Old Work/New Ideas 9-2-13

The art work that I feel best distinguishes me as an artist is probably my Cardboard wax project from my Intro to sculpture course. It wasn’t until I took this class that I felt like I could actually be an artist. The idea behind the project was that we needed to make a frame. The frame didn’t actually contain anything but it had storage or containment like qualities. This actually took me a while to come up with a solid idea. So of course like most of our projects we had to make sketches first. So I started sketching about and for some reason I couldn’t help but sketch armor in traditional fashions. Like the aegis armor of the medieval period or the flexible samurai layered armor of Japan. My professor kind of popped in over my shoulder and saw what I was doing and liked the idea. I didn’t think it fit the bill for the project at first but then we talked about it. When you think about it armor itself is a protective frame it contains and protects what is inside while not exactly containing the entire body. Armor is not a basic square and through history you can see that armor can go from blocky or uniform to orb-like in nature. So I set to work making templates and preparing the cardboard armor for assembly. This project was completed probably around last Christmas or after the New Year. If I could wake up every day and work on something in a similar fashion to how I got to work on the Samurai Cardboard armor then I feel like I would be fairly happy. I say something like it because repetition is the death of productivity. If I had something new to shape and work on with my hands daily or even weekly, due to the fact this project took two weeks to complete, then I could remain productive. 

The artist that I would have to say inspires me at the current time would be Harrison Krix with Volpin Props.

http://volpinprops.blogspot.com/

 Now you could say what makes him an artist, he doesn't produce art from his thoughts or imagination or something of that nature. To me he is an artist for the sole reason that he can take what you imagine and bring it into the real world. He can take concepts from the 2D and make it 3D and construct them with functional lights and sounds. The items have the look and feel of another world that we normally can’t experience outside of the imagination without some visual aid given by television, movies or video games. By taking an item from fiction and making it a reality it brings a whole new level of immersion or experience to whatever genre or fiction the item pertains too. When asked to “find a work that exemplifies where you would like to go with your work moving forward.” I can’t exactly point out “a” work that this artist has produced but rather “the” work that this artist produces expresses where I would like to go. I want to be able to take the concept and give it texture and mass within someone’s hands.  To see the interaction that can come from a fictional item when it is placed into the real world and how it can ensnare our imaginations while allowing us to slightly forgetting reality.