For this project we had to chose an object that evokes emotions.
This object is a gift from my best friend, she brought it for me from temple after her long trip to Asia. This friendship means a lot to me, she is my soul-sister, and our connection means a lot to me. During her absence in New York, while she was living for half of the year in China, I felt like some part of me was away too.
We had 20 minutes to map first emotions that are connected to chosen object:
Next step was to carve those emotions from bar of soap:
And finally we had to create the final object that shows chosen emotion. I narrowed my emotions to “unity” and “inseparability”. We had to chose one material we comfortable to work with and one material had to be new exploration.
I chose to connect two pieces of laser-cut plexi-glass (the process and material I used before) with strings (i don’t like soft-structures and never tried to use it as connecting material).
For inspiration I used tensegrity of tetrahedron and 70s lamp:
Here is some thinking process that probably doesn’t make sense for anyone except me:
Basically i tried to imagine possible ways to stitch two halves of circle, and tried to come up with perfect number of holes.
And here is a final result. (I wish i took pictures of process, as very important was to hold two halves during stitching, i squeezed them between books, so they stay in place while I was working.)
What I experienced during this process?
Fisrt of all, in the beginning, I falsely assumed I don’t have any objects I am seriously attached emotionally. I practice an art of non-attachment, living in present moment, very aware of marketing and consumerism and hope to be kind of person who won’t get upset if his house will burn one day in big fire. I picked little gift from my best friend, as I used it few times prior in spiritual ceremonies, and discovered a flow of emotions. Object definitely was a trigger. While I worked with soap and final sculptural piece, I wasn’t super emotional, but the process itself triggered my imagination, and I wasn’t just assembling sculpture, I was really aware that I am sort of God’s hand that creates this bond between two halves, and soon they’ll become inseparable. It was nice. (except working with string, because I don’t like soft structures much)))