Wearable Sculpture

A Pirate's Life: An Artist's Reflection

This sculpture was inspired by the simple paper pirate hat which my father taught me how to make. It is a minimalistic craft that requires few materials and few directions. Quickly I was able to make my paper hat form along with several other paper hats for other students in the class. In the meantime I thought about what I wanted my project to say to people. I reached my conclusion, by then most of the class had newspaper hats.

It was important to me that my project said "pirates are not scary or cruel always".

It was important to me that my project said "pirates can be jocular or fantastical."

As it stands now, I am pleased with what my project says. I am not, however, totally pleased with the visual aspects of the art itself. Mostly I covered the frame with cardboard then with cloth which I hot glued. In addition to the cloth cover I built the forms of a mermaid, a parrot, and a scull out of newspaper and cloth. I attached them to the cloth on the hat. Whenever I chose cloth I always looked for brighter patters.

All told the project ended up much rougher than I had hoped, but being a pirate is a rough profession.