Monday 16 April 2018

Light and Shadows Series: Translucent Sculpture to Opaque Sculpture: Part One

My challenges with this project expanded geometrically the more I thought about it. I did not want to alter the appearance of someone else's sculpture for the sake of moral creative rights (the rights of a creator over the use and re-representation of it). I recently attended a talk on Canadian copyright laws, and I am not in the mood to transgress a creator's copyright or patent (as the case may be).

As a result, I faced the prospect of creating a translucent sculpture myself. I have not, however, ever created a sculpture, translucent or otherwise, beyond, I suppose, the occasional papier-mache piece, such as my pencil holder and, years ago, a papier-mache pinata shaped like the Death Star for my then young-son's birthday party.

I decided not to get cutesy with the definition of sculpture, such as considering a poem or short story to be a word sculpture. A sculpture is a work of art in three physical dimensions, I told myself firmly.


Not being someone who steers away from a Quixotic battle (e.g., PhD in English literature), I did some research into translucent or transparent media suitable for sculpture. Using the internet, of course, I came up with the following possibilities:

tape
glass
wire
clear (translucent) resin
balloons


I had a balloon animal phase when my son was younger (the same time I was making Death Star pinatas), so that medium at least I can say I have experience with. The resin method has the best transferability from translucent to opaque, however, since I can use the same mold to make two different pieces, one translucent and one opaque.  Glass can be painted over, as I suppose, can balloons.

I have some decisions make. Stay tuned for Part Two.