Influence

An identity can't be created on your own. Afterall, your identity defines yourself in front of other people, it's what distinguishes you. Therefore, as an identity has a social component, it's only natural that society has an influence over it.

That's what this proyect is about, how an identity is greatly defined by society. Starting from where you are born, or where you've travelled, that gives you a language, which already makes your way of looking at the world subjective; that also applies to your culture, what you were taught at school, where do you live...

But it's also focused on how people influence you: your tastes, your ideas, your way of knowing the world is also marked by people, maybe they are people who you met only once, or your teachers, or your firends or family. Maybe they influenced you in a positive way, maybe as an opposite reaction of what you don't want to do or be, but everything and everyone influences you.

This proyect is also thought for an sculpture of wood, made of a piece of a trunk on it's upper zone, and with different kinds of wood in the base, this different pieces of wood are the support of the upper piece, which is massif in contrast with all the small pieces of different woods which support it. The trunk wouldn't be able to sustain itself without the smaller pieces, just as nobody has an identity without the help and the influence of other people

Who are you?

Recently, when I go out to party, I've been noticing something that I found quite funny, but also quite interesting: how everybody is doing their best to look as good, beautiful, sexy, etc as possible, making efforts to look like intelligent, funny and interesting people...

The reasons each one have are up to themselves (searching for friends/ hooking up / having fun), but it got me thinking about how we try to disguise ourselves, that image we are generating is only a really small piece of all our identity, and in some cases, it's not even that, it's a lie. It also works in the opposite way: how can you know that a person you just met is being him/herself? As you get to know a person better, you usually notice that they aren't as marvellous as the originally looked like...They have bad days, they aren't always that funny/intelligent/etc, they aren't as good looking as they were, etc...

This is the theme and concept of the first piece I want to make: a mirror. In Spain we usually say " An image is worth more than a thousand words", So i want to make a mirror, if possible, made of iron (but we'll se that, if the university gives me access to the installations, and if they have installations to work iron). The idea is to make a piece which is quite reflective in it's center, the piece would have a circular shape, and it also would be convex, with the reflective zone standing more. I want the central part of the piece to be a mirror, but as you go to the borders of the piece, it won't reflect anymore, instead it will gradually get rusty and cracked, just as it happens when you meet a person: at first, you'll see the image he or she wants to give, it's a deformed image, but quite flashy and clear, then, as you get to know him or her better, you start to notice the rusty parts, the cracks, their imperfections (that also makes them human)

This piece is an introduction to the whole proyect, simply looking at it, you'll see your deformed image, which leads to think about who are you and what is the image you are trying to give to other people.

Those 2 drawings are sketches of 2 different ways the piece could be like. I know drawing is not my strong point, and not having a scaner also makes it have even worse resolution, but it's a starting point

Identity

Now that I've shown all I've done this past years, aside of a engraving proyect which I have no photos, and I'll post later when I have them...Its time to get started with this year's proyect

The main theme will be the Identity: what makes a person different? what makes each person special? what is an identity made of? why do we have the need to be so unique, yet so integrated in a group? what do we use to define our identity? this are some of the questions that define the proyect.

In this proyect I'd like to work sculpture, if I get the chance, engraving, and even if I have the time and some help, photography, as I don't have a clue in that field. I'll also make a video, combining this course with the "Real Documentary" course.

Fireworks Night

First of all, I advise you to lower the volume, as it is a bit loud



Well, I'm not only interested in sculpture or carving, There's also a funny/childlish part of me who is interested in 3D, animation and videogames

last year I took a course in my university about 3D, where we learnt the basics. At the end of the course, we were given 3 weeks and we had to make a short video of one minute (we also had other courses and proyects in progress) and this is the result.

other proyects and works

Here are five smaller proyects and works I developed In the past four years, they aren't big proyects, but each one of them has teached me something important that helped me in bigger proyects or ideas, or just learning, so i felt they should be posted here.

The firsts two are made of clay. Using a human model as reference, we had to make an interpretation of what we were seeing. The first one is made as if it was wax melting, it was almost summer and that was the general feeling in the class. The second one simply is a study of anatomy, but directed to some disproportions I found interesting. Those pieces where made on the spring of 2011

The next one is made of ice, it's not a class work or proyect, I made it on my own because I wanted to give Land Art a try, as in class we had been studying it. For me, and the classic history of art education I had recieved up until then, it was quite impressive to make a proyect knowing it wont last, and not only that, but the concept of it's dissapearing was also a crucial point of the piece itself...That idea has been in my head since then, how a lot of pieces are meant to last centuries, or even milleniums. This piece was made in the winter of 2007, and it lasted only 4 days.

Next one is a parrot built up with different materials, it's also from my first year of Fine Arts. We were given a theme: The animals "houses" and it's relationship with the human. Each student made a different piece, and some of them got selected to take part in the exposition of "Domus et Animalia", in the Faculty of Fine Arts, during the spring of 2008. That was my first exposition with other students.

