In Search Of Inspriation

Recently I have really been struggling with my project. I don’t know what it is, lack of confidence, over thinking what I’m trying to do or a combination of the two. The truth of the matter is… I HAVE ARTISTS BLOCK! And try as hard as I might, I just can’t seem to shake it off.

The other day I went to Miguel’s sculpture workshop. Didn’t know what I wanted to do really. All I knew was that I had a piece of soap, and I wanted an epiphany. Simple as. I sat down and thought to myself, ‘ I’m doing portraiture so I guess I should carve a face or something.’ Then Miguel came over and explained how the material we are using can be just as important as the object we create, and questioned why I was planning on carving a face out of a piece of soap. To which I responded with the infamous confused student response, ‘Eerrrrrrrrrm?’

To make it clearer for me he took the soap from me and asked ‘What does a piece represent?’

‘Cleanliness!!’ (well it dooooes!) but this wasn’t the answer he was looking for. He was holding the piece of soap. So by leaving one side of the soap as it was originally, and by carving my fingers into the other side, as if I was holding it I created a new object. A kind of portrait through transforming an everyday object. This was a really inspirational concept for me. I suddenly felt like I had some direction. It wasn’t necessarily the path I could see myself finishing on, but it was a start.

This idea was reinforced in Rick’s workshop later that week. Where I used my palette as a canvas and created a painting. I did realise after however that my palette was actually a porcelain plate, so maybe its meaning wasn’t as clear as I initially thought. It did however begin to make me think about what I could attempt with this idea and made me want to research into it further.

 'Lick and Lather' by Janine Antoni

'Bed' by Antony Gormley