Sticks, NOT STUCK
EXPERIMENTS WITH HOT GLUE
Define which techniques you tried and mastered? Struggled?
Within this piece I had to develop entirely new techniques. The piece required me to find way to hold glue together with nothing but itself in an un-melted form. I began by tying the glue into knots, something which proved to be likely the best and simplest method of connection available to me. I then stuck glue into the tied chain and attempted to create a sculpture. I played around with multiple variations of this technique and ultimately had to deconstruct it after every time, as it couldn’t necessarily be transported. This piece took a lot of trial and error in general, especially when it came to the length of the chain or amount of glue stuffed into each chain, as overstuffing it would cause the whole piece to break. How did you draw inspiration from other artists techniques or aesthetics in your work? In what ways did you derive meaning or gain historical perspectives from their work? Why these artists? Tara Donavan was a main inspiration during the process of this piece. I loved her work with non-traditional materials and I wanted to do the same. She spoke to me about how she plays with light, something I felt glue sticks captured extremely well, so I pursued experimentation with them. Describe the evolution of your piece. Decisions made. Compositional elements. I began by tying a chain of glue to act as the base of the piece. I had the dues to stuff the chain with other pieces of glue to create an organic figure, resembling a sea anemone or a bush, and I played around with the ways that glue held upright and curved when being constrained to the center of the chain. I then had the idea to do a hanging piece where I experimented with the way glue could fit inside of the individual links of the chain, to create a floating and all around spiked piece. I ultimately used balance when planning my composition. I was not able to plan out every single step, so I had to evaluate using balance and harmony when inserting glue, to generate the most organic form possible. |
If you could consider doing something over, explain why you would do this and what you would do next time?
I would get more glue sticks so I would be able to create a larger piece and ultimately experiment more with the medium. I would also attempt to explore multiple more ways to contain the glue within itself, as knots are all I could find. Perhaps tying two sticks together? I would ultimately get a larger amount of sticks and pursue even more experimentation. Elaborate on how this piece links with your other pieces? What is the common thread? My theme is all about defining and re-defining the self, so by redefining the use of glue i was mirroring this theory in a physical form. I was using material object to represent the idea that the same being, or beings, can exist in many different variations, all while being the same thing |