Wire Sculpture

For this unit we started with a new material, wire, to sculpt with. Within minutes of our first formative, this material was a struggle for me. We first were instructed to cut a piece of wire into ten pieces and then re-connect them into a line that stood straight up. For this whole unit, the only connection we could use was the fish hook connection. Fish hook connection is when you use the needle head nose pliers and put the tip of the pliers to the tip of the needle, and rotate the wire while pressing it into your thumb until you are satisfied with the size of your hook. Once you have two hooks to connect them together you have to hook the two hooks together, and squeeze them until they make a tight knot shape connection between the two pieces of wire. I struggles the most with the tightening process of this project because you had to tighten the wire at all different angles to make the wire stand up straight. For the first formative, I really struggled with this, but for the second formative I had better handle on it. The second formative we were getting more into the building process instead of the connection process, and asked to construct a cube. At first I really struggled with this because I wasn't able to get all my squares to tighten without them moving while I was tightening them. I spent a whole class on my first cube and by the end I was getting really frustrated with it. I ended up starting over, which was a really good choice for me because I was able to make a better stable cube the second time, the more I got used to using the material. For my summative I decided to sculpt a mug. At first I wanted to create my elephant mug that I had at home but I knew I wouldn't have enough time to work on my elephant because the structure took too long. I started by building my two circles, one for the base and one for the top. The I cut straight line supports to start the shape of my cylinder. This part went pretty smoothly. Then I started on my handle. This was the hardest part of my project because I had to connect it to both the top and the bottom of my sphere. Eventually after a long struggle I was able to do this. Finally I constructed an inner circle to the bottom to give it a 3D look. Then I connected wire all the way across the bottom and my mug was done. Overall I am pretty happy with the outcome of my piece in comparison to my first project with wire. If I were to change one thing, I wish i had had more time to add more details to my mug to improve the sculpture.