Earliest try, painted and barely balanced Sept 2019
Was it the urge to spread my wings off the wall and into the world that started me on my exploration of 3-D? It’s unclear to me now. Almost 3 1/2 years later, I’m still at it. And amazed that I started so long ago! Time definitely flies.
It wasn’t until I received the Arizona Commission on the Arts Research and Development Grant this year that I was sure that I could be taken seriously in this venture off-the-wall.
As you can see above this is a rather random group of wood and foam core that I painted and propped up.
Having never worked in this arena before everything was (still is) a challenge. Actually as the work grows in size and complexity, the challenges are multiplying. In this case eventually I discovered that sewing pins were at least a temporary answer to stabilizing the shapes.
Then I had a brilliant flash…
By cutting an opening in the red piece, I was able to fit the yellow parallelogram through so a corner hit the table, stabilizing the pieces. Voila, a new revelation to take me further on this path.
Melanie Matthews workshop 8/2020
Along came Covid. My attention shifted and went back to painting, mainly because I was stuck about how to proceed with my experiments. Plus I love painting. Going to Home Depot and the art supply store was out of the question. We weren’t venturing out except to buy groceries about every 3 weeks. Round about September 2020, I discovered that Melanie Mathews, a Golden Artist Colors Company Working Artist, was offering an online workshop on transforming paintings into 3-d sculptures! Amazing luck. Melanie lives in Ontario, so the chances of ever being able to take one of her classes was nil. I’m grateful she decided to take her workshops online for the duration. I signed up right away and she shipped me an assortment of random items to add to my bits and pieces of materials on hand. I credit her for getting me started again. I had been so stuck and had put the whole idea out of my head. Who knows if I’d ever have tried again.
Who knew?
Wire wrapped around a pencil would create a spring. On the shape on the right, the red dot and black lines are from a transfer. The shiny stuff holding the screw head in place on the yellow cube, is a first attempt at using a glue gun. Just a start of the learning curve. Thanks again Melanie Mathews!
What you see are the 2 shown earlier, plus a new one in the foreground on the right
It occurred to me that the works seemed incomplete.
What was missing were bases to set them apart from the table. Above you see two with bases. I guess I didn’t deem the piece on the right worthy of a base.
Sculpture in a box
An ordinary box, set on edge with an assemblage of pieces inside. I kinda liked it. I’m not sure what happened to it though.
Box with base added. Finishes it off nicely, I think
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A painting of a sculpture
I think I was beginning to get nervous about forgetting how to paint, so I decided to make a painting (pinned to the wall) of the piece in front. It was great fun and reassured me that I remembered how to paint something flat and make it look 3-d.
So these were the beginnings. Stay posted to follow along with my brain, developing new approaches and ideas.