The next one is a Raving Rabbid, a videogame character. This was an assignement we had on the second year of Fine Arts. We had to model in clay a fantasy character using photos and other documentation. Later we also had a chance to make a plaster cast to make it a plaster piece. If this piece is here, it's because some people got interested in it, and asked me for copies, so instead of a plaster cast I ended up making a silicon cast, being able to make as many copies as I wanted to, selling seven copies, being able to recover the money invested in the cast, as silicon is quite expensive, and also learning a lot about silicon and it's applications.

The last one was made during my third year, it's a plaster relief polychromed with watercolor and graphite powder. It's based on the water flow, a thing that always amazes me when I see it, as it is so full of movement, you can see it in small parts, or as a whole movement

Forging

Last year, one of my teachers adviced me to try forging. It was a technique I had never tried before, and it kind of infuses respect, as you are working with fire and iron, in Fine Arts there's not so many people that tries forging to make a piece.

This is the first piece I made improvising, as my teacher's advice was to buy iron and start practicing with it, to see how it works and learn about different techniques. Therefore I started to give different shapes to the iron rods I got, and found particulary interesting trying to reach the iron's limit of bending

Each day, I'd start working with a straight iron rod of 1 meter, and bend it as many times as posible, making it compacted as posible. As a result I started to pile up pieces of bent iron as big as a hand, and the idea of forming a shape from all of them eventually came to my head. Each iron rod had a different shape, as I was never able to decide it's final shape, It came by itself with the bending

Finally, I got 20 pieces and welded them toghether in several semicircles, and then, I welded them together, and rusted them with some chemical products and fire

It doesn't have a lot of concept, but it was a great way of trying another way of working, feeling how the piece grows by itself with time and effort, without any plan, leaving everything to improvisation. Also, I learnt a lot of forging, from starting a fire, controlling the heat it produces, where is the heat located or where are the iron limits before it breaks

Growth

This is also one of my last proyects, finished in June. It's main theme is the growing, and how it affects everyones life.

The idea of this proyect came from a personal experience, the growth of my wisdom teeth. This got me thinking in how growing up is an inherent part of everyone's life, how it's linked to wisdom, such as growing some teeth supposedly is a prove of wisdom and maturity, but also, how growing also means pain and finally death, and how we don't have any control over it.

The sculpture seeks movement, as growing up always mean moving forward, but also the pain it carries with it. The form is based on a tooth, mixed with movement. The stone is alabaster, but it turned to be quite a strange alabaster, as its almost green

Technically, working on this proyect made me learn a lot about using mechanical tools, as up until this point, everything I made is mostly done with traditional tools. I worked with a really limited schedule, as I only had month left to develop a proyect...so working with mechanical tools was mandatory to finish it on time. Mechanical tools supposed a great speed up, and the piece was made in one week, concretely, with 20 hours of work on it

About the ideas

Well, now we are getting closer to the present. This has been my biggest proyect so far, and I finished it in June.

The proyect was focused on the ideas, how do they appear, how do they grow up, expand, evolve. An idea usually is the first step in every proyect, so I found interesting working on how do a proyect get started.

The piece represents all the process, in it's form and by itself, as the proyect evolved a lot while I was working on it for almost a year. The shape of the sculpture wants to represent how an idea usually arises from something small, and then expands in different ways, as an idea never has a linear development. The sculpture is based on a really small base, less than 20cm, and it expands over a 1'5 square meters. The position of the different pieces search to combine also the idea of positive and negative space that I mentioned when I was talking about the resin sphere.

Technically, this has also been my biggest challenge so far, as building the whole structure, making it balanced without adding counterweight, calculating all the weights, the pieces distribution...

I think this proyect summarizes well my way of working, it has everything I seek when I work, and also reflects well my evolution since I started studying arts

Not everything is sculpture

That's my first woodcut, made during my third year of Fine Arts. I had a previous experience with engraved impressions in school, but during that year I started to work on it seriously.

As drawing or painting or photography aren't my strong points, I find that engraving it's the best way for me to work on proyects that aren't sculpture ones, it's the best way for me to create images.

Between all the engraving techniques, I like more to work with woodcut or wood carving, as I rather make images with high contrasts and planes than making lines or tones

This woodcut was chosen for an impression exposition of several carving students wich took place in Madrid in the spring of 2010

The 3º year proyects

Well, my 3º year was more focused on learning other techniques rather than developing big proyects, but I also started to give some meaning to the pieces I made. As I don't know how to put images between the texts, I'll write about each one by order

1- The resin sphere: I wanted to try working with resin, as it offers a lot of different posibilities. The piece is based on the idea of space seen not only as a void, but also as the space that the piece has by itself, it's inner space and it's outer space. Thinking about that, I decided to use transparent resin to make posible to see through the sphere; that way, the piece is not only intended to be seen as a sphere, but also as a place full of voids, negative voids as the sphere then again, it's full of resin. Therefore, you can see outside shape and the inner shape

Working with resin means working with chemical reactions. In order to create de different spaces, I mixed pigment with parts of the resin. The chemical reactions lead the pigments to change their colors in some places, also the heat generated by the resin deformed the ball and cracked it in several ways, allowing also some air bubbles in...So the final result was better than expected.

