UWM Relief projectDate of Completion: February 22, 2024
Medium: Cardboard, Construction Paper, Hot Glue Size in cm: 12 x 12 x 14 in. Exhibition Text: This project was led by Katie Martin in collaboration with UWM, where we displayed our projects and received critique from an artist panel. This project was created entirely from cardboard, construction paper, and held together with hot glue. This project connects to my theme of Exploration of the Natural world, because it represents growth and new beginnings, which go hand in hand with exploration. |
Artistic InspirationFor this project, I took inspiration from a New York-based 3-D artist named Warren King. His portfolio consists of life-sized representations of people with exaggerated features and simple construction. His sculptures have connections to his Chinese heritage, often including masks and elements of traditional Chinese tales. From his art, I drew inspiration especially from the way he constructed arms and hands. In my project, I wanted to represent a personification of nature with a 3-D hand that extends from the background. I used Warren King's sculptures to guide the construction of the hand and arm.
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Squatting Giants, Warren King
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Planning
My concept for this relief project was to create an arm and hand covered in grass texture extending from a matching background. In the hand, a plant grows with roots hanging down and wrapping around the arm. Since my theme is Exploration of the Natural World, the hand embodies mother nature holding a sapling representing new life/opportunities. As you can see in the sketch to the left, my final product was faithful to the original ideation. The one detail I changed was that instead of cutting and glowing individual blades of grass, I chose to create rows of grass that could be cut in stacks to produce multiple rows at once. With a quickly approaching project deadline, this helped me lots with time management and implementation of repetition into my artwork.
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Process |
Using my artistic inspiration, I created a sketch planning how the hand would be constructed. In order to create a 3-D model of my hand, I first created a model using cardstock paper and painters tape, resources I chose to quickly assemble my rough draft. I started by tracing and cutting out the shape of my hand. I folded the Next, I segmented the hand into sections (fingers, thumb, upper and lower palm) that would have their individual 3-D structure. After, I created a quick cardboard construction to experiment with how the hand would attach and be angled to the arm, and then to the background.
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The first step of my final draft was to recreate the hand using sturdier materials. I followed the same steps as my rough draft, starting with cutting out a tracing of my left hand. Since I have large hands, I struggled with manipulating the elements of the hand on my final draft, even though it was the same size as my first iteration. I thought that the hand felt over-sized when attached to the background, so I instead traced someone with a smaller hand to build my structure upon. I cut out a second hand and segmented it into parts that would represent the shape of a 3-D hand, while shaping around the plant that I later attached to the palm. I attached the cardboard segments to the base using a small amount of hot glue so that it would have clean construction.
My next step was to connect the hand to the rest of the relief, starting with the arm. According to my original sketches, my plan was to create a cylindrical forearm that fits through a hole in the background so that the weight of the hand and plant would not tear it off. I struggled with the connection of the hand to arm, because the angle of the hand would either be too low or high. I decided that the spot where the plant sits could cover the joint between the hand and arm. I constructed the forearm by shallowly slicing corrugated board so that it could evenly fold into a cylindrical shape. I then hot glued the backside of the hand's base to the bottom of the cylinder, and then folded the other half down to hold the hand at an angle.
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To create the background, I stripped the top layer off a square of corrugated board so that the corrugation layer was exposed. Then, I took 1 inch wide strips of green card stock paper and cut stacks ten into a zig-zag shape to resemble simple and geometric grass. Since this was very time consuming, I had to experiment with how many strips I could cut at once, and found that a stack of about 5 was ideal for clean results. Then, I laid them down to rest on the ridges of the corrugated board. Using corrugated board was helpful since the rows of grass could lay on top of each other at an angle where they poke out slightly, creating a unique texture. I thought it might be difficult to work around the arm protruding from the center, but I just cut the strips in half and filled in bare spots with loose card stock scraps.
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As I mentioned above, the arm's weight is supported because it sticks out an inch behind the corrugated/grass background. To hide this element, I built a frame behind the background that creates the illusion of a canvas made of grass. I cut 12 inch by 1 inch rectangles from cardboard and build over the protruding arm. Then, I applied the same strips of grass to these edges. One of the unintentional but effective elements of my piece was its relationship with shadow, which I only discovered once it was displayed under a spotlight. As you can see in the rightmost image, the grass strips on the sides of the frame create an interesting jagged shadow that adds to the presentation of the piece.
