Plaster Hand

Artist Statement

Shake Me Up!

We started our plaster hands by sticking our fists in white alginate. We made molds and then poured plaster into them to harden. I painted my hand blue with watercolor paints, which were kind of scary because the water would just sink into the plaster, but I kind of like the splotchiness. Then, I made some little round heads in light colors out of sculpey. The orange netting is a clementine bag that I secured the end of and put the bobble heads in to. I then glued the net to the blue hand and drilled a hole so it could be easily hung up.

The process of the plaster hand making was really fun and interesting to me. It was a totally new technique and although there were a lot of steps I think I'd do it again. I like how realistic and how much detail is on the hand and I like the finished piece. Ms. Medsker helped me decide how to best present the hand and I like the idea of hanging something from it. I wanted it to be sort of interactive because if you shake the bag all the bobble heads wiggle around and I thought it was kind of fun. It represents how a group of people can be controlled by one larger thing and can be "shaken up" and effected pretty easily.