ARTIST’S STATEMENT
Upon beginning this project, I had many thoughts running through my mind. How much more precise must I be with wood compared to cardboard? How precise must I be in cutting the wood? Most importantly, what will the finished product look like? I was trying to create a scaled model of a black hole. In order to do this though, there was more than just simple notching. I had to fit the center inside the two rings. I found that process to be exhausting as, if I didn’t get the measurements perfect, the sculpture would not have worked, and in some cases, I did not get the measurements perfect, this really would have been more of a problem had I not improvised or used more wood.
The meaning of this piece is fairly straightforward, I wanted to make a black hole because in terms of science, it blurs the lines between space and time, and since space and time was the main theme behind my last piece, I chose to focus on that again. In addition, I’ve always been interested in the physics and scientific concepts behind black holes and how much of a mystery they are, this made me want to construct my image of one. Upon doing research, I found several images of what a black hole might look like, some with just a spiral around it and some that looked like what I was trying to capture with my piece. The piece was meant to be a scale model of that celestial body and its unique shape and this was the idea I was hoping to show with my project. I also thought that the process of problem solving when it came to actually making the black hole’s rings really gave the piece a bit more depth than if I had just made a planet or any other celestial body, I had to find a way for two rings of similar size to fit perpendicular to each other, and the solution I came up with was somewhat intriguing. I also found multiple uses for the rings, such as a cradle for the internal circle. When it came to actually displaying the piece, I actually think that there was quite a bit of flexibility with how it could be displayed, for example, I could display it cradling on two of the half rings or display it hanging, and this really meant that I absolutely needed to keep in mind the limitations in the wood’s durability and how I was making it. There were no personal connections that I wanted to make with this piece, which might make it seem a bit shallow, but that’s because it’s meant to be, I was never trying to make a piece that was deep or had a lot of meaning, I just wanted to show my interpretation of an object that I found to be particularly intriguing.
I wasn’t really influenced by any artists, but just my own curiosity. I wanted to try creating a scientifically accurate sculpture wooden sculpture, and since I was actually able to make the black hole out of cardboard, I was fairly confident I could make it out of wood. I found that it required far more precision than making it out of cardboard due to the inflexibility of the material, I also learned about how much polish needed to go into this piece, and I’m glad I learned how to sand my piece, because if I hadn’t, then it would have looked far worse. Overall, I found this to be a unique learning and problem solving process.
MOOD BOARD
Cardboard Model
Drawings/Concept ideas
Original Image
Given that the theme of my last project in this class was “time & space”, I decided to expand upon that with a project that continued that theme of space. The project had a few difficulties as it was primarily an object within an object. The object that I chose to design was a supermassive black hole. The image that I found for the supermassive black hole was actually based off Christopher Nolan’s “Interstellar”, which is considered to be a scientifically accurate image of a black hole. I found a full image of what that black hole would look like, which is similar to the one from the movie and decided to come up with my ideas for that. Originally, my plan was to create an inner sphere by notching several circles and putting all those perpendicular to one circle that was in the middle of all of them. After making the middle sphere, my original process for creating the two rings was to create one circle surrounding that, then notching it enough so I could also add another two rings. Unfortunately, due to the fact that I cut the circular parts of the cardboard to the same size, it became impossible to attach the pieces together without doing some very intense notching, and unfortunately, when I did, the circle split in half. I tried to fix that problem as much as I could, but ended up failing, so I decided to approach the rings a different way. I chose to cut 4 crescent shaped pieces of cardboard, then notched all four on each end. Following that, I cut out two circles in cardboard. After that, I attached two crescents to the circles, placed the main sphere inside and attached the other two crescents and that made the project. The concept was fairly direct and it could have been easy had I just chosen to go ahead and just make a planet, however, due to me really wanting to make a black hole, I went ahead and decided to take the effort to add the two extra crescents. In addition, my initial plan to make the black hole only required two circles, but due to that not working, I decided to make two crescents and notch it from there. Overall, this project was really interesting for me because it felt like the first time I directly addressed a specific problem I was having and tried to figure out a workaround for it by myself and succeeding.
IN PROCESS SHOTS
FINAL PRODUCT