2- The hand-forest: Ever thought about all the power and meanings that your hands and fingers have? well, I did, hands are one of the most used parts of the human body, and they also hold a lot of meanings, not to tlk about body language.

Using alginate, a powder made from japanesse seaweed, which can create the most exact casts, I casted some family and friends hands, and fingers, in order to create a piece completely made of hands and fingers, reflecting different meanings and expresions by each one of them...As it has a lot of different people's hands, you can also recognize how do they use them, how old are they, and even part of their personalities.

Iron-face: This proyect was intended to learn how to weld iron. It also has a conection with the anatomy studies I took that year, so it was originally supposed to represent some of the face muscles, but I ended giving different shapes to the iron wire. The hair was also supposed to be completely made of iron wire, but I had the chance to get lots of old, broken and lost keys, and decided to use them too.

I also wanted to drive the attention towards some of the most powerful features of the human face...The supposed simmetry (as it really doesn't exist) and the eyes; also, the hair, wich is one of the things we notice first when looking at someones face, is more flashy with all the different keys

trying alabaster

On the last entry, I said that on the second year of Fine Arts, we had to choose between working with wood or stone, we had to choose because normally we wouldn't have enough time to make two pieces in one course. Actually, I didn't choose, I made two pieces, as I finished the wooden one with enough time to start working on another piece.

So I decided to try working on stone, alabaster, as I had never tried it before. The piece's form was inspired by the shape of the bird's wings, but then the idea evolved a lot, and ended like this after some work on it.

This piece was chosen for an exposition from different young sculpture artists from our faculty, named "Jovenes Artistas", wich took place from february to april of 2010

More to come

The second "big piece" I made when I was at my second year of Fine Arts. Then again, we only had to make a sculpture, we could choose between stone or wood, and I went with birch wood, and made a piece of 75 x 30 x 30 cm

The only thing I'd like to mention about the process of making this piece, as it also doesn't have a concept, is that I made it to learn, and to surpass myself, starting from this piece, I've always tried to have a challenge in each proyect I start, in order to learn more about the different charateristics of the different materials, the limits of the tools, different techniques...I also think a challenge always makes things more interesting, even if it's a shelf imposed one.

Root

This is the first piece I made, when I started studying Fine Arts in Spain, we just had to make a wooden sculpture, 40 x 20 x 20 cm, No concept, no proyect, just find a form and adapt the best we could to the material

It hasn't any concept or explanation behind it, just it's name, "Root", simply because it's my first sculpture, therefore I consider it the root of all my future work to come

I think it's a good chance to talk about the way I work. When working on a piece, or a proyect, I always have to think it very carefully, improvising or working spontaneously doesn't work well for me, I rather have everything well thought before starting, that way I can prevent problems and make sure it's something I want to invest my time in, as I consider it something interesting. Then I don't get bored while I work on it and therefore leave it unfinished. I think that I should invest my time only in things that are worth the time and the effort.

Also, for me it's basic to work with my own hands, and spending time working on a proyect. I like to think beforehand about all the details, but I also understand that each proyect evolves as time passes, just as I do, sometimes differing a lot from the first idea. Working with the materials and the tools by myself gives time to the piece to develop, when I'm working on a piece, I'm putting my ideas, my time and even my feelings in it; as a sculpture piece usually isn't finished quickly, that's also part of the development of the proyect and the piece as it can envolve a lot of time an effort

I think that art is not simply a concept. I also think that it is important to not only work on the concept but in the piece because that way the result is more than the add of the parts

Getting started

Well, for me it always takes some time to start writting, even more if it's from zero...So I guess I'll just start introducing myself and some of the things I've worked on these past few years, as I've never had a blog before, I'll take this chance to use it to it's full extent and register here my proyects, inspirations and thoughts

As an introduction, I'm a spanish student studying abroad in Sweden, my name is Enrique, but I got used to call myself Morris (my second surname) as lots of people call me like that in Spain.

This is my last year of studies, unless I start a master afterwards. I felt that my home faculty didn't have much more to offer to me, so I'd rather study abroad, know other people, other cultures, and take the chance to develop a whole proyect.

My proyects usally take form as sculptures and woodcut. Painting, drawing or photography are ways of expresing that I don't use that much. I like working with my own hands on each proyect or piece I develop, as I believe it's an esential part of creating.

On the other way, but a more "practical" one from a "job perspective", I also work with 3D, as I find quite interesting the animation/videogame world, so maybe I'll also post here some of the stuff I've been working on this past year.

To finish this post, I'd also like to mention that music has a huge influence on me, I'm the kind of person who wakes up in the morning and puts some music to play on, and leaves it playing the whole day until it's time to go to bed, So I'll also probably post videoclips or just songs here. This music might go from great rock classics to new hits from a wide range, as I usually enjoy really different kinds of music.

Welcome Enrique