ASU2. SNU And the first glass in and out of its box and the extra slush wax casts ... the samples that didn't get made into bronze casts. And the glass that got broken during the mould making process leaving me with a shell (the mould) and the broken parts of itself that will no doubt get used and used again. For the time being i have not washed off the dirt from its journey to what it is now, i think it has a poetry all of its own. 

SNU. ASU2. It is hard to know if this is both SNU and ASU2 or just ASU2. I could scratch a line through the mould making and say that although it was learning and related to the SNU driving theme, the printmaking skills could form one body of work, and the mould making and casting another. I felt that i needed to work with both as i built up to the master project which i expected to be doing in May, June and July. The story themes had begun to intertwine at this point and the work i was making became less clearly one module or the other. This i think is the nature of life there are overlaps, meeting points, and comings together, for sure division and stretch are also a part of life but connections seem to naturally happen without ask or effort if nature is let be. 
I thought to make a mould of two parts of a glass, hoping to remake the stem which i have lost sometime along the way. There is something about making things good again that i like and i looked at repairs and mending when studying my BA in Textiles. And if we fall, we get up and start over again. This has something of a resurrection feel about it. And resurrection is part and parcel of coming back from grief i think, a hallelujah i'm alive feeling that is the spark of life reigniting, the desire re-emerging.  
I took these two parts of the glass, the bowl and the base, and made two two-part moulds of them. This involves making a square frame with boards and clamps and packing clay around one half of the object, mixing plaster, pouring it and then waiting till it goes off (sets) when the packed clay is removed and the half mould plaster covered with clay slip to stop it sticking to the other side of the plaster mould. Its also important to seal the base of the boards and any gaps with a squidge of clay because otherwise the plaster, being initially fluid, runs through anywhere that it can. This happened with my first mould. 
I was pleased with the outcomes of these moulds but when trying to set the slush wax casts on cups to be invested for bronze i realised that my plan to build a stem from a riser and then twine a thorn twig around was not going to work as the joins would be too flimsy and the thorns were not pliable enough to be used in the way i had hoped. 
So i took another glass in, a very beautiful glass, unbroken, thinking that if i started with unbroken the stem would be stronger. But sadly this glass broke in the mould-making, first the stem and then the bowl. I was sad about this, both the glasses were relics from my grandparents house, they'd sat in a cabinet in their dining room and came to me after they died. Because of this i took the pieces home and made boxes for them referencing the chests that held relics of saints and of christ in the middle ages. The boxes the glasses are in are simple boxes made from recycled card but i may explore box making further on in time. 
The second glass was made in three part mould which meant that the bowl held its precise shape inside and out. I have made two and three part mould before but i wanted to jog my memory again in prep for the masters project should my leaning to make something require these skills. Just before the deadline for investment i was able to prepare two slush wax whole glasses, two slush wax bowls, and one base and all these came out intact tho' i only had time to saw them free before taking them home before covid19 lockdown. I also made 5 spare slush wax bowls and two stems as i was sampling the thickness of wax that i wanted, the heat to pour the wax the how long to leave it in the wet plaster  mould before pouring it out. I would ideally have spent more time doing this, learning my material. 

SNU. ASU2. And while the CMYK screen still existed i figured it would be worth trying out colours that weren't Cyan, Magenta, Yellow and Black. I went again into my childhood and used colours from the book "Wings on a Wednesday". This is a picture book about a little girl, Hatty, whose mother takes her to see Aunt Zoe every Wednesday. When they get to Aunt Zoe's Aunt Zoe says "fly out of the room like a good little bird and let me have a nice long chat with your mother". The little girl goes to see the cross parrot in the garden. The cross parrot has feathers of pink and pinky-orange; yellow and yellowy-gold; red and ruby-red. One day Hatty finds one and then another and she starts to build some wings. And then every Wednesday she really does fly. The feathers connect to the seagulls as yet no more than an idea and also the bronze feather that i kept trying and failing to make. 
Feathers also connect to Jon and the book has a theme of gardens, flight, escape, friendship, otherness, wonder, home. I guess these things tie in to my love affair with Jon. It is how it felt being with him. Creative paths like water are bound by that which surrounds them. Because remember the start of the SNU project began with giving Jon place, so that he was felt but not burdensome, could be without stopping me being. Coming back to the seed idea of a project is grounding, gives the project home. 
And at the same time as all of the past few blog happening were going on i was applying for exhibitions and other things and still working on the St Martin's collaborative project with the UEA Business School students. This involved, 2 more afternoon meetings at the UEA and a presentation at NUA. There was also a hoo ha going on all around about this time but i've blogged about it before so don't need to repeat myself. But thinking about home i made a small etching from a piece of glass i found on the pavement shaped like a child's drawing of a house and an embossed print that sadly broke the glass. 
A broken theme connects both the SNU and ASU2 projects and also, i think, the homelessness project. Broken hearts, broken bodies, broken trust, broken contracts, broken lives.