Ephemera
Exhibition TextThis is a sand sculpture inspired by Edvard Munch’s Scream. With this sculpture I attempted to show my observations of younger children and the difference between what I did at a young age and what some children do now. I used sand in my families old sandbox to show something that I did as a kid. The decay of my piece was meant to depict the loss of popularity in being raised doing outdoor activities due to a more popular interest in modern technology.
PlanningThe first part of te planning process was to find a medium that would fit well with the project. I chose sand because I've used it since I was too young to remember, and I knew it could decay/breakdown from water and or just drying out. After this I had to come up with an idea that would convey the meaning I wanted to get across. My first idea was to create a hand that would fall apart slowly once water was added to the bottom of the base. This would appear almost as if someone were drowning which is in a way what is seems my childhood is doing (left image). For the background I would have a TV and a child (my younger brother) sitting in front of it (middle image). This setting would show the new way of growing up with technology while my way of growing up dissipates in the foreground. My second plan was to create a face with the sand and focuse on exagerating the emotion (right image). I drew two faces, one with anger and another with sadness or pain. On these faces I marked what I believed to be specific characteristics that would help identify the emotion.
"Art Analysis: Meaning of the Scream by edvard Munch." Edvard Munch. Edvardmunch.org, n.d. Web. 28 Oct. 2016.
"Art Nouveau." The Art Story. N.p., n.d. Web. 28 Oct. 2016. Munch, Edvard. Scream. 1893. Munch Museaum, Oslo, Norway. Edvard Munch. Edvardmunch.org. Web. 28 Nov. 2016. "The Scream, 1893 by Edvard Munch." Edvard Munch. Edvardmunch.org, n.d. Web. 28 Oct. 2016. |
Changing Childhood
Sand October-November 2016 InspirationThe inspiration for this piece came from Edvard Munch's Scream which was in the style of Art Nouveau. This style was prominent during the late nineteenth and early twentieth century. This art movement was intended to get away from the traditional art education system that developed in the previous centuries. Art Nouveau artists created pieces with modern design and focused on workmanship. The designers, architects, and other artists involved in the Art Nouveau movement used certain characteristics in their pieces. One major characteristic is the use of organic lines and geometric forms in order to create a more modern style.
Edvard Munch’s Scream was created in 1893 and contains this characteristic of Art Nouveau. Throughout his piece are organic lines which produce movement and emotion. Both the foreground and the background are essential in analyzing the meaning of this painting. From the screaming figure in the foreground you can extract the feeling of pain or suffering. This figure seems to be sexless which may have been done this way purposefully so that anyone, male or female, could relate to the painting. In the background, two figures appear to be moving away from the pain filled figure in front possibly meaning that the person is lonely or maybe that the process of losing something or someone that is loved is the cause of the pain. With this in mind, I used the emotion of pain or sadness due to loss or change in order to depict growing up and the differences that I’ve observed between my bringing up and children now. Other than this meaning inspiration, I also used the aspect of using both the foreground and background to analyse the piece’s meaning. |
Process/Experimentation
Through the course of this project, there was very much trial and error. I began by just playing with the sand and seeing how well sand holds and how to create different textures.
I then started with my first idea which was to sculpt a hand and have it sink and erode into water. I started out by packing the sand into a large bucket, the more compact the better. I then flipped and removed the bucket in order to form a solid cylinder to start the subtractive sculpting. The first step was to carve out the main form of the hand. I removed large chunks from the cylindrical block of sand. Till it began looking like an open hand. Second i outlined the fingers and then started cutting them out and adding the details. This is when the three of the fingers collapsed. From this I found that having part of the sculpture greatly suspended from the mainframe or main body was not going to work because the sand wasn't supportive enough to do so. Because of this I had to go with my second idea. My second idea was to create a face in pain or agony as it washed away. The first step, like the other idea, was to create a compact form to begin with as a base. This idea was more of an additive sculpture. After the morphed spherical base was finished, I added sand to it to create facial features including the eyebrows, nose, cheeks, and chin. I then smoothed out the entire face and added notches for the eyes and dug out the mouth. Finally I added lines and shaped the sides of the head to better suit the emotion of agony that I intended to create. I went through this process twice. The first was a rough draft for me to get a feel for this process and to understand what I needed to change for my final piece. In the final piece I decided to make the facial expression more exaggerated by elongating the face. I also created arms to the side holding kids tools rather than hands to the side of the head like in Scream. The final aspect in the process was setting up the background and taking images of the sand as it fell apart as water was added and moving. |
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ReflectionProcess:
This process took a vast amount of trial and error which made it pretty challenging. After playing with the sand and observing its characteristics, I was still unable to complete my first idea. I overestimated the sand's ability to support large limbs. I had to scrap this idea which was unfortunate, but with some extra time and effort I was able to complete my second idea. The process for this idea went much better. I first did a rough draft to see what worked and what didn't. It went very well, but it could still be improved. The final piece I created turned out very well. The sand sculpture turned out very well, and I believe the setting complimented the piece beautifully. Meaning: This piece was supposed to show how times have changed and how what kids do now for entertainment is different from what I did for fun when I was a kid. From my observations there is a pretty large difference as many kids nowadays prefer technology over outside entertainment. My piece depicts this meaning quite well. Changing my idea from the hand to the agonized face really helped to express the emotion of a withering era. The setting was a large part of what emphasizes the meaning. The project was done in my backyard inside of a sandbox which is where I used to play when I was a kid. The playhouse is another aspect of childhood, while the television and video game controller in my little brother's hands represent what the normal entertaining activities of today's kids are from my observation. Critique My piece incorporates the style and meaning of Edvard Munch's Scream. It is clearly visible in the sculpture that it is inspired by the painting. In both the painting and my sculpture, the main aspect is the screaming person. This sets the painful or agonizing mood that was intended in both pieces. Another aspect of my piece that was inspired was the emphasis on the background. I attempted to make my pieces meaning clearer and the overall composition of the piece to improve by puting it in an interesting setting. The medium of my piece was sand which means that I couldn't use Munch's painting technique. I instead had to work with the sand and learn for myself. For the most part this didn't affect how the final piece turned out. If anything, my personal aprehension of these sculpting skills adds some uniqueness to my own technique.
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ACT Connection1. Clearly explain how you are able to identify the cause-effect relationships between you inspiration and its effect upon your work.
My inspiration, Edvard Munch's Scream, had a significant effect on my piece as seen in both the style of my piece and the mood. It inspired me to use a face with strong expression to set the mood and to also focus on what to place in the background to emphasize the meaning. 2. What is the overall approach (point of view) the author (from your research) has regarding the topic of your inspiration? Edvard Munch saw pain in loss as seen in the piece I used as inspiration. Scream shows that Munch viewed loss as a painful or sad time to live through. 3. What kind of generalizations and conclusions have you discovered about people, ideas, cultures, ect. while you researched your inspiration? Loss is often sad and painful to endure whether it be the loss of loved ones or the loss of a way of living. 4. What was the central idea or theme around your inspirational research? The main theme for during my research was change over time for the process as to better understand what ephemera really was. I then researched loss and change due to loss. 5. What kind of inferences did you make while reading your research? Change is a large part of what makes us who we are. Change brings us new situations and experiences, but it can also cause us to lose certain ways of living. Whether this is positive or negative all depends how we view it personally. |