Sculpture at Latin

The first step I took to make this was I started making the biggest hole in the start of the book and then cut the hole smaller and smaller as the book progressed. After that I drew a girl running through the pages chasing after an umbrella. Then I put raindrops around only Os on the pages. Finally I colored the showing pages and alternated when the girl was colored in and when the background was colored in.

As I created this project I realized how I wanted to make the overall message about how women are told to give up on their dreams based on their gender.

Initially, I did not even know what I was going to do with this project. I found a book that was simplistic and that could be customized, whilst obtaining the perfect size. The title of the book is called Fates and Furies, so it only made sense to create this piece with a theme that embodied the title.

From the outside, I wanted the appearance of the book to look very normal– although it has a rough looking appearance embodying the contradictory effect of the words “fate” and “furies”.

Although I didn’t like the effect it had on the final product, I tried shaving off some of the corners of the pages. Additionally, another thing I did not like what I did was that I carved a triangle through the whole book.

The book was sectioned off so that one half was titled “Fate” and one was titled “Furies”, so as a result, I decided to carve a star into the book for the first half, and the colored it by using pastels. Then, with modgepodge, I joined most of the pages together to create a thicker, more decorative, larger overall page. After the modgepodge dried, for texture, I used metallic colored gold and silver pipe cleaners to outline the star shape. On the left side of this carving, I chose to draw a star with just pastels. I like the way it turned out because in a way, it complimented that carving.

For the ‘Furies’ portion, I made the cover look as though it were going to burst into flames, reflecting the connotation of the word. I did this using pastels.

Something I would add to this project is that I wanted to have little stars hanging from the bottom of the book. I think it would look aesthetically pleasing as well as highlight that fate can be hiding in the strangest of places; even a place with fury.

It took me a long time to think of what I wanted to do. At first I was going to create a piece with old records but I went online, trying to find inspiration. And I found a book with large holes acting as caves with young boys looking down into the cave. I picked this because the night before I had watched the Dead Poets Society. In the movie, the boys bring back the “dead poets society” which is held in a cave. I love the message the movie sends that you shouldn’t be a follower but rather a leader. And be a unique individual, do the things that others are too afraid to do. And when everyone takes the right path take the left path. I really want to get this message across in my sculpture. They are in the cave and they are exploring the unknown. In the same way the dead poets society did in the movie.

When creating the sculpture it was more difficult than I thought I would have been. Every time I went smaller in size it was more difficult because the pages would get caught in each other and the blade. Also when trying to line up the ovals it would become off-center. If I could change one thing about my project it would be trying to make the circles lined up with each other.

The 100 project was my favorite project all semester. It really let me express true problems about prescription medication. “In the US alone, 15 million abuse prescription medication.52 million Americans over the age of 12 have used prescription drugs non-medically in their lifetime.” This is a huge problem people aren’t aware of. Most drug addictions start from medical prescription. The negative result of using theses drugs can lead to addiction and possible death. I really wanted to create a project that reflected on the problem. I always knew I wanted to use pill bottles because it expresses the message that each bottle has a different story weather It was abuse of drugs or recovering from a surgery. 100 different stories but all involve prescription medication. This project really connected with me because my sister had just got out of the hospital because she had surgery on her jaw. Her jaw has been a recurring problem since she was born. She was born with an overbite, which starts her story. Since she was born she had been in pain till her resent surgery. When she was in fourth grade she had her first set of braces and those lasted till junior year of high school. Then she had her first surgery to remove her overbite. We thought that this would be the end. But it wasn’t. It was just the end of the chapter. She had to get her braces on again. Then the next 5 years would living hell for her. Then she finally got her final surgery, hoping the will be the end.

When creating this project the hardest thing was trying to get the circle the size I wanted it to be and trying to collect the bottles. The first thing I did was to get enough bottle to create the size circle I wanted. Then I laid them out (I use all the same size bottles for the first layer) and once I got the shape I glued them together with hot glue. Then I stacked different size bottles on top and glued them to each other.

In this piece, I experimented with a heated instrument that let me burn designs into a book. My main task was the front cover which took up the majority of the time spent on the project. I wanted to play with the juxtaposition of fire being uncontrollable and resembling chaos with geometric shapes. I got to show this through the randomness and seemingly spreading of the shapes yet the lines are straight and have definitive ends. The reason for the enlarged amount of time was because the lines were drawn free-hand. I had no guidance in it and that is the reason for lines being thicker than others in areas. I love using the heated pen and the book as a medium , especially the cover because of the ability to design. Plain paper burns too easily and is too thin to burn individually or would be too time consuming. I had always seen fire as a powerful element in the way it could harm, engulf, and sometimes make objects seemingly disappear. I was hoping to demonstrate these qualities with the giant whole burned through the book and the first page of the book almost engulfed by flames except for the words “Catching Fire.” I also designed the back cover but did not have the time to make another intricate piece. If I was able to spend more time on the book, I would have done a similar design on the back cover but in reverse with the condensed part on the top left. Also, I would have hoped to have done actual designs within the book using multiple pages to create a medium easier to work with. All in all, I was satisfied with my work and glad to work with such an interesting element.