UWM Mixed Media
Order & Chaos
Medium: Black Straws, Wet Foam, Styrofoam, Black Foam Board, Hot Glue
Size: #cm X #cm X #cm
Completed: January 26th, 2018
"Order and Chaos" is an assemblage using bought & found objects inspired by Francesca Pasquali's '39000 Straws' installation at the Raccolta Lercaro, Modern Art Museum & Tara Donovan's 'Bluffs, 2006' installation at the Milwaukee Art Museum. Through the use of value, form, unity, & color, the works abstractness gains substance by demonstrating the similarities shared between order & chaos. I aimed to engage the audience by provoking thought as to what the comparison in the work could be.
Medium: Black Straws, Wet Foam, Styrofoam, Black Foam Board, Hot Glue
Size: #cm X #cm X #cm
Completed: January 26th, 2018
"Order and Chaos" is an assemblage using bought & found objects inspired by Francesca Pasquali's '39000 Straws' installation at the Raccolta Lercaro, Modern Art Museum & Tara Donovan's 'Bluffs, 2006' installation at the Milwaukee Art Museum. Through the use of value, form, unity, & color, the works abstractness gains substance by demonstrating the similarities shared between order & chaos. I aimed to engage the audience by provoking thought as to what the comparison in the work could be.
Artistic Inspiration
Francesca Pasquali:
Francesca Pasquali's piece '39000 Straws' aims at giving "life" to manufactured, man-made objects - in this case straws.
By rearranging the heights of the straws, she creates texture and value that draws your eye to the piece, and gives it that nature-like appearance by having it be flowing and wavy like grass, rocks, waves, or mountains; the subtle zigzag formation across the board also helps draw your eye, down, and across the entire work. Pasquali also uses shadow to its advantage to contrast the engraved sections from the zigzag.
While at first glance the combination and presentation of the different colored straws seems random, one of the common colors used to give the piece unity is orange, broken into larger chunks between all of the yellow, pink, green, and blue scattered throughout.
Francesca Pasquali's piece '39000 Straws' aims at giving "life" to manufactured, man-made objects - in this case straws.
By rearranging the heights of the straws, she creates texture and value that draws your eye to the piece, and gives it that nature-like appearance by having it be flowing and wavy like grass, rocks, waves, or mountains; the subtle zigzag formation across the board also helps draw your eye, down, and across the entire work. Pasquali also uses shadow to its advantage to contrast the engraved sections from the zigzag.
While at first glance the combination and presentation of the different colored straws seems random, one of the common colors used to give the piece unity is orange, broken into larger chunks between all of the yellow, pink, green, and blue scattered throughout.
Tara Donovan:
'Bluffs' was one of Tara Donovan's works I got to see for myself, currently being displayed at the Milwaukee Art Museum, and was both awed and surprised by it. Made out of only white, semi-translucent buttons and glue, Tara Donovan has created a living, breathing ecosystem out of plastic, similar to Pasquali's goal in her own works. Using only a mass-produced, simple common item - a button, Tara Donovan was able to allow the imagination of the individual to run wild and create something that felt organic and had movement; when I saw 'Bluffs' in person, my mother and I both imagined it as a spiraling coral reef - others examining the piece mentioned that it looked like crystals, a mountain range, even a bustling city. How people are able to see so much in the sculpture is through its use of form, light, and color. Despite the builds form being overall linear and straight, the turning of offset placement of the buttons gives the columns movement. The rounded shape of the buttons also aids in making the composition feel more organic, giving the columns sides a wavy, rough texture - despite the buttons themselves being smooth - that adds to the works overall appeal. With the buttons being a semi-translucent white, the piece is almost like a blank slate, left for the viewer to interpret or imagine what it could be; for instance, a coral reef. Light was a large component of creating unity, using the form of the build - with its various crevices and arches to have areas of shadow shrouded, while the spires throughout would become the highlights. |
Planning Sketches
When planning on my build, I utilized Francesca Pasquali's frame technique to be for the sides of my build - made out of black foam board, and also used black straws as my main material. Both are black because the frame represents the "order" in the work, the straws the "chaos". The project was going to be about 2ft by 3ft, (60.96cm by 91.44cm), and would use Tara Donovan's use of placement to stand about four feet tall, as shown in the pictures on either side.
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Process, Ideas, Intentions
(PLACEHOLDER)
Experimentation
During the process of my assemblage, the first experimentation would've been using Styrofoam and Wet Foam for the straws to be placed into. At first I had used the Styrofoam as the base, and originally had planned to use toothpicks to keep the straws from moving or adjusting. Because of the need for 3-4 toothpicks to keep one straw in, I cut the toothpicks in half. I soon realized that by repeating this action a few times the toothpicks were damaging the foam, weakening the base and causing the straws to come lose, damaging the edge I was working on. I also realized that it would take to long with the number of toothpicks I'd have to place (and buy). I tried to work the straws into the base without the toothpicks, but the foam wouldn't budge, and when I tried pushing them in with force it damaged the board similar to before.
