I have finally gotten around to editing this thing, yay! Its only been, what, three months? Thats not soo terrible.
I posted last entry about the skull bottle casts. I'm really happy with how they turned out, and was able to complete a set of them for the Collective Echoes show in January. I put them up in the gallery under translucent porcelain, in the skulls tab.
Now I am working on something slightly different. I had talked with my professors, Walter and Matt about trying to cast more 3D tattoo imagery, and had started building prototypes to make molds of back in February. But Walter and I sat down and evaluated the process and we realized that to make molds of these forms would take waaaay more than a two or three part mold, which really won't work if I'm trying to cast translucently.
So after talking with Walter a little more we somehow ended up on the subject of balloons. I'd been thinking about casting porcelain balloons since some time during my sophomore or junior year. Translucent porcelain balloons with tattoo imagery just sounded absolutely perfect for the direction my work was headed in, so I dove right in.
Now, making a mold of a balloon is actually a little more complicated than it might seem. I thought I'd just build the clay base around it, pour the paster in, and voila- balloon mold. NOT SO. THe thing about balloons (especially the latex ones) is that they stretch; and move, and generally don't take very well to having things pushed up against them to make a water tight seal. So I had to get a little creative. I thought maybe if I filled the balloon with something, it would be more stable. Sand was out, because you can't actually fill a balloon too full with sand, it just kind of makes a stress ball shape, and then you can't fit any more. I tried plaster with a mylar balloon, but that ripped the seam and caused an ungodly mess. Something in my brain urged, try water balloons. So. On a whim, I filled a latex balloon with water, and dropped the thing in a cottle board shape full of wet plaster. And the thing FLOATED! Exactly half in and half out of the plaster. Now, I'm sure there's an actual scientific explanation for it, having to do with the density of water and the density of wet plaster, but I didn't care, I had figured it out! Kiayani came over to the mold making room from the main studio to see what the hell was going on, and she found me hooting and dancing around like a crazy person, and I didn't care a bit. After that I made two different shaped balloon molds and set to work casting and carving. You can see the results in the gallery labeled "Balloons" under the tab translucent porcelain. Or better yet, come to the show in May (opening the 7th, 7-9pm *cough*) and see them in person! =)
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