The mirror

Here is the whole process of this project: I used iron plates and welded them with a gas mixture welder. When the whole structure was welded, I burnt  and melt the borders to make them uneven, and used the heat from that to rust the piece.

Originally, I planned on just polishing it and leave it like that, but by Per's suggestion I welded the central zones and polished them with a grinding disc so the central zone would have a greater fade, and would look more like a single piece instead of several iron plates put together (that's the fourth image)...And finally polished it again until it became a mirror in the central zone

The piece itself didn't turn out to be exactly as I planned at first, I found several problems with the welding process, as the plates were too thin for the techniques I was using on them, they melted, deformed and behaved in different and weird ways, which I had to deal with and adapt to the idea. On the other hand, I found really interesting and useful learning about gas welding.

Anyway, I'm happy with the final result, I thought I'd need to chrome the piece to make it reflective, and that was not needed at the end. Eventhough the piece itself doesn't match completely the first idea, I think it's better, the first one was way more controled and forced

The "Waste" project

Here is an old project I developed las year, in a wood engraving course I took in Madrid. As I said in an older entry, I didn't upload it because I did not have photos from almost all of the stamps...When I went back to Madrid last Christmas I tried to recover them, as they are kept in the university. Unfortunately, my former teacher wasn't there, so I couldn't get them back, so most of this photos are made from different trials that I have at home (therefore they aren't the best stamps of each engraving I have made)

Back to the topic, this project deals with the waste of time and life itself. Back then, I was quite concerned about the importance of life and how it's permanently wasted. But, this project is also guided by different Metallica songs (did I already say I'm a Metallica fan?), each theme is in part inspired by a song, and the texts are lyrics from them

The project lasted the whole course, starting from october 2010 until June 2011...The project itself was quite controlled (overcontrolled in my opinion) by my former teacher, who insisted on modifying the sketches we made, and not always with good results (also in my opinion), as it happens in the 6th one, which really differs a lot from my first idea...We weren't allowed to start working until the teacher approved the sketch, ans she really modified a lot that one.

The themes deal respectively with the excess, the war, the destruction of the enviroment, the hatred and racism, the fanatism, the manipulation, and the money...They are based on "The memory remains", "Disposable Heroes", "Blackened", "Don't tread on me", "The God that failed", "Master of Puppets" and "King Nothing"...The last 4 photos come from the last assignement, we had to make an art book, mine was based on "Frantic", and is the conclusion to the project, and to my concerns about life, as I decided that your time is not wasted as long as you are the one who decides how to use it enjoying it, giving value to all the activities we usually do, and lots of people think of as "waste of time"

This project has some influence over the identity project I'm working on now, as the first idea came while i was thinking about life and death, and the concept of a life lasting until the person is completely forgotten (sounds like a Hollywood phrase)...I started thinking about what remains when someone is dead, and thought that what remains is the identity (originally I thought about the memory of an identity), and started thinking about what is an identity, and what compones it...And kept the idea for a future project