Only Monday

It's only monday but I feel like i've been working for a week already. Since I slept a bit long today and I have alot of stuff I want to do this week, so I decided to do as much I as could today. For starters I tried to make another wax form of the Takamatsu head bust (which unfortunately didn't work out). After that I selected and adjusted some of the pictures from last summer for screenprinting. I got 6 of them printed on transparent film and exposed 4 of them over 2 different screens. I booked a printing slot on Wednesday so I will already be printing some this week. After that I went back to the casting room to work on the head busts that did work out. I am adding some air vents and a pouring cup to get ready for casting. I know it looks a bit strange but imagine that it is going to be captured in a mould and everything that is green/wax will be melted out. This means that the thin lines will form narrow tunnels for the air to escape so I don't get airbubles in the piece itself (which will show up as holes in the bronze).

So I guess it was a quite short but productive day.

Meeting our Responsibilities

Yesterday I went to a lecture by Louis B. Susman, the Ambassador of the United states to the Court of St. James's. The title was "Meeting our Responsibilities as Global Citizens" and was mainly set out to be about the role of youth, their power and potential to affect positive change in the face of today's challenges.
It was very impressive and interesting, and also very inspiring since he talked about some of the subjects I am also trying to get to with my work. At the end there was some time to ask questions but unfortunately those went more into the direction of the US politics and such instead of the subject of the lecture, I thought that was quite a shame since I would have loved to ask some questions but wasn't able to get through.
I understand that it is nice to ask an US Ambassador all sorts of stuff but it just would have been nicer if the questions where a bit more about the matterial in the lecture.

Well better luck next time...

Projectspace

This year we will have another project space like last year. Only this time we didn't get to choose who we wanted to do the project with and a 3rd person was added (someone from the theory course). I was quite happy to find out that I was teamed up with William Mokrynski, since I asked him to team up last year but we couldn't do so time/date wise (I wanted to be in the beginning of the semester to get it over with). This year we are almost at the end of the semester (the 25th of november).
William is a photographer who bases his work around buildings with scaffolding, you can see some of his work on his website: William Mokrynski

Instead of trying to put togheter a show with both of our works in it we decided to start a collaborative work. For this we are planning to work with projected video material. Last night we drove around in my car to shoot some of it so we can start figuring out what to do with it (I don't want to tell too much about it since the project is still to be determend and I don't want to give away to much already).

I do have to ad that it is also very nice to work with Talia (who is the theory student) and to make use of her input in the project.

Just to give you a little sneak preview here is a small video clip of something a captured with my crappy camera last night:

Triads

I am running a bit late with my posts since I am being quite busy.
This monday I had my first triad crits which means that they are done in a specific format.
There is one speaker (a person who speaks about his or her work uninterupted for about 10 minutes (our tutor was actually timing everything exactly). One listener, this person listens to the speaker and then asks questions and or reacts to the story that has just been told (also for 10 minutes). And one observer. This person takes notes on what exactly happends, how there is being spoken and if anything is being left out. This kind of moves into an open discussion.

Since alot of triad groups where about to start on the mezzazine above my studio (I was in a group with 2 first year students and we where supposed to start with them), I suggested to look for a quieter space and start with me instead. Unfortunately that meant that I had to go first with something I have never done before, so it felt very uncomfortable and rusty. Luckily it was new for everyone and the questions I got about my work kind of helped me to explain it better (sort of a second chance for me to talk).

After we rotated it became easier and I think the last session (where I was the Listener) went quite well. I wish that we could just stay in the same group for the next triads since I am affraid that it will be the same rusty start if you have to talk to people you havn't really talked to before, but I guess that's kind of the point of it (getting different views on your work). Annywhay I would really like to ad that I was very happy with the 2 other students in my group who made it a very interesting afternoon.

Wax

I had a though week last week, but that doesn't mean I havn't been doing anything (just that I didn't feel like posting anything).
I finaly got to try out all the moulds I made and pour some wax in them. They came out pretty well even though they need some work (the usual air bubles/mouldlines). It is nice to be one step closer to the casting process (even though it might still take some time before I actually get to cast). So instead of trying to figure out what to tell you all about my work this week let's just post some pictures.

