For this assignment, we were given the choice to work off of our first project or to create a separate work. We were to explore balance using steel, and working at the metal shop. I decided to create a new piece of work. This is my sketching process.
My plan was to make a spinning ‘top’ inspired from the Japanese toy ‘駒’ (Koma). This idea derives from the motif in the movie, “Inception” where the main character spins a small top to constantly check if he is in reality or in a dream state. Reflecting upon my own life, the past two years since I’ve came to Parsons have been.. crazy. I feel like I’ve finally achieved some sort of balance between my old lifestyle I’ve left behind and the new lifestyle I have here in New York. During the creation process, I’ve faced many difficulties. The first problem I faced was that it was impossible for me to create a round, organic shape like I have sketched out with my current capabilities. After some consultations, I arrived to a design which is more geometric in the sense that it is composed of rectangular steel sheet pieces (can be seen in the middle image; red). After figuring my basic plan, I cut out the steel sheets into 2×2′ and 2×3′ squares and rectangles. This was a huge mistake since I was working small, and the small cut out pieces restricted me from working on the machines due to safety issues or clamping issues. The final difficulty I faced was during the welding process. Since the piece is so small, it was very difficult for me to weld the pieces nicely together. This led to me making registration welds on the edge of each piece, creating a sort of ‘temporary’ weld.
This is what my final piece looks like. The image on the left is the piece as a whole, and the image on the right is with the top removed and spinning in the foreground.
The design of the piece drastically changed from my initial planning sketches. The addition of a platform came from a comment from my last critique where a peer recommended me to explore the piece more in terms with the context of the presentation. The idea of abstracting the form and elevating the platform was to create movement, and to express aggression through the hard edges, rough cuts and weldings.
Overall, despite the various technical difficulties I’ve experienced, I think that this project helped me achieve a huge learning curve both in terms of the material and the metal shop. The previous critique inspired me to take my work further by exploring platforms to present, which also was something I’ve attempted in for the first time.
