Water Fall Made From Dirt

My theme of natural land materials creating water phenomena. I believe its clear how my pieces fit into the theme with making a wave out branches and a whirlpool of of leaves. I do think my theme is very obvious, where the theme is the what (what its depicted) and how (how its made). I think I have been successful in conveying this theme i think what has more difficult is to have the craft to make the piece understandable. The risks I have taken has been my use of materials, leaves and branches are not materials i know much about so i often have to infer how the material will move and work and I just have to learn as i go.  These risks just make me want to take more risks, using these different materials pushes me to think whats next. Whats next for me to explore in my next piece? What is something I've never seen used? I not only want to use a material i never used  before but i also want to have very little knowledge of how it works, so i use them in ways I've every seen by any other artist.

fragile strength final and next steps .

I believe that my second piece is where i want it to be. After the critique I've been able to refine my piece to a point that I'm very comfortable with. I really like my final piece it is what i had imagined while  planning the piece. I hope to create a 3rd piece in my series, I want to create a waterfall of dirt. i want to continue with the theme of natural land materials creating water phenomena.  I don't think this piece will take long to build, its just as the other pieces in my series its simple but it takes perfection to pull off. 

fragile strength research

i've looked into many artist using leaves. Andy Goldsworthy uses leaves in a lot of his pieces however he doesn't try to preserve them as i am doing.  Seeing the artist in new york that uses photo copied leaves in her piece, connected to mine. Although she does not use real leaves nor does she use the leaves to mold/create a sculpture. its hard to find an artist to use as inspiration because there isnt any artist that uses leaves in the way im using them. i dont think the way im using my material is inventive but i am just yet to find an artist doing what i am doing. researching leaves it made me think of color, i think i want to explore color in this piece. many artist are painting on leaves and i think it could push my piece further with using paint. i want to use cool colors to push the idea of a whirl pool, and the paint can further illustrate the form . 


http://www.morning-earth.org/artistnaturalists/an_goldsworthy.html

fragile strength

I got a lot of suggestions about what i should use for my next material, but leaves came up more often then not. So i went with the masses i figured that it was a good time time to experiment with with more natural materials. leaves a very flexible when alive but when its completely dead and dry  it becomes very fragile so it has been a difficult material to work with. i have done a LOT of experimenting this week and i found that painting medium gloss over the leaves it makes it much stronger and a lot more flexible. i have also found that leaves cant stand by themselves, so i was forced to use chicken wire to have more strength in the piece.  Im learning as i go and the piece is changing as i go so i dont what it will become but im excited. 

static wave.

While creating this piece i did a lot of research and had a lot of prior knowledge on my favorite artist Maya Lin.  She works with many materials in her sculptures and most being natural materials. looking at her many pieces using wood and stacking it, and the different treatments she uses to create clean unity with materials that are all shaped very differently. researching her work was the reason i came to the decision to stain all my wood one color so the piece would have unity and the material didn't distract from the meaning of the piece. 

http://www.mayalin.com/

Another artist i researched was Reuben Margolin. He's a kinetic sculptor that works with wood. His pieces flow and move and do things people don't expect a very stiff material like wood would do. I chose to have my piece hung with fishing wire and each branch to be hung with fishing wire so my piece would move. if the piece was completely still i don't think it would give the feel of a wave the way it does now. the small movement it makes as someone brushes past it gives it that bit of realism that i really like. with the movement it makes the wave seem like its part of a slow current and makes it feel more alive.  
http://www.vimeo.com/5634600