5/31/2021 12:21:27 PM
It took me three years of messing around with plaster, stained glass, and acrylic paint to finally be satisfied with my relief sculptures. The process involved experimenting, failing, experimenting, failing, and repeating this over and over (like I said, for three years) until I was happy with the results. I would have taken a class instead of trying to figure it out on my own but there wasn’t one that taught how to make what I wanted.
I now make my relief sculptures using stained glass sheets that I hand cut into tiles. But before I discovered stained glass, I tried making tiles out of plaster. Unfortunately, the tiles proved too fragile and partially disintegrated when I painted and grouted them. These are photos are of just some of my many, many plaster tile experiments.
6/22/2020 12:46:05 PM
Funny how early life experiences can have a life-long influence.
The lesson I learned from the extreme, unrelenting, year after year soul-crushing boredom of school was this: when I’m bored I feel like a caged animal. That’s why I shoot for art projects that involve failure after failure. Failure means I’m learning.
So I go into the studio and try new things, hard things, things that I can’t find directions for. When something doesn’t turn out right, I keep trying and failing again and again until I finally get it right. I do enjoy the getting it right part, but I also immensely enjoy the challenge of not knowing what the hell I’m doing because it’s the opposite of being bored.
But too much hard stuff can get me both frustrated and unproductive. I just recently figured out that if I intersperse the hard stuff with the easy stuff, I don’t get bored, I just get happier.
My offerings here are going to end up being a mix of things that baffle and make me try over and over again and things that I could do in my sleep.
