Author Archives: matthew DG

About matthew DG

What I'm making & seeing & saying

Blue Woman build 2

I’ve done a lot of engineering in my head since the last post. I had to understand how to assemble this, whether or not and how it would dis-assemble for transport, what sort of attachment hardware to use, and the devising of support-attachment brackets to hold the sections securely together. As usual, I depend on the advice of a few good friends. One idea offered was that the assembly method should be true to the nature of plywood construction generally, as in furniture for instance, and that the whole thing could be “flat-packed”, disassembled for transportation. Really, it could be no harder to do that than making permanent fixed connections, so I’ll try.

The two halves of the body bolt onto a supporting rail which is glued to one half.

This is the bolt pattern.

Drill

Bolt

I’m using these “Tee nuts” everywhere for this project, which makes a clean installation I think. They get pounded into the wood. I used a ton of these when I built my climbing wall, and they work well. They’re strong and simple. I’m using all stainless steel hardware –live it up.

A brace to help out. It could be done a lot of ways. This is easy and it works.

The wedge shaped brackets which support the limbs to the body are designed to match the feeling of the whole sculpture, and are made from the same plywood material. This is an unglamorous part of sculpting, but this blog is meant for my own notes, and for the interest of other sculptors and makers.

Cutout 12” circles with the excellent Bosch saber saw.

Per design, mark for cutting the inner corner angle. The amount of angle has been measured from the model. There are 4 brackets for the limbs, one 90 degrees, two 65 degrees, and one 115 degrees. This is detailed work, but not too bad since the 90 is easy, there’s two 65’s and only one 115. This is the 90.

It’s hard to run a circular object through a table saw. If I was stupid, I’d run it through freehand and risk an accident. But also, the accuracy is not enough. Better to construct a jig to hold the piece in the right configuration to go through the saw straight and safe. Also, I have her watching and reminding me not to mess up.

Turn the piece over in the jig, and cut the second angle.

Cutting the angles for the 65s is a different orientation on the table saw because the angle of the blade won’t go over 45 degrees. Actually, this is easier than the last step.

A better way is to clamp it to a second piece. this keeps your fingers farther away from the blade, and it slides more smoothly through the saw.

I’m using the famous West System epoxy to glue these together. It will be super-strong, the joints don’t have to be perfect, and it is fast.

Also, cut out some semi circle wedges to give support to the brackets, per design.

Epoxy applied, clamping not necessary. Firm in 5 minutes and cured overnight.

There’s a fifth bracket for the attachment of the head at the angle where the two halves of the body meet. It also support the body parts. The small model doesn’t have this, so I don’t have a plan. Instead, I freehand with the saw from a cardboard template and measurements of the angles directly off the sculpture.

Blue Woman Build

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I’m happy to say that Blue Woman will be made of mostly salvaged/recycled material. Passing by my favorite super-secret dumpster, I discovered six full sheets of high quality-finish plywood discarded. Enough for the entire project. This was on the afternoon after I’d committed the entry fee to participate in ArtPrize this year. Believe in Destiny?

Free stuff is still a lot of work to haul, cleanup, and make useful. That stuff is heavy, and my back is broken down.

Setup your workspace.

Using templates made from the model, blow up the design to size.

My model is one-sixth the intended size. That size is determined by the size of the largest piece that will fit out of a 4×8 plywood sheet. Trace the pieces out onto the materials and, using your nice Bosch saber saw, and a steady hand, cut them out. Let the tool do the cutting.

The trick is now to attach all these pieces together. The foam-core model was easily built using only hot-glue. This full size sculpture will need reinforcements at the corners, glue, nuts and bolts, and particular wedge-shaped brackets to get everything to hold together solidly.

Blue Woman

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There’s many sculptors who’ve worked with metal cut-out shapes. Calder is the one that comes to mind, and Picasso, Gonzales, Smith, Russian Constructivists, Oldenburg, a lot of Minimalists. There’s much to like, but I’d always held a reservation that cut-outs were a shortcut to sculpture, not real sculpture, and somewhat of a 2D interpretation of sculpture, like what a painter would make if asked to sculpt something.

Then I saw some works by Adolph Gottlieb last Fall at the UM Art Museum here in town. Definitely a painter, clearly derived from his painting, and something that I really enjoyed looking at. I accepted the idea that sculpture of this type is derived from drawing, and that is it’s purpose; to set itself off of the flat page into a sort of optical space that is still not fully three-dimensional. A kind of a visual image of space, not real space itself. So that’s what it is, and I decided to see if I could come up with a work for this medium.

I’ve been occupied by the idea of the Venus-Woman reclining-Nude over the Winter, produced a model for a carving in wood to do, which I haven’t started, and thought; can I also take this into a flat space and do it differently too? So I began with some drawings.

