Paper Sculpture

Artist statement

For this first sculptural piece of the course, I was instructed to use entirely and solely paper, preferably a solid color, however any textures or thicknesses were allowed. The piece was supposed to in some way reflect an emotion that I had felt in the last semester, and my thoughts immediately went to the Coronavirus and how it has impacted not only my life, but every last person in this world. I chose sentimental as the spark for my sculpture as throughout the last half year I have been really emotional in regards to my own life as well as others lives, and also nostalgic of the pre-lockdown times. I wanted to represent this sort of harsh soft, inside outside effect to reflect this feeling of being sentimental toward others, and putting on a tough face to support others, yet also melting on the inside and feeling sorry for myself. As I was brainstorming separate elements on what the past year reminded me of, I came to thinking of two random moments that are just sort of nostalgic and memorable to me. For one, I spent a large portion of my summer at Wolfes Neck farm, so in some way at first I wanted to represent the water and the trees there. After some more sketching, I pushed this idea aside and decided to go for a more abstract, architectural sculpture. I then thought of more simple items or moments that made me sentimental, which led to me to accordion folds, which reminded me of these terrible, terrible blinds at my great grandmothers house in Berlin. However, they remind me of her, my time in Berlin, and in general just a large portion of my life which was spent with my great grandmother. I still wanted to express this harsh and soft contrast that reflected my emotions throughout the last half year, so I combined the straight, harsh accordion folds with a sort wavy paper pieces, which were created by soaking the paper in water.

The beginning steps in this project were mainly just trying out and getting comfortable with using paper and the different ways it moves, bends, folds, and shapes. Without a concept or idea in mind, I started narrowing down techniques and shapes that I liked in the paper, which later allowed me to plan in balance and unity to the piece as I did not want it to look completely random. I then began sketching out ideas on how my folds of paper could interact to create an interesting composition, all the while trying to keep my emotion the center point of the piece. Once I had a basic concept, the rest was trial and error, so I essentially just started cutting shapes from the paper in my old sketchbook, as I liked the subtle off-white color and it kept good structure, and folding them. Once I had a couple of accordion folds, I started to put together a base for my sculptures, which then allowed me to test more pieces and scraps of paper against the folds to see the effect. I got more experimental the longer I worked, so I decided to try soaking strips of paper and molding them to take on these wave like shapes. The rest was simply trying out what looked good, unified, and balanced the pice and what offset the intention.

I was at a loss at the beginning of this assignment, especially since this was my first time really doing any sort of sculptural work, so this assignment really pushed and challenged me as an artist. From the very beginning, I had a basic idea of the way I liked and wanted the paper to look, this being having crisp, vertical lines and edges. From there I simply tried different things like folding or cutting and just in general trying out different techniques. My original idea, which was to create a sort of cutout that included water, rocks, trees, and fields, soon was pushed aside and I was motivated by thinking of the sculpture like an architectural model, as I wanted a very clean and modern product. I didn't practice or research much during the process of completing this assignment, I approached it more as an experimental piece which allowed me to just try different things. I did experiment with using water and paper to contrast my harsh edges as I wanted a smooth and wavy effect. I tried using more of the paper than simply the smooth rectangle, so I started cutting and folding the excess edge which holds the paper to the binding of the sketchbook, which added another texture to my piece.