All the three elements have been produced. cnc, mill and fdm. Now each element will need to be refined as the final sculpture is completed. More posts coming as the work progresses.
7/10/2010 AFSart: blackmangrove | pneumatophores
July 7, 2010: Digital Sand
June 27, 2010
At about the 60% phase on this sculpture. The epoxy work is done. I have to resolve the eyes and the mouth. Then it is on to the base. This evening I will work on the models for the pneumatophores so that they can be fdm printed. Oce printed they will be molded so that casts can be created from them. I intend to use foam to create the massing for the base.
This work embodies the sculptural attitude that when you complete a digital fabrication process you are only at the 40% stage of the sculptural development.
When I created the original Pepakura Study I used manilla tag board. I was somewhat disappointed by the lack of structural integrity in the material. When I stuffed the piece in my car the paper lost alot of its structure and began to buckle. At one point I thought about cutting the work apart to cannibalize the parts. (I've been known to so that) the piece sat in my garage for a couple weeks until the end of the quarter.
In one of those what the heck moments I took it to the studio and decided to see if I could cover the paper in plaster to see how it would hold up. To my surprise it worked very well. As the legs were completed the head began to regain some of its integrity. I decided to cover the head with rigid rap in order to maintain some of the details of the underlying form. Suffice it to say I am very happy with the results.
I am currently covering the plaster with sculpting epoxy bringing to life the black mangrove tree form. The shift in scale imbue the work with more power and sculptural presence. As I was working I realized that I will be able to bring to life an earlier computer model that I created around the idea of BlackManGrove Pneumatophores.
In the proposal i stated that "The “Black Man Grove” series adopts the mangrove tree as a symbol of the African Diaspora. Nature has provided the mangrove with many adaptations that has allowed them to thrive in challenging ecological environments. The form of the work incorporates the tap root system and pneumatophores of the mangrove tree with anthropomorphic abstractions of the human form that resemble and allude to African Nkonde and Nkisi invocation figures. The resulting objects combine to create a testament to the resilience of nature and the human spirit."
I will be posting the progress of this work and It will be one of the themes that I will be exploring during this summer.
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