Sculpture: A Conclusion

Overall, I have found this an incredibly fun, and also a slightly enduring project, right from the beginning, to the very last moment of walking away from the finished sculpture. I found the project brief making me think about sculpture, and artwork in general, in a new way, and found that I was stretching my boundaries in my ideas and concepts.
Choosing the design of the piece was challenging as I wanted to explore this project in so many different ways, and with more time and resources, I would have. I decided upon the Jenga tower and little people above all the other designs, as I felt this would have stretched my boundaries more, and I would have been happier with this design above the others. Through mixing with clay, paper and wire, I designed and made all the miniature figures, each with individualised poses and personalities. I decided after a few failed experiments that wire, wire and paper, or wire and clay, were not the best combinations to create the miniature people with. Choosing clay and continuing with it, was I believe, one of the toughest parts of the sculpture. This is because the figures are so small and fine, and clay can be damaged very easily (unfortunately, not every clay figure made it to the very end). It is also because clay was occasionally very difficult to work with, and I sometimes did want to give up on it. However, I stuck to my guns, because I knew how difficult any other methods of making the figures were.
The bricks, on the other hand, were very, very easy to make (lift a saw up and down a few times and voila, 54 bricks. I did have to ensure that they were the right size, which I did make a mistake on, before I started cutting. I embraced this mistake though, and preferred the design with the gaps between the bricks, rather than a solid tower. I also believe that this has given the tower some stability – this is very much needed as there is nothing holding it together! Sanding it down took a while, but I enjoyed having each brick and each sanded surface to be very individual because of this.
Displaying it was a tough choice, however I am overall happy with the design on the floor. This makes the piece interactive, which is one of the basic ideas behind the piece, and reverts me back to my childhood, which is a key concept behind the sculpture. Any other way of displaying would have ‘given off the wrong message’ so to speak, and would not have portrayed what I want it to.
If I had done this project again, or even this sculpture again, I don’t think I would have changed any part of my idea. This is because through the failures that have occurred, I have grown my piece and my idea, and I am very happy with the final piece.
Photos below include the final set up of the sculpture and the small people interacting with three other sculptures around near my sculpture.

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