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Rubber Soul in 3D |
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Lower right letter a with brick pattern in place and walls built. |
At this point I could visualize it and was pretty certain I could build it. I just didn’t realize it would be such a beast.
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Here’s the brick surface
after Jamie and Hunter did the texturizing and after adding
the poster at lower right. |
So after the design, I had to build the backing for the bricks. Foam core didn’t come in sheets as large as I needed (at least not without shipping), nor was gator board large enough. I failed to mention I had planned to put a solid piece of gator board down as my base. But the piece I looked at was too small (would have taken three at $36 apiece) so I stuck with basic foam core. I had to seam one large and two smaller scrap pieces together and add a backing to them of cardboard. That gave me a pretty stiff and lightweight foundation upon which I could build a brick wall. So I drew the logo out centered on the wall and then guesstimated the size of bricks on such a wall. Every brick was cut out of scraps of foam core but was added in such a way that I had to keep the brick pattern but cut out the sections that overlapped the logo itself. This allowed the logo to fit down in the space between the bricks, adding a little extra stability to the logo construction. The logo is four round letters (probably Avant Garde or Futura) overlapping each other in a two over two layout. I decided to make the two A’s 4″ tall, the C 2″ tall and the O (as the least important element) only 1″ tall. I guess the “T” is silent. (Of The Arts)The overlap sections would be 3″. The letters were drawn out on foam core scraps and then the walls had to be built. Foam core doesn’t bend but can be made to bend by slicing lines close together (.125″ to .25″ spaces) vertically on the wall. When you glue the wall to the “roof” for lack of a better word, you simply bend the now pliable foam core to the shape of the letter. Once it is all done you can use modeling paste to fill in the gaps that open up in the wall and thus restore stability to the foam core. Simple. Or so it seemed.
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Poster detail |
This project actually went fairly quickly. The e-mail came during fall break from school leaving me with about three weeks to produce the final piece. Without Hunter G’s yeoman efforts throughout and his influencing Jamie S., Aliyah D., Blair B., Lindsey D. and Grace K. to help we couldn’t possibly have gotten there.
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Early state of the cupids. |
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Final state of cupids. |
At the same time I was working on a semi-bas-relief of some cupids from the interior plaster work. One huge problem. I had no clay. I had some sculpy but no way to heat it up as my stove at school wasn’t hooked up when they moved me into the old printing room (no way to vent it). So improvisation was the word of the day. I started by drawing the cupids out on a scrap of foam core (really using up the scraps) and then I cut out of scrap mat board 3 or 4 versions of the cupids with each one being cut slightly smaller then the one before. This isn’t like resizing and cutting a smaller version, this is laying down the original design and cutting the first one actual size, then pulling back from the edge and cutting another one, repeating that process several times. It gives you a semi mound in the shape of the figures. I then cut some foam core versions of parts of the figures and basically added small scraps of styrofoam onto those. Then it was modeling paste to smooth out the surfaces and enhance the relief aspects and finally it was all painted to reflect the photographic sample I had. Not great, not bad. It gives the feeling of the old plaster in a state of disrepair.
So a long description to a fairly quick project. The students, especially Hunter G. were a huge help in getting it done and I have to believe learned a few lessons in the doing. I sort of lived in fear throughout that something might happen in the classroom and this would get derailed by damage. You just never know and if my classes weren’t so large that fear would probably not arise. So as soon as I could, it was delivered to the Academy and since they have now announced they have it, I feel like I can write about it. I am realizing now that I never stated what my concept with this piece actually is. I was thinking of a phoenix, rising. But that isn’t exactly it, because my feeling is with a phoenix rising, it rises out of ruin. It actually was sort of a garden with something new arising in it’s season. So the old is still there, the bricks, signage, plasterwork, old theatre, history (if you know where to look) but growing, arising out of the old is this new expression, this new home for all the arts, the Academy Center of the Arts in the visual form of this logo. Still a mouthful, but who am I kidding, no one reads this stuff anyway.
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The pieces of letters glued together |
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The entire thing comes together |