Prelude to Spring

I was hoping that a blog would spur productivity, but instead I have found that I am just as adept at procrastination of a blog post as anything else. Currently, my sculpture class has been keeping me on the move. The class has been an onslaught of different materials, so although my mind has had to bend around different construction dilemmas, I haven't made much that I really like.

A project I finished a couple of weeks ago was the "Waiting for Forsythia" kinetic sculpture. These are hanging to the side of the front entrance to the art building. I spent most of the time trying to develop stands to hold them, and when this failed I had to hope that I could devise a way to hang them. As you can see from the picture, the hanging part was a success. And using fishing lure "barrel swivels," the pieces twirl very nicely with the slightest breeze. Now I only wish I had had more time to work on the forms.


The kinetic sculptures are irrigation piping covered in colorful duct tape. I had thought initially only in terms of circles--specifically the circles within circles. It was the night before the day of installation that I thought to try other configurations. And it was only by accident that a circle collapsed and turned into a wonderful leaf form. So there is much more potential to these materials than I was able to fully exploit. Ah well.

For our last project we were to take an object and negate its function by covering it with "tiling." Originally, the teacher had conceived of the project in terms of ceramic mosaics, but opened up the covering to anything. For my piece, I took a dead printer and covered it with pine cones and bark and planted a tree to grow out of it. So for the last couple of weeks I have been fighting a glue gun as I stuck pine cones and bark to hard plastic. I took it to class on Thursday thoroughly disgusted with it and miserable from the experience. All of the "sculptures" were put on display in the front display area of the art building, so I'll see what I think about it when I see it all again on Monday.

Inflatable Giraffe

Here's the inflated giraffe standing with the assistance of a string attached to its head and the railing of the balcony on the third floor of the building. I added a gusset to its belly to give it a better three-dimensional appearance, but made it a rather portly giraffe in the process. The 3 Mil plastic and packing tape is quite forgiving. I screwed up the front leg and had to amputate and reattach it. I then shortened the other front leg to match.

I like that this class is constantly making me confront new materials and figure out how to accomplish my goals with them. In quiltmaking, I learned the traditional techniques and choose the quilt to make in terms of those techniques. That is, the goal is defined by the techniques. So I think the real switch for me will come when the goal comes first, then the techniques are developed to accomplish the goal.

On the other hand, Jimmy sees a pile of fabric and sees a couch. He looks at me and thinks the same thing. In his case, he makes everything into a couch regardless of the materials.

Last but by no means least, Tommy's biopsy results showed that the lump was benign. So the mast cell cancer he had last year has not returned after all. This was great news for me. Tommy, however, reminds me that he still has a gash down his back and needs constant nurturing and attention.

Together At Last

Okay, so maybe this is turning into more of a cat blog than an art blog. Supposedly it takes only six heated exchanges on the Internet until someone invokes a comparison to Hitler. I wonder if there is another metric that shows how long it takes for a blog on any given subject to transition to a cat blog. I guess I would skew the metric to the short side.

In any case, Tommy and Jimmy are sharing the full the run of the house. They decided it was time to end the separation, not me. I don't think they missed each other that much. They just hated that feeling of not getting to be in the part of the house they preferred--the one they weren't in currently. So late yesterday they were both on either side of a screen barrier, ignoring each other, but each yeowing to be let over to the other side.

A little while later Tommy, with clipped claws and Frankenstein stitches on his back, asserted that he was still the top cat. And later still they started to play together. Okay, at this point I got too nervous and distracted them to play individually with toys. This way Jimmy could enjoy his wind sprints around the house, and Tommy could invent new ways to play mouse without sharp claws to grab the mouse.

Meanwhile, for my sculpture class I am working on an inflatable giraffe. The assignment is to make an inflatable object out of 3 Mil plastic and packaging tape. Then in class (outside really if the weather is nice) we will inflate them all with fans.

I'm also working out a design of dangling circles made out of PVC irrigation pipe. At first I was thinking of making a structure out of hula hoops. Then I found a tutorial on the web that explains how to make hula hoops out of PVC irrigation pipe. Well, once you go there, you really don't need to limit yourself to hula hoops.

Massive tomato pincushion

The tomato pincushion ottoman is finished. Except it really isn't an ottoman or storage unit. The thing is two feet high and three feet across. And as I was making it, I realized this is the last thing I want stuck in the middle of any room in my house. When I originally designed it though, I was thinking it should have a storage area inside with a lid. Well, it does have a storage container inside but it only displaces lots of stuffing.

