Evidence Sculpture

 

Evidence Sculpture

A few years ago I was lucky enough to go back to education and was accepted into BCFE www.bcfe.ie  to do year of learning Art, Mixed media & Design. This to me was a fantastic opportunity as I hoped it would bring me into the world of art or maybe back to cabinetmaking. The one thing I have missed when I had a job, was being allowed to be creative. This was the reason I wanted to become a cabinetmaker in the first place, BUT THAT’S ANOTHER STORY and not a very nice one either.

Anyway, as I was saying, I spent a year learning art, mixed media & design (well it was really 6 months) which I thoroughly enjoyed and to say I learned a huge amount would be an understatement. Apart from learning to draw, paint, do sculpture and make handmade prints, we also had to write essays, art reviews and also document all our artwork. In a way I have to say, I enjoyed doing the written work more than the art itself which I know might sound strange, but I think the reason for this is because I was never happy with my art work as I didn’t at the time, have the skill. My painting was very amateurish and my drawing showed a very uneducated hand. Well over the few months in college, my drawing and painting started to improve with practice and learning and even though I haven’t done anything for all most a year, anything I do, now has a very evident progression. When it came to sculpture, I think I was happy with most of my work as I had my cabinetmaking skill to fall back on.  

So for no other reason, other than putting my first post for this year (sorry about that) this is a photo collage of my sculpture entitled SELF SEATED HISTORY which was part of a project we had to do called EVIDENCE.

The idea behind this sculpture was to show my personal history as a piece of furniture which represents some of my history as a cabinetmaker (furniture maker). 

There are 15 pins on the seat of the chair, that represent the years I spent as an apprentice and fully qualified cabinetmaker. The four outside pins are the four years of my apprenticeship and the middle tallest pin is the year I finally left cabinetmaking.  Originally the pins were going to be pikes, but I felt this would have been too great a danger as it was going to be shown and handled in public.  

The seat itself is covered with printed paper that tells about the job of a cabinetmaker and along the legs and on the chair body itself, shows all the addresses I have lived at during my life and also all my personal modes of transport I have owned, such as the makes of cars and bikes as I felt this was an important part of my personal history.

 

The finish I used on the wood of this sculptural chair is wax that has been painted over and the idea behind this finish is that the more the sculpture is handled, the more the paint will come off showing the original waxed wood. This represents the fact that nothing is really permanent and the painted lettering may eventually disappear as my own history will, over time.

  

Finally, there is a plaster cast of my face that seems trapped, to me represents how we are all governed by our own thoughts and experiences. 

All in all, I was very happy with my sculpture and also my original design of the chair, which came as a big surprise to me as I never thought of designing a chair before.  If I had my own workshop, I would like to further this chair design and make a few for myself using better wood and materials.  

Thank you for reading my blog and sorry that this really is filler that I am posting as I have found it really hard to write anything this year. 

If you have any suggestions, please let me know