PART 1
Raven Rises Again.
We were asked to look around and find an object that we felt would be interesting to create into a wire form sculpture . I decided on a large raven bird skull I found one day while walking on the beach.
First thing I did was to draw a top, bottom, and side view to scale. One square equals one inch.
Due to the guage of the wire, it would be too thick to try and get much detail into my design. I will have to enlarge the drawing to match the wire thickness. I made a grid pattern with 2 inch grid squares. I drew in my bird skull views and these became the pattern I worked from. Different colors were used to draw in outlines and contour lines and helped me plan in my head what I wanted to do.
Everything was drawn, and materials laid out on my desk. Feeling rather intimidated, I just picked up the plyers and started cutting out shapes to fit my pattern.
when I had enough pieces, I started wiring them together to create the basic form of the raven’s beak and skull. Kind of reminded me a bit of sewing pattern pieces together.
Once the basic outline was in place, I just started weaving the wire around the form. I had envisioned doing a lovely weave, but my poor arthritic hands said “NO, You will wrap however you can wrap it”.
I added in the eye sockets, and more wires to the skull to fill it out and give it more shape. Nasal sockets were wired into the beak. I then proceeded to go into some kind of frenzied trance and twisted wire without stopping for the NEXT FOUR HOURS! Unfortunately, not to many process pictures were taken during this wire fueled event.
I basket weaved wire in and around the head, and created the Foramen Magnum. I should have placed it a bit lower, but there was no way I was even going to try and Undo All That Wire to appease my OCD. I added more wire around the eye sockets, and attached an inner cornea. The wire was just to hard to add the frilly details I wanted to add.
At some point I put the head down and did the same thing with the bottom beak. I used the drawing and made a wire outline. This was filled in with wire wrapped around and woven to give a bit of bulk. I wrapped the bottom beak heavy so it would look solid and dark.
When the bottom beak was finished I wired it onto the skull behind the eye sockets.
Note the heavy amount of wire I wrapped around the top beak. I wanted to capture some of the heavy black that was on the original beak of the raven skull.
Raven Rises Again. 2021. 13”x6”x4” wire sculpture.
I used the mono filament and suspended my raven sculpture to the ceiling. It was fun to capture different views and angles while it was turning.
As it was getting dark, I shined a light on the hanging wire sculpture and enjoyed the shadow play on the wall the sculpture cast. An impromptu shadow play was performed for a very exclusive canine audience. When I was young I use tocreate shadow puppet productions for my younger sister when we were suppose to be asleep. This project evoked childhood emotions I had forgotten about.
Raven Rises Again. Shadow Play Sept 17,2021
Still shots.
Artist Research
I chose Alexander Calder as the Artist I wanted to look at. and research. I love how his wire sculpture looks like a drawing with a sharpie marker. I remember doing blind contour drawings last year and his work really reminded me of those drawings. He was the first artist to use wire to create 3-D line drawings. He made a miniature circus from wire and found objects. His mobiles moved around and provided further play within the spaces they hung. He invented “Drawing in Space.” His work creates volume without mass.
www.momma.org/collection/works/81347
www.Mona.org/artists/922?locale=en