Using the stiffened paper as a sculptural element. I've always been interested in how a two-dimentional thing (like paper, fabric) becomes three-dimentional. I think this is of particular importance to me now as i struggle to make things that are structurally sound using the materials i more or less know. This summer i have had many mantras that enabled me to work, and one was "Just make what you want to make and figure out the "right" way to do it later." Yes this has led to a studio full of things that are falling over, but it's a start.

More plastic paper

So i've been getting interested in sculpting with paper and fabric by coating it with plastic. (Also just barely started experimenting with thermoplastic-impregnated fabrics, but it has proven to be prohibitively expensive. Hopefully i'll be able to continue soon) This is a sculpture i made in the spring, which i covered with tracing paper strips using plastic coating in a papier mache fashion.













Next i have been using full lengths of paper draped or propped until rigid.



Yes this last one may look like a pile of garbage, but right now one of my biggest concerns is trying to get big big big, however i can.

Going Up

Foam ladder tower and detail. Trying to "just do" various sculptural problems that i've never had a great grasp of, such as "Vertical". That is part of the reason that the foam is working out as a material; it can be mostly just cut with a knife, and put together with just glue or small nails. And it's light enough that i can throw it around as i try out different configurations. In terms of the painted ladder form, if you can tell from the photo, the painted ladder doesn't match up totally with the cut-out shape. Here again i'm thinking about 2-D vs 3-D illusion, or in other works, questioning what is more true when you look at it...is the painted "image" of the ladder more real than the structural form of the shaped foam?

And this gray piece is just strips of duct tape surrounding a chicken wire structure. I am not sure why but i kind of love this piece. It feels to me that it is somehow transcending it's original materiality, but just barely. Like it's on the verge of slipping backwards.