When re-evaluating the design and structure of my project, I remembered Mr. Chad - my art teacher - mentioning about Wet Foam, and how it'd be soft enough to just push in the straws. Shortly afterward I bought some to experiment with, and immediately noticed that it worked much better than the Styrofoam. I bought enough to go over my Styrofoam base, and hot glued them onto the base. While it did give it a little extra height, it was a compromise that meant better structure. At first. While the Styrofoam was easier to work with, the mass of straws into the soft material did crack and break some of the chunks, leading to some hasty repairs with my (god savior) hot-glue gun to keep the straws in place as best I could; it held itself together fairly well after re-gluing the broken parts together again.
The last trail and error I had - which I couldn't easily fix - was the black foam board frame around my piece. The black foam board did not stick well with the hot glue, and due to time restraints I had to tape the foam board on; my father recommended that the placement of it should be overlapped to at least make it look clean on all sides. While the tape did slightly minimize the aesthetic, it aided in giving structure to the Wet Foam, and allowed the foam board to cover the sides (which if exposed would've brought down the aesthetic by a lot).
When re-evaluating the design and structure of my project, I remembered Mr. Chad - my art teacher - mentioning about Wet Foam, and how it'd be soft enough to just push in the straws. Shortly afterward I bought some to experiment with, and immediately noticed that it worked much better than the Styrofoam. I bought enough to go over my Styrofoam base, and hot glued them onto the base. While it did give it a little extra height, it was a compromise that meant better structure. At first. While the Styrofoam was easier to work with, the mass of straws into the soft material did crack and break some of the chunks, leading to some hasty repairs with my (god savior) hot-glue gun to keep the straws in place as best I could; it held itself together fairly well after re-gluing the broken parts together again.
The last trail and error I had - which I couldn't easily fix - was the black foam board frame around my piece. The black foam board did not stick well with the hot glue, and due to time restraints I had to tape the foam board on; my father recommended that the placement of it should be overlapped to at least make it look clean on all sides. While the tape did slightly minimize the aesthetic, it aided in giving structure to the Wet Foam, and allowed the foam board to cover the sides (which if exposed would've brought down the aesthetic by a lot).
Critique
During my process, I would access that while Tara Donovan was the catalyst for my project, Francesca Pasquali was more influential through the form and overall composition of the piece. I based Pasquali's works to add the frame of the builds sides and to use straws as the main material. Where Tara Donovan's work enters into the work is through the spires that shoot out from the plane, meant to be the representation of the "chaos: within the work. When comparing the final product to my planning sketch, due to time restraints and a lack of resources it is smaller in its dimensions and the straws are significantly shorter (this was meant to be taken from the height shown in Tara Donovan's work) , but I think that the size and height do not hinder the message between "order and chaos".
Reflection
After having gone through the process of building my sculpture, I have reflected and learned the many challenges that go into making sure that the materials of your build are compatible with each-other and that the structural integrity of the work is sound and solid. During the actual process my wet foam around the edges was breaking, and the only solution I could think of (since tape did not work) was to use hot glue, which worked extremely well in the cracks and broken sections of the foundation. The sides, however, did not stick as well to the wet foam due to how much there was to cover, which is why I had to resort in taping it. While it doesn't look as clean, it makes the build again more sound. The variation of the straws and the overall cleanliness of the piece, however, is what I'm very pleased about. It is what I imagined - albeit slightly smaller in scale - and I couldn't be prouder of it.
ACT Responses
- Clearly explain how you are able to identify the cause-effect relationships between your inspiration and its affect upon your artwork: I was able to identify the cause-effect relationship of my piece to my inspirations through the construction and build of my assemblage piece, using Tara Donovan's spire-like appearance in "Bluffs" and the framework and use of straws in Francesca Pasquali's work.
- What is the overall approach the author has regarding the topic of your inspiration: Regarding the topic of the inspiration, both Francesca Pasquali and Tara Donovan takes common, man-made items - like buttons and straws - and turns them into a living, breathing ecosystem made out of plastic.
- What kind of generalizations and conclusions have you discovered about people, ideas, cultures, etc. while you researched your inspiration: What I've learned about society through my two inspirations is that with common items we use in our daily lives they can be given new meaning based on its presentation.
- What was the central idea of theme around your inspirational research: The central theme of my piece and my inspirations was "Order and Chaos", and the complexity of how vastly different and yet similar the two halves are.
- What kind of inferences did you make while reading your research: In doing my research on my inspirations, I was able to understand how they changed the purpose of a common day item based on its presentation and large quantities (arguing that its similar to Andy Warhol and his use of repetition to give a new feeling or meaning to a common-place item).
Sources (MLA)
Tara Donovan - Image & Citation: “Bluffs.” Bluffs | Milwaukee Art Museum, collection.mam.org/details.php?id=27190.
Francesca Pasquali - Image & Citation: Pasquali, Francesca. “Francesca Pasquali - 39000 Light Straws.” Fransesca Pasquali, 2010, www.francescapasquali.com/straws/.
Francesca Pasquali - Image & Citation: Pasquali, Francesca. “Francesca Pasquali - 39000 Light Straws.” Fransesca Pasquali, 2010, www.francescapasquali.com/straws/.