Wire Sculpture

Artist statement:

For this project, I decided to create a llama. Going into this project I had no idea what I wanted to base my piece off of, I decided to create the closest thing around me at the time which was this llama stuffed animal. This llama in particular is very special to me because I got it on my birthday the year after a good friend passed away. This llama was gifted to me with one of his necklaces that he used to wear every day, and still to this day I keep the necklace around the llama's neck. When I started to create the llama I added a few different elements to it. First of all, I did change the position of the legs because I tried to make the legs accurate to how they were on the stuffed animal, but the problem with that is that it was too top-heavy particularly in the front where its head is. So I changed where the legs were and how they looked because I started to run out of wire. I then decided to add beads as the hoofs and a few on the back to look like a spine because I wanted there to be some connections to the necklace the original llama is wearing.

The materials I used for this project were 20 gauge wire, copper wire, a few different beads, and needle-nosed pliers. I do have some experience using wire because I make jewelry, but I don't think I have ever used this thick of wire before. For the connections I mostly stuck with the simple "u" connections, there were a few places such as attaching the legs where it was more of a wrap-around. I mostly used the copper wire to first hold my pieces in place before I used the thicker wire to permanently place it. I also used copper wire to attach the beads to the base.

The physical process of creating this piece was quite long. Like I said before I didn't really plan what I was going to make, and I did run into a few along the way. When I knew what I wanted to do the first thing I did was I broke the object into its simple shapes and sketched out each component that I needed to make. Then the process of cutting, placing, and securing each piece was extremely time-consuming, but I did it while watching a show so I didn't mind as much. Some of the biggest problems that I faced were towards the end of the project, my piece was too top-heavy and I started to run out of wire and didn't have any more at home. Overall I am somewhat satisfied with how my piece turned out. If I was doing it on my own time and had more of a thought-out plan I think I would have liked the piece more.