And then models, of what else, cut-out cardboard, no really, foam-core, which is what after all? – status cardboard. A small one- 8”

A larger one- 16”, but slightly awkward-

And one more, with a shorter body and better proportions – 14”

Along the way I decided she would be laying down, in the classic reclining pose. And Blue, the color of infinity, the sky & water.

So I like this, and I’m seriously planning making a larger, out of plywood, about the size of a large coffee-table or couch, and painted blue, Infinity Blue. Infinity Blue Woman.

Rooster casts

uncertainty

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Why can I work with such certainty on intricate involving processes, but being spontaneous seems so difficult and confusing? You know how I work – being on step 37 of 77 gives me the structure of confidence to create without doubts about the outcome; the process covers up the reluctance to commitment to an idea and creates faith in the eventual results, brick-by-brick. But trying to be serendipitous with a new material and different imagery, means not completely knowing the ground you stand on, and wondering where you’re at and what’s next, much less, “is it finished?”

The Winter was so cold, I didn’t get out to my shop much. Even with the wood stove, I couldn’t get warm enough to work. But I did some drawings inside, on canvas, aside from the Venus idea I’ve shown here, that I’ll probably do as a wood carving. It’s underway whenever I can get to the tree trimmer’s and see what they’ll find for me, now that the snow’s melted

Meanwhile, this other thing showed up. I was drawing Roosters. Roosters, really, I don’t know why.

My guess is, once you’ve proposed the universal Feminine principal, that it must inevitably call forth the Masculine element.

Venus designing

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To build a larger sculpture from a small clay sketch uses some strategy to make the enlargement work without distorting to design. It’s said the Henry Moore worked his designs out in the size of something which could be held in his hand. That size is very helpful since the object can easily be turned in the hands and all sides studied and worked on evenly, and the contact of the hand, the Great Tool, is equal on all the parts of the object.

My way is to convert a small clay model into a design plan which I can measure and build from. To try and measure accurately from a small model and make enlargements of dimensions is too inaccurate. The model is freehand, and not symmetric, the enlargement scale is too great. I want to derive a schematic drawing which has the essentials of the design laid-out accurately on a grid, which can be enlarged and dimensioned from as needed when building the sculpture. I know my friends in digital computer 3D modeling are appalled, but this is an ancient tried-and-true method of building, anything, from a simple plan or sketch. As well, this design work will help me if I choose to also produce a 3D model, since the proportions of the design are already set down.

I’m working from my last idea, which has taken on the identity of a Venus, or else a proto-woman. I had hesitation about this, but I did get approval from women about it so of course I’m going ahead.

Take clear photos of the model, front, side, back, top, and bottom. Use a deep focal length to flatten out the image and reduce the perspective.

Open then in some software, maybe Photoshop, stack them up in with some transparency, and scale and rotate them so they’re even and of consistent size and orientation.

Then, lay them out in graphic design software, maybe Illustrator, and set some guidelines across their common points of reference.

Draw the design over the images, constructing from the reference points. The image is just a suggestion, you’re creating a new design, not just tracing the image exactly.

With judgment, refine and clean up the drawing.

Turn off the images layer, turn on a grid. And perhaps you have a useful schematic,

..which you can blow up to any size, print out, measure from, and trace onto any material, say, a block of wood, prepared for carving.

On tracks

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I haven’t been doing nothing; I liked having a show and getting all that attention so much that I applied for another one. Aside from the work in the last show, I have other things which have never or rarely been shown publicly. This is a collection I call the “colossi” because they’re all over 15 feet – among which are two inflatables, portable and easy to put up, if you have the space.

I thought about a partner to show with. I have a friend, John Harnois, a photographer, with whom I talked often over the years about applying for a show together at the Buckham Gallery in Flint. John also has some very interesting older work which has stayed in my mind. This work he calls the “Acrobat Series”, is nudes photographed with a panoramic camera. Although, what he’s best known for is selling his hand-raised chickens and eggs at the Ann Arbor farmer’s market.

And since it’s the age of internet communications, thank god galleries don’t require you to submit tedious proposals, resumes and statements, but accept webpages about your cooked-up ideas. See: http://colossiartshow.wordpress.com/ for John and my proposal. We probably won’t get it, but we try.

John’s voluptuous, factual, nudes have got me thinking – I’ve have a rough idea for new sculpture in wood to do, and what if I worked it along in the feeling of his oh-so literal nudes? My work’s ordinarily so cute and de-sexualized – what if?

I began with some notebook sketches I’ve had, called “Baby”.

Did some more drawings, this time a woman, a genuine reclining nude. So classic, no?

Progressing to some clay models.

I have a piece of cottonwood I’ve been saving for something to do. It should carve like styrofoam, or should I use real wood? Am I going to build this? I don’t know. Is it too weird?

matthew DG

Whatever I'm doing & sculpture