Metal + Me = ?

Finally, a chance to blog about my sculpture! I remembered to bring my camera in to class on Monday and took a few shots of what I've done so far. Unfortunately, the tech in charge of the tool room wasn't in class so I didn't have access to some electric metal shears and I couldn't work on the sculpture more. The shears give the edges a very clean cut, which is why I couldn't work on Monday despite owning a pair of hand shears.

Let's start from the beginning!
Our first project in Sculpture II is really broad and general: Abstraction from the human form. With that as our prompt, the professor had a model come in and do some poses for us while we did sketches and made small mock-ups. Here's what I tossed together with cardboard and tape:

I really liked the form of this torso and so did the professor. Once I had this made, I had to decide what my material would be. Almost everyone else in class is using chicken wire and some kind of surface filling, whether it be plaster or paper pulp or something crazy like that. After sitting around and staring at it, I decided to use sheet metal! Nobody else was doing it and METAL IS HARDCORE!

So I went over to Queens and picked up some metal from the friendly folks at B&B Sheet Metal. I had to decide how I was going to bond the metal, so the Professor suggested using a riveter.

Here's what I have so far:


It doesn't look like much, but it's actually quite large. The process for making this thing is really quick- I made all of this in two 3-hour sessions a few weeks ago. I'll probably have the legs done by next week and then I'll have to plan how I want the surface to look.

I'd like to maybe document the process some more, so keep an eye out for a step-by-step walkthrough!

Happy,
-J