Exploration

Hello once again!!!

I have been busy this week cutting some more books (on the band saw thankfully) as well as exploring new ways to put the books on the wall and other art pieces that go along with my concept.  So, here is a picture of my studio after the books have all been cut.

The pile on the left goes far back behind the box and there are more books to my left that aren't in this picture.  I am basically swimming in these books.  So, originally I was hanging the books one by one with a dow rod in the wall, which works perfectly fine.  However, it is extremely time consuming and makes me nervous when it comes time for me to set up the show (especially since we have to do it twice).  After expressing my woes to my professor he suggested I merely glue the books to a piece of wood and create a much smaller amount of pieces to hang.  I would then screw these wood pieces into the wall.  I will tell you this...I had just seen the light.  It was a simple solution for a complex problem.  My only concern was that the backs of the books that would be against the wood did not have that much surface area, which means less room for a secure and stable connection.  

So, I did a test with three different glues on a square piece of wood.

 

I glued them for a couple days flat on the floor and then I hung them on the wall.  The results were that they all stayed put.  So, I covered the whole wood piece and I just hung it on the wall today so we will see how they hold up.

This is another set of things I am working on, which I am super excited about.  I am pouring polyurethane into this silicone mold and placing words on paper and images into them.  They take about a week to dry, but in the end it is a really cool effect. 

 

Every time that I have a memory about my grandma I have been writing down what sparked the memory.  When it is in the mold it looks like I am preserving or freezing that memory in time.  The images are all pictures of my past or my grandmothers.

Here are some of the dried ones so far.  They almost remind me of a scientific preservation or even a planned inventory of memory.  I can imagine giving each one a code or exhibit name just as scientists and historians code their belongings so as to remember and identify everything in a organized and rather non-personal way.  It will be interesting to view these that way since most of my work is delving into the  personal, whereas this is taking it personal then forcing me to step back.

Here are some close ups of the pieces:

This one in particular is my favorite.  You can see the image really well and when I hold it up to the light it has a really intriguing look.  I also feel like these pieces have a haunting look to them.  They appear to be looking at a time that no longer exists and a faint memory of it (which is my concept...so it worked out well).

 I can't wait to see the drying ones next week, and I will make sure to show them to you soon.

Rachel