Finding Form: Lessons In the Making Process

An oak base being prepared for a sculpted form

One of the most exciting prospects of making new work for ‘Stillness & Storm’ was the chance to try my hand at sculpture. I’d always been curious to see how my painting and drawing practice might manifest as a three-dimensional object and now was the perfect opportunity to make that a reality. In my naivety, I thought that competency at painting and drawing would bleed into being able to create with my hands without much of a learning curve…how wrong I was! Starting from the Bottom I would be starting from scratch and any skills I had developed with painting and drawing had no correlation to the hand skills and understanding of materials that I would need to develop. Not only would working with materials like wood and metal require using different tools and developing new skills but also a new way of thinking and rhythm of working which could only be found through trial and error. I would quite rightly be starting at the bottom and acquire understanding through the only way possible, hard work and making mistakes which could slowly and incrementally be improved upon.

A wire armature used in one of the experimental tests

Dismantling the Ego Here lies the first lesson necessary in increasing your skills and that is to park your ego at the door. Just because you possess some ability in another discipline doesn’t mean you can bring that ability into another context. I had to find a way to make this work, an ugly, stumbling path forward until eventually something of value emerged. My conclusion was that to make this succeed, I needed to simplify my ideas and be realistic about what I could achieve. Simplicity is Never Simple I understood that my hand skills were limited and would continue to be this way by the time the exhibition arrived. With this reality at the forefront of my mind, I began sketching ideas related to a series of ink drawings I was producing titled ‘Perpetual Dance’ which feature flowing, rhythmical marks moving from left to right. I took inspiration from this form which mimicked the shape of rivers as they ebb and flow to serve as representations for the interconnection of order and chaos. My idea was to make a wire armature that could be fixed to a wooden base. The armature would twist and turn and be covered with a different material to create the form. It didn’t take long to realise even this seemingly simple idea was fraught with challenges. On day one, I was struggling to coil the wire armature with a power drill without the length of wire either being too inconsistent and loose or being put under too much tension and snapping. This task alone took a few days for me to be able to coil the wire to a sufficient standard.

'Perpetual Dance No. 1' Part of a series of ink drawing which have inspired sculpted forms

Finding the Right Materials Is Just the Beginning Even when the wire armature was fixed into the wooden base, there was still the need to create the form from another material. For weeks I struggled to make air-dry clay work as a viable option for these forms. At first, the clay seemed ideal as a cost effective and easily malleable way of covering the wire armature. However, what I realised was that what you gain in the ability to add mass quickly, you lose in potential issues encountered when drying. Not only does the air-dry clay need to dry evenly but it also needs to be stable throughout the structure. The reality is that there are areas of the armature that are stronger and weaker than others. The variation in areas of thick and thin and different levels of tension in the wire as it bends and twists all impact the way the clay dries. Even when taking precautions such as leaving the clay in a cool place and covering with plastic, cracking would occur.

A test piece using air-dry clay and a wire armature

After several tests and much frustration, I wondered if I would be able to use Milliput to create the form around the wire armature. Milliput is a two-part epoxy putty that dries rock hard and can be easily sanded, carved and painted. Most crucial of all, it doesn’t crack. I knew that I would need lots of Milliput to add the necessary mass to the armature even when using tinfoil to add the initial bulk. What I would lose in workability (clay being easier to shape initially) I would make back in the time necessary to correct mistakes.  Though I had found the right material for surrounding the armature, I was not yet ready to produce the final sculptures. It took going through a process of producing six small tests to be at the starting point of being able to tackle the finished sculptures. Even then, this felt like the minimum amount necessary to begin work on the finished sculptures.

All six tests pieces created in order to begin the final sculpted forms

Understanding and Respecting the Materials

The biggest lesson from this process is that ultimately, the materials dictate what you make. Understanding how the materials you are working with behave, what the strengths and weakness of those materials are and what you can and can’t do with them is crucial. You can’t force materials to possess characteristics that aren’t possible, your ideas must fit the materials and not the other way around.

One of the biggest influences on my working process for ‘Stillness & Storm’ has been the Taoist philosophical principle of ‘Wu-Wei’ which translates to ‘effortless action’ or ‘non-doing’. This principle teaches the need to work with rather than against nature. 'Wu-Wei' is about not forcing and controlling outcomes but accepting and working with your environment rather than against it.

It is likely that I am merely projecting this philosophical idea onto the making process, but this notion of not forcing seems to be pertinent and necessary to working with rather than against the materials. Respecting and accepting what these materials can and can’t do and how that aligns with your abilities and intentions seems to be the path of least resistance and the most positive way forward.

The final full-sized sculptural test piece using a wire armature, tin foil and Milliput putty

Research Links Lao Tzu - The Tao Te Ching Alan Watts - Tao: The Watercourse Way Milliput Putty