LINES AND LUMPS 2004
A sketchbook note about a new direction to explore.
I started making some plaster bits for an idea of a series of Lines and Lumps, Lumps and Lines… basic sculptural ideas, using plaster lumps and wire or wood lines. This idea goes back many years, to old sketches I made in Mendocino in the ‘90-s.
Alexander Calder had used wire to make some very witty linear sculptures in the late 1920's, always suggesting figures or faces of people and animals.
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Alexander Calder, wire figures, 1929, 1928
I started using wires as lines, but with no suggestion of images, just focusing on their movements in space.
An aluminum arc with two movable baling wire lines. The arc is 4" high x 10" wide.
A 6" metal ring with four lines. The lines can be moved along the ring.
Plasticine lumps with wires. The solid shapes are 1 ¾" and 2" high.
In these small sketches I combined simple solid shapes, lumps of plasticine, with lines of baling wire. The positions of the pieces could be rearranged, changing their composition. With two units, they seemed to be in a conversation, or in a dance.
Plaster-coated cardboard and wires. 11" high
Two figures, 3 ½" and 5" high
Foil covered with plaster with wires (left).
Plaster cast in the bottom of a plastic cup with wires (right).
Foil covered with plaster with wires (left).
Plaster cast in the bottom of a plastic cup with wires (right).
Crumpled foil covered with plaster, with wire lines.
The plaster lumps are 1 ½" to 2" high.
These pieces look somewhat like small organisms.
The plaster lumps are 1 ½" to 2" high.
These pieces look somewhat like small organisms.
I expect to get back to these simple gestural beings in other works – their seeds offer more possibilities and need further growth.