Instead of a fancy cover and a way to get to the storage, I simply covered the top with pieces of foam core. Stuffing the tomato was a bigger challenge than I expected. Small pieces of stuffing, such as a t-shirt created noticeable lumps. I wrapped the metal basin with foam held together with duct tape. Then I wrapped those layers with fake fur and batting. I grabbed the largest hunks I had so I could build smooth layers outward. I could also use fur, sweaters etc. that I would want to use again because I no longer expected to keep the large stuffed tomato pincushion intact.


Another challenge was dyeing the cording to match the tomato leaf (felt). I could not get a deep enough green. First, I dyed supposedly 100 percent cotton cording and found that the outer threads must be polyester because they did not accept the Procion MX dye at all. (See photo above). Then I pulled out all cotton clothesline and that accepted the dye. But either the dye was too old, the time in the dye bath too short or not warm enough, or it wasn't meant to be...in any case, the cord came out very dark, but lightened up when I washed it (with extra rinse). And so why did I do that? Force of habit, I guess, because I really had no intention of ensuring that the tomato would be washable. Sigh.

In any case, the final remaining challenge will be transporting this ungainly mass to class. I'm hoping I can strap it to a luggage carrier and roll it. But I will save that adventure until tomorrow.

Sunny Interlude

I went out this morning to try and capture the 60 degree day in a photograph. Unfortunately, you would have to know that the drive was covered in ice earlier in the day to fully appreciate the change. And looking at Jimmy, you would think it was the coldest day of winter. However, if you look closely you can see him giving me the evil eye for hovering over him to take his picture.


We received our new sculpture assignment...the scale project. We are to pick a household object, blow it up as large as possible (but still be able to get it into our car), and make the enlarged version as accurate as possible. I decided on a tomato pincushion with strawberry emery because I can use it afterward as either a cat bed or a stool/ottoman. I estimate that the fully grown version will be roughly 3 feet in diameter.


The large pincushion in the photo is a brand-new tomato pincushion that I bought to take apart to reverse engineer the pattern. The smaller version is one I inherited from my mother at least a gazillion years ago (in the 80's, anyway). It appears a little worse for wear, but I like its shape better than the mammoth orb.

Lemon Still Life

Here is my lemon still life for my sculpture class. The original assignment was to make three replicas of an everyday item using three different materials. I chose a lemon. As we know from the movie The Break-up, three lemons are not enough. So I made a few more. The one in the foreground is painted Paperclay imprinted with netting. Then there is the woven yellow pipe cleaner lemon, the styrofoam wrapped with yellow duct tape lemon, and the stuffed knitted lemon. Out of view (for a good reason) is a yellow cotton fabric lemon that resembles a strawberry more than a lemon despite being bright yellow. Oh well. There is also a lemon made from an oddball conconction of found parts (napkin ring, closet door knob and an IKEA chest of drawer knob) (shown in an earlier post). I have included the original lemon in the still life although at this point it is starting to show its age. And eventually the actual lemon will be the object out of all of them that looks the least like a lemon!

Obsession or tedium?

My lemon obsession is rapidly deteriorating into tedium. I thoroughly enjoyed carving down a Styrofoam egg into a lemon shape and then covering it with yellow duct tape. I also enjoyed molding Paperclay into a lemon shape, although paint may obscure the imprint from the netting. I like the knitted lemon, but by the time I finished it, I had reached lemon overload.

And by the way...to make the knitted lemon, I made three ovoid shapes and stitched them together. Although the ovoid shapes tapered like sections from a lemon, I improved the shape with stitching after the lemon was stuffed.

Now I must break away and do something else other than make lemons. The next class is on Thursday and I can see myself continuing to fabricate lemons until then. And without a hint of joy. In this case, more is definitely less.

Making Lemons

This is why I like classes. They put a bug of an idea in my head, and then I get delightfully obsessed with it. Obviously I need to develop my own obsessive ideas. But for now, I'm focused on making lemons from whatever materials I can find. Things that have the right color, shape and/or texture are no longer safe in my house.

I found a cotton fabric that I dyed a few years ago that is the perfect lemon yellow. I also have felt, duct tape and pipe cleaners that match the color of lemons. Yellow is not a color that I use that much of, so I found that I didn't have lemon-yellow thread or yarn.

I carved two sponges into lemon halves and glued them together. I will need to paint it lemon yellow, but I think it has a good lemon texture. I also have a beige netting that may help give the appropriate texture. I could use it to wrap a lemon structure or to imprint on some paper clay.

I like the idea of varying the methods I use along with the materials. With the sponge, I took a larger object and cut it down to size. With paper clay I will be building up material to look like a lemon. And then with the fabric, I will have to construct it somehow. I'm not too sure how that will work out--whether I can mold it a bit with stitches of thread like for a doll, or whether I will do better with more careful construction from pattern pieces.