"Reaching Out"
Exhibition Text:
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Artist Inspiration:
The piece "Reaching out" represents a wired tree piece by Clive Maddison that is detailed and neatly done. From his piece I used the idea of twisting the wire all in one direction to give a cleaner look to the artwork when finished. Also from his piece is where I came up with the idea to create my own platform to place the tree onto. Then I created my piece based off of a cherry blossom tree because of how beautiful this type of tree is. In this picture of a cherry blossom is where I finalized my thoughts on creating a box to place my tree into.
Process:
Planning Sketches:
- Here are three planning sketches that I have done to fully gather and develop my ideas.
Building Process:When creating my piece I first started out with cutting out strands of wire in which I gathered 4 to 5 and twisted them together. While I was twisting, as I went further to the top I would pull out a wire and continue to twist to indicate a tree branch. Once I had a base structure, I continued to apply more and more strands of wire, one at a time. While constructing this piece I tried to twisted the wire in the same direction to give off a cleaner affect. I repeated this step[s several times until I created the desired size that I wanted. Once I created one tree and started on another, repeating the same process. I intended to create the second tree to be smaller than the first one. Once I had finished my two trees, I created a small box to place insert the trees. I first made measurements and cut pieces of wood to form by box. Once I hammered the pieces together I I painted the box a light grey to continue with the same colour scheme. Once the box was painted I drilled 4 smaller holes into the base to place the bottom of the trees into the hole to keep its place. For more support I decided to use stone and remained with a dark colour.
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Reflection:This piece was a new experience for me because I have never worked with metal wire before. For being the first time with working with wire I think that the piece turned out well. I think the overall look is exactly the way I wanted, remaining with dark, neutral colour that represent the industrial feel to the piece. After awhile of bending the wire my fingers felt raw die to the wire that I was using which started making the project harder to do. I also had problems with the trees staying in place, so I had to mess around with the wire and try several ways to get the trees to stand up on their own. There was also a short period where I didn't know what to place into the box. At first I wanted to place sand into the box but then I decided that stone rocks would give a better affect to the piece. At the end of my piece I found that I was most successful at connecting to my artist inspiration but including the same affects and details.
Critique: "Reaching out" reflects greatly off of my artist inspirations due to using the idea of a wired tree with twisting the wire in the same direction through out the whole tree as well as basing my tree off of a Cherry Blossom tree. The structure of a Cherry Blossom tree is curvy and quite branched out in which I included into my piece by having curved branches with varies of lengths. My piece connects to Clive Maddison work due to the same idea of how the wire looks like when it is twisted and the overall all structure of the piece. Altogether my piece demonstrates similar qualities as my artist inspiration and include the same ideas.
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Meaning:
In the piece "Reaching out" it represents how during your life you have many obstacles and struggles to overcome. The reason why the trees do not contain any leaves on them is show the bare, dull moment due to when you see no leaves on a tree you think of death. The idea of no leaves on the tree can give the thought of restarting and changing a part of your life. I decided to place the trees inside of a box rather than out in the open is to represent the boundaries you have for yourself and others and how people aren't allowed into that space. I went with the colour grey to remain neutral and emotionless, expressing some of the feeling that you may have at certain points through out your life. Then the box was filled with black stone to represent the weight of specific events that happen throughout your life. The idea of using a solid black colour stone rather than multi- coloured stones is to reflect off of the feelings and their personality that they might be experiencing during certain stages throughout their life.
ACT Questions:
1. Identify cause and effect relationships between your inspiration and your artwork.
In my piece I incorporated my inspiration of Clive Maddison wired tree to my piece "Reaching Out" because I used the same technique of spiraling my wire in the same direction as well as making the piece look like a Japanese Cherry blossom tree.
2. What is the overall approach the author has regarding the topic of your inspiration?
The overall approach that Clive Maddison brings to his artwork is that no two pieces of artwork are the same, even if they do contain similarities in the style and technique, not one can be exactly replicated.
3. What kind of generalizations and conclusions have you discovered about people, ideas, cultures, etc. while you researched your inspiration?
What I can conclude from doing this piece is how specific colours, materials and objects can make someone feel and all together create this sense of mood.
4. What was the central idea or theme around your inspirational research?
The central theme of my piece connect to nature and how a tree and tones can represent a feeling or emotion that ne may be experiencing.
5. What kind of inferences did you make while reading your research?
The inferences that I made while reading my research were how creative and detailed you can get with such an material like wire and how Clive Maddison can create several of different trees that gives off a different effect/ feeling.
Citations:
"Clive Maddison." WireWood. N.p., n.d. Web. 10 Mar. 2017. <http://www.clivemaddison.com/about-me.html>.