Tutorials and rain

I had another tutorial with Kenny Hunter today, so I had to face the rain to be able to get there (I think it is the worst rain since I moved here and it hasn't stopt all day). It was a 1 on 1 tutorial so I felt a bit more comfortable talking this time. It just saves alot of time not having to explain what I am trying to show with my work everytime a new student joins the conversation. We basically talked about the casting idea's  again and since I am starting to get the feeling for all this casting (I have been doing alot of moldmaking last week), I finaly start feeling comfortable enough trying something bigger. Though I have to say I will also stay a bit stubborn and do the glass casts anywhay since I want to experiment with different things (Kenny feels that if I just place glass casts of handless and hinges on the boot bonnet I have it will stay too much car like and thus more art for car lovers instead of fine art for everyone). I don't know if I explained this idea already but that is kind of what I am working on aswell. Anywhays it just feels good to try out different things and just see where it will end up (I have always enjoyed working like that). I am also still working on screen printing but I have to find out how big I can actually go with my pictures (I would like to go billboard size for my final exposition but don't know if the quality will be good enough).

annywhays thats the confusing story for today, thanks for reading.

This is the tank I am going to use as first object to cast.

Triumph 2500

Since I have to do a big essay for the end of this semester I started to look around a bit into the way my car was advertised all those years ago. It is quite interesting to find out the differences between the car now and then. It is nice to get another view on my car, which apperently was very luxurious at the time. Ok I actually did know this already but the way it was advertised actually surprised me a little. I don't think many car companies would get away with trying to sell a car that way these days. Anywhay here are some pictures of old brochures I found floating around on the internet.

Silicone Rubber Mold Making Tutorial

After a busy week I can finaly tell that I finished the mold I started. And as promised I will give you a small tutorial so you can understand the process. If you get this by e-mail it might be easier to click the blue title link which brings you to my blog site and it might be easier to read that way.

We start ofcourse with the object that we want to use, which in this case is a head bust.

 When you take a good look at the objects you can then decide where the line of the mold is going to be. Since the silicone rubber is quite flexible you don't have to worry about small undercuts too much. So after you decide where the line is going to be you fill up one side with clay so that the rubber cannot get attached to it. The clay is also used to attach a little piece on the bottom that will later become the pour cup of the mold.

After you filled up the other half of the object with clay we press some holes to form so called "keys" these will help the 2 parts of the mold stick togheter better when it is done.

Then you make a wall around so that the rubber stays where it should be and doesn't float on the table (Sounds logical right?).

Then comes a small but very important part (people who have forgotten this once will know what I mean). You use vasaline to cover the object so that the mold doesn't actually gets stuck onto your piece).

After that you can mix your rubber mold and start to pour the first layer over your object

When it spreads out it will look very thin on the higher places so you might need to apply a second layer.

This second layer is also good if you didn't have enoug rubber to cover all the keys and empty space.
After you have done this you can let it set for a couple of hours untill it dries out).

The next step involves adding thickner to the rubber mold mix so you can apply it better and thicken the mold out on thinner places.

Again time for drying.

Now we have made the first part of the mold, so we remove the walls and add more clay. This will be for the second part of the mold which will be made out of plaster. The plaster will function as a support for the rubber so it keeps its original shape.

This part basicly goes the same expect for the fact that it is done with plaster, and doesn't need vasaline.

Then pour the plaster and make sure you add some extra on the higher points of the object.

When the plaster is almost set you can remove the walls en soften the edges out while it is still easy.

After leaving it for a while (overnight might not be a bad idea but isn't necesary), you can turn over the mold and remove all the clay used.

Clean up the mold and again use vasaline to prevent the rubber mold from sticking to the other part of the mold.

When you build up the walls make sure you don't forget to put back a piece of clay for the pouring cup.

This part is pretty much the exact same as it was on the first half of the mold, pour the first layer.

Wait for it to float out and apply more if needed.

Again let it dry out.

Then use the hardner in the mix to add thickness to the mold again

When finished you can remove the walls again and clean up the plaster from the first part of the mold.

Rebuild walls for the last plaster pour and remember the vasaline (this is the part where you really do not want to forget adding it).

Pour the plaster in and add some extra to the high points when it has thickened out a bit.

Remove the walls when it is almost completely set.

And use whatever you have at hand to smoothen the sharp edges out.

W then have our final mold which we let dry for a longer time (just to be sure it doesn't break when we take it apart for the first time.

After leaving it overnight take it apart with care and get your original piece out. You now only have to clean it before you can try pouring wax in it and see if it came out well.

Unfortunately I didn't have time for that last part this week so that will hopefully follow soon. I hope you enjoyed my short tutorial, thanks for reading.

