Progress

me cutting a tail section,
donning my Sea Shepherd hat
(it's pretty cold in the back of the studio)

 Today, I got the last of the 'ribs' for the whale cut.  Yep, that's right, the girl who has never really built anything before is making progress and finding a new love for power tools.  But there has been an annoying issue involving measurements which resolved itself this week.  You know that old saying 'measure twice, cut once'?  Well, for this project I started saying 'screw measuring and eyeball it.'  Somehow the simple task of taking my model whale sculpture and translating that into the imaginary cross section pieces that would make it and then translating that into 12 times the size went askew, leaving me wondering where I went wrong.  So, I ended up tracing pieces and making sure they made sense.  Right brain triumphs again!  I've included some photos finally. 






me and Kim planning out the first few sections



All in all it is going really well.  I am still toying with somne other ideas to incorporate for the project.  I found a label from whale meat marketed Greenland to use on the framework.  Greenland had started killing humpbacks, the same humpbacks that visit the Dominican Republic every year.  These could be one of the whales that I spent time with this past February.



one of the ribs set up in back and
my crazy blueprints











Next comes the fun part of actually putting the puzzle pieces together...then paper mache time.  If anybody wants to relive their elementary school days when paper mache was a staple art project, please come help!




I've also added a countdown clock to the blog  Nothing makes a person with a looming deadline more terrified than a novelty countdown clock reminding her of every precious second that passes!

More Construction

So there were not a whole lot of breakthroughs today, however Kim stopped by the studio to do a bit more of the work on cutting out the structures to make the frame.  It's so nice to have help, especially at the end of a normal work day. I had done a little bit of work this past weekend, so in just the past week the project went from a bunch of plywood to nearly 2/3 of the "ribs" cut out!  Nearly 20 feet of whale done, only 17 feet to go.  Today also involved some discussion of ways to make the entire project really successful in terms of raising funds to donate towards some of my favorite whale conservation organizations that combat whaling.  Hopefully I can get that organized in the next few days.


It is becoming very exciting to see it start to take shape after months upon months of planning, drawing, theorizing, and worrying about the possible disasters (not that the thought of the gallery wall falling down has kept me up at night or anything).  I will be in the studio working on it tomorrow and most days this week, so stop by to check out what's going on.  Oh, and a random guy at Kroger complimented my Sea Shepherd hat...kinda made my day.

Building a Whale

In the land of procrastination, I am the queen.  This blog to cover the progress of my life-sized relief sculpture of a humpback whale is grossly overdue.  Oh, for those who haven't heard, I am building relief sculpture of a humpback whale that is going to be about 37 feet long.  This project is going to be designed with a frame that is covered in whale meat labels from Japan, and the clay sculpture will be overtop of that.  The wet clay will crack and fall off of the frame over the duration of the art show, revealing the labels underneath.  This is my piece to protest whaling and hopefully raise awareness for the organizations working to put an end to the cruel practice.  If you are interested in helping out or donating to the project, please let me know.  I will be having a list of donors on this blog and at the show.

After weeks of prepping and buying plywood with varying degrees of success, the frame was started today.  With the help of my friend, Kim, we started making the internal structure!  I spent time measuring and drawing out the "ribs" that will give the whale its shape while Kim cut the pieces from plywood.  It actually went faster than I thought, which is making me less nauseated about the looming deadline of February 4th.  We will be working more on this upcoming Thursday, so stop by if you are in Funke Fired Arts to see the progress.  And I do promise pictures...