Project #4 Option -1 The Human Body

The Human Body

Project #4 This sculpture is to be larger scale and is to use the glazes developed in Project #3 as surface treatments.

Objective: To create a large scale figurative sculpture in a context. The concepts should reflect a personal idea about contemporary culture.

Required Reading:
“Confrontational Clay”, a catalogue essay by Judith Schwartz
Supplementary Reading (suggested):
“The Decline and Fall and Magical Resurrection of the Body”, an essay by Donald Kuspit

 Form Type: The Human Figure; interior or exterior form
The human form has fascinated people throughout the ages; audiences and artists alike. It's resurgence as a vital means of expression in contemporary sculpture has served to broaden the historical vocabulary. Contemporary Ceramic Sculptors in vast numbers choose the human body/form as a vehicle for ideas both personal and universal.

 Technique: modeling, carving, coil, slab, molds and altered life casts
The style of modeling and articulating the figure should support your central idea, and will be a primary criterion for evaluation.

 Conceptual Key: Consider issues of Health, Cleansing, Heroes, Consumption, and Gender

Step 1: One of the above topics will resonate and have meaning for you. Choose one issue and do library research to gather information and ideas about the topic. Reading about a topic will clarify your ideas. You will gather more insight and inevitably understand more about your own ideas.

For instance you might be interested in answering this question: What is our cultural stance on health? Or .... Does contemporary culture have heroes? How are they established? How have heroes been established in past societies? What substance did these heroes possess and how do these qualities relate to those of contemporary heroes? Or .... Are we, as a culture, over consuming? What are our values today? Or .... How does our society respond to gender? Have we achieved sexual equality? How are gender roles taught? What are the gender roles today?

Step 2: After finalizing you idea and be specific about what you want to say; which means narrow it down to one sentence that you can easily tell your classmates. Your figure should be readable as a human form.
Realism and interpretive realism are the parameters.

Make sketches using the human form to communicate your idea. You can employ the human figure as a full or partial figure. You can use a body part; for instance, a hand, foot, or torso to communicate your idea. You can use an internal organ. Ideas about stance, gesture, apparel and draping are options to consider.

How do you interpret emotion? Is this important to your figure and concept? What age and body type is the figure? Modeling style can be thought of like mark making in drawing or painting. The expressive quality of modeling style should be harnessed to express your idea.

Step 3: Consider how the viewer will relate to your sculpture beyond the fact that it is a human form or part of the body. Think about the first impression or what I call the “Point of Entry”. You can employ any of the following tools to set the tone for reading your work: Myth, humor, wit, sarcasm, irony. Aesthetics can enhance the impression or tone you set. Think about how to create diverse visual tones like; quiet, beauty, gore?? Is the figure in a context? What scale do you choose to work at? What is the optimal scale for your art work? Is this the same? What is the overall mood of the work?

Step 4: Make a clearly visualized maquette to finalize your idea in 3 dimensions.

Step 5: Plan your building process. Further clarify your ideas about how to build your sculpture through discussion and critique.

Artists of Reference -

Adrian Arelo, Chris Federighi, Judy Moonelis, Tim Taunton, Robert Brady, Stephen DeSteabler, Anne Perrigo, Susan Banks, Michael Lucero, Mark Burns, Akio Takamori, Jack Earl, Viola Frey, Marilyn Lysohir, Patti Warashina, Peter Vandenberg, Robert Arneson, Nan Smith, Nancy Carmen, Donna Polseno, Arthur Gonzales, Elaine Carhartt, Mary Frank, Sumni Jung, Beverly Mayeri, Elisa Nappa, Richard Shaw, Jack Earl, Elyse Saperstein, Judy Fox, Ovidio Giberga. Also: Gina Bobrowski, Treisch Voelker and others.


Optional Technical Demonstrations:
Modeling/Moldmaking
a. Bruno Lucchesi Videos (2)
b. armatures traditional and invented
c. scaling and the use of calipers/handouts facial proportions
d. Supplementary Books: Anatomy for the Artist, Modeling the Head in Clay
e materials lecture; plaster, alginate, moulage

Forming process, scale, and glaze choice are open to your artistic discretion.