Project 2
"Bled Dry"
"A man finds room in the few quare inches of his face for the traits of all his ancestors; for the expression of all his history, and his wants"
The Conduct of Life--Ralf Waldo Emmerson
This sculpture is an image from a dream that I had in two parts over the span of about 3-4 weeks. In the first dream, there were people there that would talk normally and when they were done they would open their mouths to a complete 180 degrees, however, when they would flip their heads back, there would be this odd smacking noise.
I had also been in two car accidents during in the span of a month so I was feeling pretty down on myself during these dreams feeling that no matter how hard I tried to be positive, I would still manage to screw things up somehow.
The second dream occurred three weeks later and included my boyfriend who has these huge, very kissable lips. He reached across his face and ripped his lips off and when he did all of the color/pigment seemed to melt and drain off of his body. He then opened his mouth in the same 180 degree fashion as the people in the first dream, but this time, he was trying to show me something. His mouth was very deep and cavernous, but it glowed. Some of his teeth were in the shape of flowers and other whimsical shapes, not characteristic of teeth. I seemed to get mesmerised looking into his mouth, but it allowed me a certain sense of well-being from it. However at the time, I didn't quite make the connection, but my boyfriend is a person in my life that is always there for me when things get thick or thin always cheering me on, no matter what.
Since then, I've taken the images of people trying to show me something in their mouths as them trying to show me that I need to look within to find the strength to overcome obstacles. Now I'm not one of those people who needs an explanation for what they're going through to get through it, but
The sculpture that I created is a compilation of the two dreams in that I made it as a representation of my boyfriend (even though it looked nothing like him), while incorporating the elements of the people in the first dream. It first took me a while to figure out how to do this because, even though I could visualize this object, I had some difficulty drawing the form out. I started with the base of the neck as a solid piece of clay and from there built up. To represent the "smacking sound" (from the people in the first dream) I made the head "crack" in the back, but putting cut pieces of styrafoam balls near the edges so when the object dried, it would crack. From there I finished the face, the teeth and the tongue. The most difficult part, however, were the eyes. I tried making eyes several times and none of them fit with the piece--this being my first "sculpture" outside of elementary school, I'm definitely no artist. The eyes there I built like the rest of the piece, from the base up, and for some eerie reason they seemed to fit in my opinion.
Check out my documentation to see photos of the various stages of this project.
(Power Point Presentation)