With all that had to be done for the exhibition I didn't have time to upload here this small video I made
It's made of all the extra footage that I took for Mike's course, when I was shooting the interviews with Linda and David I'd usually leave the camera switched on, sometimes on purpose, sometimes by mistake, but they weren't aware of it, so what was captured is how they really are and behave when they don't have to act...it's usually what we never get to see when we watch a movie or a video
The subtitles were added in a rush as the screen on the museum didn't have a good sound, so I removed it then, they only have the most important parts so you can understand what's going on
And what can be said...This exhibition is not only a great opportunity, it's the closure of an amazing year here in Sweden, I've experienced and seen a lot of things, both good and bad, I've truly evolved myself, and to resume everything in this exhibition is more than wonderful...
To make this piece I had to go back to Spain, the installations here in Sweden were too small to make this
The process of bronze casting a piece like this is quite long, first of all, I had to make a plaster cast of a ball, then in two pieces, make with it the two sides of the ball with wax, as it's empty on the inside, I had to do it aplying thin layers of wax. Once I had the teo sides of the wax ball, with a hot iron I started making the different holes on it, and refining the borders.
Once the ball was ready on itself, I had to add a lot of wax pipes which will be used later to let the molten bronze in, I also had to add some air exits. When the pipes are ready, the whole wax piece goes inside a block of plaster mixed with brick powder, and when it has dried, it's placed inside a hoven. Then, all the wax melts and goes away, leaving a block which has inside the shape the piece and the pipes had.
That leads to the video, the block is placed in sand, because if something goes gronw it could explode, then, with the bronze molten at 1200 Cº, we pour it inside the pipes, as the video shows, I also worked on this, the first two blocks contain this piece. When the bronze has cooled down, the plaster block is destroyed, and if everything goes well (which is not so common), the piece is almost finished, there is only left removing the pipes, as the first two pictures show, and then polishing it
I think it's quite funny, how this piece, which is about my own identity, is the project where I recieved most help in my artistic life, I had the colaboration of three teachers and the help of a lot of friends in order to finish it and be able to bring it to Sweden on time...I believe, that this process and how I was helped really suits the piece.
I haven't done an update on this blog for a while, I've been really busy, with a trip to Spain, and the exhibition coming closer
This are the stamps of the woodcuts I made around february and march, I had to stamp them in Spain, and bring them back to Sweden. I'm really happy with the final result of both of them, eventhough I won't be using the footprint one in the exhibition, on the other hand the finguerprint will be used to design the poster of the exhibition
Here is the sketch for the last project (unless I finish it really quickly, which I don't think is possible) for this course, a piece that represents my idetity
Reaching this point was really difficult, I've been trying to achieve this for months. I found quite hard to summarize my identity in a single image/piece...When I started looking at my own identity, I found out that there was so much I should represent, so many different things, aspects of my life, that I didn't know how I should start...First I tried to think about it out of the blue, but that only lead me to think about my personality and my relation with society, leaving out some important things...Then I decided to change my strategy, and tried to think about it by parts, but that didn't help much either...
Anyway, that set me on the right way (I think), as I started learning things about myself...I finally started writting everything down, giving it shape, and listing all the different aspects of my identity...with all that learnt and in my mind, I ended up creating this design
It works as a whole thing, everything is conected and moving, flowing...I feel this piece represents everything that I am right now at this point of my life, I feel identified with it
Now comes the technical part, I'd love to do this in bronze, but I really don't know if it's technically possible, or if the University has the equipment needed for this...I know I could do it in wood, but I thinks it's important that it's made of bronze...I'll have to check the different options
Two weeks later I've finished the plural identity project...Basically, thanks to Easter, I worked a lot...As the theorical and concept explanations are on the last entry, I won't write about them now
The piece was way harder from wat I expected when I made the sketch, it took more time and effort than expected, but I managed to finish it before planned at the end
I gave each spike it's shape, and then when it was polished, cut it in small pieces and glue it again. When all the spikes were ready, I glued them together and repeated the process with the lower zone: shape it, polish it, cut and glue it again...at the end it became really difficult to keep it on because I couldn't attach the piece to something stable enough to cut it properly
I'm quite stisfied with the final result, it's similar to the first idea I had and working with a lot of small pieces turned out as I expected, although it possed a lot of extra work which I didn't count with at the beginning
Well, 3 weeks ago I listed my objectives, the projects I had in mind...and talked about making a sculpture about the plural identities, I said I didn't have this idea quite clear yet...
Right now I've changed my plans, and I've started working on this, It's going to be a wood sculpture completely made of small pieces as if it was a puzzle.
We are social beings, we are small pieces of society, we need it to survive, to have all our needs covered, to be part of it we work, we have friends, we consume...and we make it work. a single person usually wont go too far, even behind the greatest personalities in history there is a lot of people working for them...That explains the shape of this sculpture, all the pieces together can rise higher, they are stronger and can achieve things that a single piece couldn't...a single piece would never be able to be a single spike
On the other hand, the spikes themselves have their own identity, as groups do...from bussiness, companies, political parties, even countries...when we think about them, they have their own atributes...and they do what we alone can't
