Solid play
Our next module has been sculpture, and the theme to spark our inspiration is “hidden worlds and imaginary landscapes.” I love this theme. I immediately thought of the book Gathering Moss by Robin Wall Kimmerer, and her detailed drawings of moss.
We learned in the first week how to work with plaster and wax, using molds made from wet clay and alginate. First day, we made imprints into wet clay, and cast the plaster. It was simple, yet like magic. Alginate is great for live molds, like your hand, or vegetables. I stuck with fruit.
Learning from my last module, I got stuck in early into mindmapping, sketching in the notebook, and online research into the hidden worlds that I most gravitated to: moss, kelp gardens, and slime mold. This led to a series of engagements into each of these inspirations; some more successful than others structurally.
From previous experience, it was clear to me that to get to some place potentially new, I needed to exhaust the obvious first, in order to push past and into new territory. I’ve had breakthroughs when feeling desperate, so I want to court this feeling. Walk to the edge of the known, and then keep going. This meant doing multiple rounds of the obvious: literal renditions of my inspirations. This was very deliberate - rather than contrive what might be “meaningful” or “new”, I opted to trust that the process of doing more than thinking would bring me somewhere new. Where did that lead me to in the end? To be continued…
P.S. I’m not trying to be dramatic here; I literally don’t know right now how my final sculpture is going to turn out! I’ve got to finish it in two days, and I’m in production mode. Wish me luck.