This page contains a Flash digital edition of a book.
S


p 21 ugh the eyes of a student


The more I learned from my classes, the more it fuelled my desire to experiment with other forms of sculpture. I especially wanted to learn more about working with metal thanks to Mr. Muzyka, (my high school welding instructor) which led me to researching bronze sculpture and eventually led to meeting Jock Hildebrand. My meeting with Jock at his studio/ foundry led to a lot of questions (asked by me) about his work and process, and to his disbelief that I had not been taught how to make molds! I also met local Lake Country sculptor Chris Malmkvist and he encouraged me to just dig in and try stone sculpting.


The welding shop at UBCO has a spectacular workspace and great technician Don Lyons, but just not enough access for me. There were so many more things I wanted to experiment with but there was only one room for working in and the space was also used as a classroom during which time I could not do work (as it usually involved me making noise). For me, this was an inconvenience when comparing this to the four rooms for drawing and painting and another four labs for computer based classes.


For my first 3D class I was lucky enough to have Byron Johnston as a professor who helped me by refining ideas, providing feedback, giving me extra working time, and simply being a spectacular person. For the second project for our 3D class, we were to design a piece that could be created from any material and medium but had to fit inside a cage and be within half an inch of, and not touching, ten rods inserted into the cage at various locations. The “Rods of Truth” was Byron’s test to see what we could produce and


for this I made a “badass lobster” as dubbed by the class. This was my experiment for blacksmithing, as previously I had made a steel rose which was my first attempt at working with metal. This “Monster” was created with mild steel and copper using a hammer and Oxy-acetylene system. I dedicated all my spare time to this project while balancing my other classes and having to work around the other instructions that took place in the welding lab.


The lessons from this project showed that even with limited shop time I could still create some great projects. A chair project in the second semester equally consumed my life as I passionately spent the last 48 hours solid working on the project in order to finish it. From this I was able to conclude that my interest in 3D form was definitely growing, but I felt that the restrictions placed on students to access the shop was also restricting my creative growth. The scheduled shop hours limited what I could do as most of my classes were during the hours it was open, and the equipment was locked during the weekends, which was the best time to work as there were never any interruptions. Ideally, I would love free access to the facilities year round!


The best example of this was for the summer 2D class I recently took. I wanted to expand the process and incorporate metal and wood in my final piece. This brings me back to my opening description of hauling an I-beam from Action Metals to a bus stop nearly two kilometers away. During the winter term I experimented with inlaying other metals into steel and found that inlaying copper into steel makes great line


Page 1  |  Page 2  |  Page 3  |  Page 4  |  Page 5  |  Page 6  |  Page 7  |  Page 8  |  Page 9  |  Page 10  |  Page 11  |  Page 12  |  Page 13  |  Page 14  |  Page 15  |  Page 16  |  Page 17  |  Page 18  |  Page 19  |  Page 20  |  Page 21  |  Page 22  |  Page 23  |  Page 24  |  Page 25  |  Page 26  |  Page 27  |  Page 28  |  Page 29  |  Page 30  |  Page 31  |  Page 32  |  Page 33  |  Page 34  |  Page 35  |  Page 36  |  Page 37  |  Page 38  |  Page 39  |  Page 40  |  Page 41  |  Page 42