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Where Art Thou?
By Administrator | March 1, 2008
A new category has been added to my blog for works of art. The photo below is of a piece created for a “Recycled Art-icles” show and was taken just before heading out the door to drop off the artwork at our local college.
The piece was created from the base of an old torchiere lamp, metal dry cleaning hangers (along with the cardboard tubing from some of them), and the rubber bands that come on our morning paper.
This is only the second time I’ve created a work for this contest and represents an idea I’ve had for several years: to create my own dress form for sewing. From the photo, you can probably tell that my original plan didn’t work out very well (though the original intent could be served by making the cage more sturdy), but I’m not really surprised since I created this over the course of a couple nights after having procrastinated until the last minute yet again. I almost didn’t enter the piece in the contest because I felt ashamed of the quality of the work - a feeling that was reinforced when I saw the professionalism of the other entries. Our community is home to some very talented people.
The person who handles the contest is someone I knew well from my own time at the college, both as a student and employee, and she’s a very nice person. Still, when she saw what I’d brought she said “what do we have here” and she then told me the piece would “make people think.” In my mind, that’s was the equivalent of “she has a great personality” in that I got the idea that my work wasn’t aesthetically pleasing. I know I was probably being overly sensitive because I already felt I hadn’t done my best work, but her comment about making people think stuck with me and I took a little more time to think about my creation.
What struck me is that I subconsciously made a piece of “message” art. In order to create the frame for my form, I used my own measurements and cut the hangers into equal lengths. The problems started as I bent the ends of the hangers to connect them because I wasn’t using the right tool and the bends came out uneven. As a result, the entire torso came out crooked - which gave me the idea of naming the piece “Skewed Body Image.” I’ve thought a bit more about what I created and came to the conclusion that the skeletal look of the torso indicates my desire to be thin while the proportions are closer to my true size. The rubber bands holding the connections together may represent how I see my health though I’m probably as sturdy as the base. And my discomfort with the overall look of the piece is close to how I feel about how I believe I look to others.
While I’m still not thrilled with how the piece turned out, I hope that anyone viewing the work might take a minute to think about how their own self-image. That is the true nature of art, after all.
Topics: Entertainment, Current Events, Art |
March 3rd, 2008 at 2:32 pm
Hey there,
Your blog just came up in my google alerts, for recycled art. I love the title of your blog (my own blog is called “unglued”) and then I realized that you’re in Carson City… I’m up at the lake and have had pieces in the Recycled ARTicles shows before. I think it’s great that you were able to really think about your piece in a way that connected you to yourself on that deeper level. I think that’s part of the true nature of art as well!