“No matter how much you push the envelope, it'll still just be stationery”

This project was huge for me. Not only was it a big job, but I really pushed conceptual meaning in this one. It turned out to be very personal, and ended up having a great deal of meaning for me. I found myself questioning what it means to be an artist, how the world views artists, and the struggle we face when presenting something that we've poured our creativity into.

Art is a very competitive world, and as artists we're always trying to "push the envelope." In this piece, we have the hand of creativity pushing a stack of envelopes, which are leaning at quite an angle but will never fall over. The hand of creativity, splattered with paint and filled out on the inside so it has dimension, obviously hasn't given up. It keeps pushing, even though it's getting no where. There is an optimism there; even though it isn't accomplishing what it wants to, it keeps going and trying. I've been there, and I think we all have. We don't give up, even when things look hopeless.

The other glove is flat and colorless. It is literally deflated. The hands belong to the same person, but this glove represents that side that isn't so sure.

The letter that this hand wrote reads:

Dear World,

An envelope is an envelope is an envelope. You can call it whatever you'd like, whether that be mail or art, but from an objective standpoint it is what it is. I will look at it through my eyes, and you through yours; we'll be looking at the same thing but seeing it differently. It will be a never-ending struggle to understand one another. I can't make something out of nothing. Will you see an envelope when I place it before you, or something more? No matter how much I push and shove, this tower will never topple. I will keep building up, higher and higher until I kiss the sky, but can I ever escape the confinements of this stationery?

Nothing is new; everything is recycled from something else. Does that make my ideas less valuable than those before me? Can you find value in an envelope that is not an envelope? I hope that my ideas can extend outside of this paper and touch your mind. Then this stationery will not just be stationary, but alive and breathing. You will see beyond paper and into something more.

Sincerely,
An Artist

I'm so proud of how this piece turned out. I was able to experiment with a lot of different things, like how to keep the envelopes up and how to make the stack appear bigger. When I look at it, I just feel happy. It was very cathartic, and I couldn't be more proud of the end result.

Cardboard Red Pepper

This is the first cardboard sculpture of the year, which we did some time ago. I had a total of two hours between the beginning of this project and the end; it is completed in only hot glue and cardboard. As a first attempt under time constraints, I'm very proud of this project. I really like how I decided to keep the inside of the pepper white, and the outside brown. The texture I was able to achieve on the inside with hot glue is also very successful. I wanted it to look shiny, and I think the hot glue really helped with that. Attaching the stem of the pepper was perhaps the hardest part, but everything worked out in the end. I was able to learn a lot about my medium through this project, and how cardboard bends (and doesn't bend). It really helped me create my cochlea later on! This was a fun, if not stressful project!

Corrugated Cochlea: The Finished Sculpture

So here is the finished product! Countless hours went into the construction and coloring of this sculpture but I really like the result! I definitely found some creative ways to work with cardboard to create a desired effect. The internal tube was especially difficult, but it's definitely my favorite part! I also really like how the colors turned out. I was afraid that I would run out of oil pastels, so I picked different colors for each section. The internal part is warm colors, yellow, orange, and red, and the outside is their cool, complimentary counterparts! I was a little burned out on this piece towards the end, but I'm glad I put in those last few hours to pay attention to the details and make it all that much better!

Cochlea Sculpture: Paper Model

The second step in creating my cochlea sculpture was to make a miniature model out of paper and tape. This was especially helpful to see how my sculpture will stand, and the best way to create it. It was fun, and made me think more about my medium and how things would be held together. I think of cardboard as the stubborn older brother to paper, so this model was a lot easier to shape and bend than cardboard would be. It got me thinking about how the finished product would all work together!

Cochlea Sculpture: Initial Drawings

We were assigned to complete a cardboard model of an internal body part which took several stages before actually being made in cardboard. These were the initial drawings I made while planning my model; you'll see in later posts that my plans for actually executing the sculpture changed from these designs. Sometimes you just have to roll with it. I apologize if these are difficult to see, they are sketches made lightly in pencil. Click on the images to see a larger version. =)

My body part is the cochlea. Here is a description of a cochlea from Wikipedia:

The cochlea is the auditory portion of the inner ear. Its core component is the Organ of Corti, the sensory organ of hearing, which is distributed along the partition separating fluid chambers in the coiled tapered tube of the cochlea. The name is from the Latin for snail, in reference to its coiled shape.