Making Forms by Reduction, Continued 2018
One of my favorite art making past times is creating subjective reduction sculptures from various materials. The materials over the years have ranged from clay, foam core, plaster, wood, soap stone, alabaster, limestone and other synthetic materials. This is a new series created using balsa foam. Its an inexpensive very light weight synthetic material made up of micro fibers that are heat pressed together. In most cases artists will use metal rasps or even clay carving tools to reduce and shape the material. Im using both for these pieces in the blog post. I love the natural yellow color of the material but I will most likely paint them when the sanding and finishing has been completed.
I have my introduction to sculpture students work with this material as a contrasting follow up to carving and reducing a solid clay block. The process of working subjectively shows us that there are always new shapes and forms that can be brought to life in this 3D world that we live in. Not only that, the process reminds us that there will never be a replica created quite the same way.