How to make a mold

Since my tutorials where pushed back a week, I finaly found the chance to meet up with the casting instructor. I had made an appointment to get instruction on a cold rubber mold (silicone), but since he has a lot of introduction groups it's been difficult to get in between. I had already ordered the stuff that I needed for this mold so I could start right away. I am not going to explain the way it works right now (I am taking pictures of the whole process and want to do so once I am finished), but I will just show some pictures. It is more of a casting study for me since I really want to learn how to do these things on my own once I am finished here (now I am sometimes still a bit insecure about making molds even when I have done so before). So I decided to take a very common shape (a head bust) so I can learn some standard stuff. I already have some molds ready for my car parts which I want to do in glass so I am going to make those wax figures when I get to that point with my new mold.

It feels good do do some practical stuff again after having to focus a bit much on the theoretical stuff and crits/tutorials. I am a bit nervous about next weeks crits, not becausse of the crits but becausse I feel we are supposed to have a piece of "work" ready. The problem is that the stuff I'm working on takes a long time and thus is not going to be ready for then. I also don't feel like just making something for this crit since I really want/need to focus on my main work right now. Ah well we'll see how it go's

Susan Sontag

For our first Visual Cultures assesement I had to read Susan Sontag's Notes on "Camp", and then do a short presentation on it togheter with 2 other classmates. I have to say that I was quite nervous about all of this especially since I had never heard of camp before and the text itself isn't really explaining anything (it's kind of explaining what camp is by not explaining it if you understand what I mean). The fact that there where all sorts of different opinions in my class on what camp really is didn't help either. Because of this I decided to base my piece on the presentation on how Susan Sontag is writing instead of talking to much about what camp actually is (or isn't). I think my strategy worked out well and the fact that I keep using as much humour as possible seems to work out fine aswell (be honest who enjoy's listening to someone reading out a factsheet).

I havn't had too much chance to work on much studio stuff this week, but I did had some good meetings in the Glass department (it seems that casting will become more easy for me this year). In the sculpture workshops there are still alot of introductions going on so I hope I will be alble to start some moldmaking over there next week, and put some nice pictures up again (I think my blog is looking a bit boring with just text).

Group Crits

Yesterday I had my first "group" crits with my new tutorial group. Well Luckily the group wasn't that big and since one of the others had to work there was only me another student and the tutor. To be honest I was quite happy about this since I am not really into long crits with lots of people (meaning you have to discuss lot's of works aswell). At first I didn't really know what to expect since the other student was in the first year of the MFA and I hadn't met her yet. But luckily she made quite interesting work and knew what she was talking about (she gave me some good advice for my work aswell).
The main outcome of my crit was that it might be smarter to keep concentrating on the screen prints as the main work for this year and put the scultures a bit more on the side. This becausse I already put a lot of work in the whole screenprinting and it might be a waste to just start over with sculpture and try to find myself in thet medium again (we only have 1 year and aperently those don't last very long). To be honest, I am kind of happy about this outcome since I am starting to feel more comfortable with the prints I have been making than the sculptural ideas I have been having. This doesn't mean that I wont be doing any sculptures, just that I will be thinking a bit more about how to do them, and to make them fit better with the rest of my work.

Sorry no pictures today but if you desperately want to see some you can always look something up on google.

Basic Mechanics

I don't even think that what I solved today comes even close to to what the title discribes but it just sounds good. As I think I told before I have a Triumph 2500 and it runs on both petrol and LPG (Liquid Petrol Gas), that was untill a couple of weeks ago (it stopped running on petrol). The car didn't get any petrol anymore and I could only drive it on LPG. Now since I am dutch and LPG is far cheaper then petrol I didn't really care that much in the beginning. But since the wheater is starting to become colder it is getting harder to start and drive around on LPG. So I decided to try and find out why it didn't run on petrol anymore. As my dad explained to me once it couldn't be that hard and there where only a couple of things I needed to check. It basically came down to either the fuel pump wasn't working (which wasnt likely), or the gas line was clogged (very likely but where). So I unscrewed the gas line and blew in to it to see if that would do anything (I know you're better of sucking but just in case I blew first becausse I didn't want my mouth full of fuel). And yes this was the case, now I only needed to find out where it was clogged (and hope that it was somewhere I could reach it, since the supermarket's parking lot is my garage and I don't have too many tools). I remembered that me and my dad unclugged the fuel line before this summer and made it a bit shorter to make it easier on the fuel pump, and it had been running fine after that. But I have been driving around some heavy car parts on the back seat and this is where the fuel line runs through or I should say under. So I lifted the backseat and emmidiatley saw a kink in the line. I was quite happy to finds this out since it was way easier then a clog in the gas tank. So I reposisioned the fuel line and reconnected it to the fuel pump, turned the ignition on and yes it started on petrol again.
I know for most people this will seem like the easiest thing ever, but I was quite happy that I fixed this little problem myself.