Wire Assignment #1
I redrew / traced the shoe drawing with more expression in mind, and the material in mind after playing with the wire for a couple of moments.
The wire sculpture ended up being much more expressive than I’d initially imagined, but I remained open-minded to possibilities, rarely having worked with 3D materials in this way and certainly not a wire similar to this.
Challenges revolved around connecting pieces (and where I wanted to do so,) I challenged myself not to cut the wire for the first part of building it, and don’t believe I had the tools to do so either way. Another challenge was that with having built the ‘frame’ mostly as one piece, going right up to the tongue and top of the shoe, it was challenging to work with and always view from the angle that I needed to work with on other parts, being that normally it is mostly stationary on a desk, but while working, a lot of movement was required. It’s certainly maybe easier to leave certain stages of the work, like latching it onto the main piece, closer to the end, and yet usually by halfway through this process of trying to angle it correctly, I find having it connected to the piece allows me to view it more like I’m completing a 3D ‘picture.’ Still, one could compare by size and still achieve a similar or same effect with maybe less trouble moving things around.
Although sometimes I had to choose between keeping the forms functional in that the volume of the shoe wouldn’t collapse in on itself, and details could be preserved (like the bottom rim of the shoe that I chose to incorporate,) overall I was pleased, and because the piece is this expressive and energetic, it didn’t take away from how I view the entire sculpture at all.
Laces were intentionally latched on to be loose, but to hold onto their other wire ‘counterparts’ that are made up of pieces that belong to the main mass of the shoe. Working with this material, I was surprised that perhaps by having a 3D model directly in front of me, imagining the overall shapes that I had to work with and could build upon, keep or lose, was not as difficult as I once thought, and also allowed for creativity.
This was a great project to work on with my hands and was something I was surprised to actually enjoy. It kept my mind focusing on something productive, and was a great way to just lose time while having an end goal in mind. I feel like this is the kind of feeling people without a hobby or crafters pine after, and certainly having a busy mind it was a helpful practice. It felt similar to putting a puzzle together, except that puzzle is 3D and instead we have an opportunity to create a sort of duplicate or replica of something that already exists, but to put our own unique spin on it. It felt like a good introduction to working with 3D materials for me.
