Project 2 - Autobiography

Sculpture project two was supposed to be an autobiographical piece. I racked my brain and finally decided that I'm not one thing I'm many things...I have all these little compartments: daughter, sister, wife, mother, grandmother, co-worker, friend...lots of things. This is the sketch my instructor & I discussed using. It was lots of "not pretty" compartments with pieces dangling off...because we all know I'm hanging by a thread most days! After much discussion and several days we decided that we were both (okay, mostly me) excited to try something a little different. And my answer was the QR code...all these little cubes that when put together created one giant piece of information. 

Here I am in QR code:

 Then I start the process of construction. Let's see, my code is 21x21 pixels that's 441 pixels read that as 441 1 7/16" wood blocks! Which means I made many, many...many cuts! Here is bucket #1 of blocks.








 And after a couple buckets it turns into a box o'blocks and then some more!

This is what happens if you try to take your work home and don't pay attention to the cat. 

Next came the actual fabrication...india ink, wood glue, liquid nails and clamps, oh my! The big hitch in my project was not thinking to break it down into small sections to build. I wasted days counting blocks to ink when I should have built each 7x7 square then combine them into the big picture. You can see here the different stages of the project, inking the individual blocks (note the really cool texture the india ink gave the wood grain, it looks like velvet), lining them up in a jig ready to glue, then clamped in the jig to dry, on the back left area you can see a couple squares glued but not cleaned up. 

And here is the final (or almost final) product. I added the little squares around the bigger one because I felt I needed more than just the code. Since, hopefully, you've scanned the big piece you know it says "I am karen." then it should make sense that the little pieces represent members of my family.  Each group of 9 blocks has an attached qr code for a different family member. Such as, one says "I am Betty. I am Karen's mother". Some have more information than others but they all have I am Karen's "whatever" in the text. 

I have to say this is probably one of my favorite finished projects. I love the interaction between the sculpture and the viewer. The geometrical shapes and the texture of the wood grain are two of my favorite things for any project. 

Note: I plan to make more family blocks to create a family tree.

My sister Linda, who will be the only one to read this, says I need to make up some with sayings on them like welcome, Martinez House est. 1983, OSU Cowboys even sayings or quotes to sell.

So many ideas, so little time!