I changed deliberately not anything physical, but more my mental state, and realized that I produce better art when I just go with the flow, and let my pieces develop naturally instead of forcing them in a specific direction. This can be seen most clearly in the slide piece. I struggled for a long time on the idea for this one. When I started, I wanted to make a globe sort of shape, but about a week (or maybe even longer) into the assignment, I realized that this was impossible. So with the encouragement of Mrs. Wentzel, I decided to make a non-representational piece out of the slides, and let it go wherever it went. I am pleased with the outcome.

My idea has evolved alot because of the setbacks I have experienced in the creation of my project. Originally my plan was to create a four foot wide chandelier out of used plastic water bottles. I planned on making it out of 7 different sized rings that I would glue together, forming a sphere-like shape. But as I was about half way through the project, I picked it up to bring it back to school after working on it one weekend, and the entire thing crumbled in my hands right before me. I didnt realize it at the time, but the hot glue that I glued the bottles together with wasnt strong enough on its own to hold all of the pieces together. I had to eventually start over again, and I planned on doing the same design as before. But the old glue that once held it together made the piece look messy and I decided that I should abandon my original symmetrical sphere chandelier plan and I let it evolve into something totally different. It is now an assymetrical chandelier, but much more sturdier. This time around I used fishing line in addition to the hot glue so that it will hold this time even if the hot glue fails. I am now presenting my object, a plastic water bottle, as a chandelier. The water bottles helped contribute to the idea of a traditional chandelier because of its see through form that mimiks the crystals found on most classic chandeliers. Also, if this were to be a start of a concentration, it would help add to my idea of turning normal everyday projects into works of art: a sort of trash to treasure type focus.

The purpose of this project was to create a piece that helped me explore space and line in the 3D dimension. I learned a lot about this project that I could apply to other projects. I learned about the difficulties in using two, almost contrasting, materials. The difference between the paper and the string was great and the string used to connect the different shapes was a lot more challenging than I thought. Although the piece took longer than expected to create, the stages did not evolve that much through the different stages. However, the string really helped me bring it together in the end, also with the realization that hot glue would be a much more affective adhesive instead of regular Elmers glue.