Week 2’s project had me look at the “making as psychoanalysis” option while planning what to do for my project as I was interested in revisiting polymer clay. Polymer clay is a material I was familiar with as I used to use it quite frequently as a child and young teenager to make charms and miniatures, however, I never used the material for a larger scale sculpture so that sounded like the right avenue to go down.
As for the concept, I was interested in how I could represent the act of reflecting within a sculpture. I reflected a lot during this period on my family, education, career, relationships, and myself which concluded in me wanting to invest in my body more. The reason was that rowing up I had the small tendency to disassociate from situations when they are undesirable or difficult leading to issues that are larger than they needed to be. During my reflection I realized this was a habit I learned from my parents who do the same thing.
The way disassociation manifests in me is through not taking care of myself or distracting myself through other means, however, this did not become a problem until this summer. So, in the efforts of reconnecting with my body I wanted to create a sculpture that mirrored my own but not exactly as I wanted it to serve as something other could relate to as well.
Inspiration:
I was largely inspired by painted manuscripts from the 14th to 16th centuries of anatomies primarily used for medicinal purposes. These manuscripts were common in what is today Iran and the Arab world (they might have been common elsewhere but the particular diagrams I am looking at come from the Middle East). The way the bodies are laid out differ so much from the hyper-realistic white male diagrams that are common place around the world. In a way I feel like the nondescript and illustrated-style of these diagrams reflect myself and others much more than the diagrams I grew up using ever could. This led me to sketch the sculpture.
Materials:
- 1/16″ 32′ Armature Wire
- Pliers (rounded, flat, and with grip)
- Wire Cutters
- Foil
- Sculpey Semi-transluscent Beige
- Kato Polyclay Brown
- Paintbrush
- X-acto Knife
- Q-tips
- Nail Polish Remover (Acetone)
- Sandpaper
Process:
-
- 1. Armature
-
- 2. Addition of foil
-
- 3. Adding clay to armature
-
- 4. Finetuning details
Final:
-
- Full Body – Flat
-
- Full Body – Side Angle
-
- Full Body – Above Angle
-
- Close Up – Head & Chest 1
-
- Close Up – Head & Chest 2
-
- Close Up – Body Crop
References:
https://www.nlm.nih.gov/hmd/arabic/p19.html