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The final step was the plant in the palm, which was difficult because all the other components were already assembled. To build the plant on a fragile hand, I had to place objects underneath it and rotate the artwork depending on the angle I needed to work on. I started by rolling a thin piece of cardboard like a cinnamon stick as the base of the plant structure. Using brown card stock paper, I glued strips to each side of the base to represent the first layer of bark, and connection point for the roots.
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I took more strips of cardstock and rolled the tips of them into circles as the roots, then glued them to the bottom side of the bark strips. I made one root longer and wrapped it around the wrist, which was part of my concept since my initial sketches.
To finish it off, I put two twigs constructed similarly to the roots sticking out of the top. Then, I cut the shapes of leaves from the grass paper and added a slit to connect them to the twigs. Unfortunately, while transporting my artwork to the UWM gallery, one of the leaves fell off and I was not able to photograph the final display with it.
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Final Product |
Experimentation
CritiqueMy artwork contrasts to Warren King's in its cultural significance to a great extent. Because of his Chinese heritage, King's sculptures all represent citizens of New York's Chinatown and Columbus Park, as well as Chinese emperors, villagers, and masks from traditional ceremonies. My artwork contrasts this because it represents nature, a culture of which we are all a part. Nature is a subject that everyone associates with automatically, while Warren King's art invites the viewer into the culture he is a part of.
Reflection
Overall, this project was a strong introduction for me to relief art and the cardboard medium. I found that I really enjoyed the process of creating my artwork, and would certainly create another similar. I thought that I was very successful in translating my original idea into a physical form. I was very faithful to the preliminary sketches, and found it easier than expected to translate some tricky elements into the cardboard medium. My favorite part of my artwork is its relation with light and shadow, which surprised me because I did not include it in my planning. I received a comment at the UWM gallery day that helped me realize that the shadows created by my piece become a significant part of the whole artwork, not just a complimentary element. I think that my artwork is best viewed in person because the most important elements are texture and how the artwork interacts with space.
Bibliography
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I developed my final design for the hand structure through trial and error using easily manipulated materials. Using white cardstock paper and painters tape, I added and took out paper until it had an accurate 3 dimensional representation of a hand. I even used paper tissue as support when experimenting with the attachment of the hand to the forearm. Then, once all the components were sized and positioned correctly, I disassembled it and cut the same shapes into thicker cardboard, and used hot glue for the assembly.
Besides usage of similar materials, the strongest way my artwork and Warren King's structures are similar is the focus on space and interaction with its environment. This is especially evident in King's Squatting Giants series, in which exaggerated representations of figures in very human positions are made purely of cardboard. Part of what is masterful about King's sculptures is how he represents positions that are awkward for a human to be in, and rarely seen in sculpture. In my piece, I focused on the conceptual value of how relief art interacts with space. Firstly, the artwork is best experienced by looking from multiple angles as you walk around it. The open hand is almost invading the viewer's realm, because art is often represented only in a 2D realm. However, instead of having unsettling emotional impact, it seems to be inviting or beckoning the viewer as someone would with their real hands. Creating human forms in art has a unique impact, which both my art and that of Warren King harness. By representing the human form, the viewer can pick up certain social queues on the intent of the artist. If I had created the hand in a fist formation or with only certain fingers extended, it would have a completely different meaning. Similarly, if King positioned the man to be completely seated, it could have a more relaxed theme to it.
ACT QuestionsClearly explain how you are able to identify the cause effect relationship between your inspiration and its effect on your artwork?
I used Warren King as inspiration for my construction components, not the actual ideation. I knew from the start that I wanted to represent the human hand using cardboard, and I found King's portfolio through my research on how I would manifest the physical form. What is the overall approach the author has regarding the topic of your inspiration? Warren King has created pieces exploring the interaction between humans, culture, and community. He creates sculptures of Chinese-American men and women going about daily life, as well as emperors and empresses of dynasties from many centuries ago. What kind of generalizations and conclusions have you discovered about people, ideas, culture, etc. while you researched your inspiration? By exaggerated the size and features of average humans, King emphasizes and idolizes the common man and mundane activity. Some of his most impressive works feature street fishmongers and park chess players. What is the central idea or theme around your inspirational research?. My central theme in my research was idolizing the human form by representing it in a difficult medium. Warren King's art stuck out to me during my research because his art is very striking and appears impossibly constructed. What kind of inferences did you make while reading your research? -I inferred that the different events from Warren King's cultural background inspire different series of artworks. His Chinatown series reflects the setting where he currently lives and operates, while his Shaoxing Villagers and Imperial Portraits represent the history of his culture and people. |