ART 3711 SCULPTURE: Materials and Methods

Anthony Castronovo, Professor
The University of Florida
Fall Semester 2008

Meeting Times: T R 5-7 (3:00-6:00 PM)
Office: B-3 FAC
Telephone: 392-0201 ext.?
e-mail: castronovo@ufl.edu
Office Hours: T R 11-11:30 AM or by appointment

YOU MUST WEAR CLOSED TOE SHOES TO CLASS FOR THE DURATION OF THIS PROJECT. YOU MUST ALWAYS WEAR CLOSED TOE SHOES IN THE SCULPTURE SHOPS. PLEASE KEEP AN EXTRA PAIR IN YOUR LOCKER.

PASSAGES: THE WOOD PROJECT


The purpose of this project is two-fold: First, to introduce you to most of the equipment available to you in the Sculpture Shop relating to woodworking. Second, and more importantly, to introduce you to the properties and possibilities of wood as a sculptural material and to introduce you to artists in modern and contemporary sculpture who are using this material in new and exciting ways.


Our readings will focus on historical periods relating to post-minimalism, process art, arte povera, and Japanese sculpture where the materiality of wood has played a prominent role in sculpture and architecture. Shigeo Toya. Your first assignment is to read/look as much as you possibly can and to continue reading and looking throughout the semester at all of the many ways in which wood is used in art and culture.


Go to the library before Thursday August 30. Look at the images in the books on reserve: Martin Puryear; Louise Bourgeois: The Early Work; Richard Deacon; Cristina Iglesias; Primal Spirit: Contemporary Japanese Sculptors; Contemporary Japanese Sculpture; Jackie Winsor; there may be more as we go on. Some of these books may not be on reserve yet. Find an artist whose work Look at what is there.




Read the assigned readings as required by due dates. Write responses as due.

PART #1: LETTER/SYMBOL/JOINT

 

look into the work of Xu Bing for creating symbols


In this exercise you will make a letter or symbol (See above. See reading on Tapies and Raymond Llull) using one type of wood joint and in the process be introduced to some of the major woodworking equipment in the Sculpture Shop including the table saw, band saw, joiner, planer, chisels, chop saw, and sanders. You will learn how to use measuring tools and how to properly prepare wood measurements for cutting. You will learn how to prepare wood stock for woodworking projects and how to make effective and elegant wood joints.


“At a relatively early stage in his career Tapies decided to position his work in relation to four essential references: Ramon Llull, Jakob Boehme, Antoni Gaudi, and Max Ernst. Ramon Llull (1232-1315), the universal mediaeval genius, theologian, philosopher, poet, missionary and scientist, is practically a national saint in Catalonia, whose work Ars compendiosa inveniendi veritatem seu Ars magna et maior was supposed to comprise the various branches of wisdom, granting men the ability to advance towards knowledge and truth as much as to compose poetry.


Under Llull’s influence, Tapies considered that painting was a way of reflecting on life and of helping the beholder to see what the artist had already seen, for, as he wrote in La practica del arte, “a man devoid of images, of imagination and of the sensitivity required to trigger associations of ideas and feelings, will be unable to create anything.” Llull resorted particularly to “figures of meaning”, that is to say, to letters as a medium with which “to copy mental figures”. In his treatise Ars magna he privileges seven geometric figures which he calls A, S, T, V, X, Y and Z.


These very letters appear in a number of works by Tapies whose favorite capitals are the A (the figure of essential dignities) and the T (that represents the principles of distinction of meaning). To Llull’s seven figures Tapies adds the M, the sign of will. The artist relates the letters A and T of course to his own initials, and to those of his wife Teresa. In 1986 Tapies published a series of etchings dedicated to the Ramon Llull writings that had inspired a number of artists in the sphere of Surrealism, a movement Tapies himself had been attracted to in the forties and fifties.” (Antoni Tapies, Ediciones Poligrafa, Barcelona)


MATERIALS:

The Shop will provide you with basic wood materials FOR THE EXERCISE. Brad Smith will lead the shop orientation and demonstrate one type of joint. This may be a refresher for some of you. You will then choose the joint you want to make. Bring your own measuring tools such as a tape measure, metal ruler, sharpened pencil, along with your drawing to scale or your maquette to scale of your letter/symbol.


Wood Technology Readings


A chart of numerous wood joints. You will have to complete only one of the joints. Find and circle the joints on the chart that interest you. Those of you who have already learned specific joints in other sculpture classes, please choose a joint you do not know. Given your design, discuss other possibilities with Brad.



PART II: PASSAGES: THE WOOD PROJECT



“The material itself, stone or wood, does not interest me as such. It is a means; it is not an end. You do not make sculpture because you like wood. That is absurd. You make sculpture because the wood allows you to express something that another material does not allow you to.”

-Louise Bourgeois, Interview by Donald Kuspit.


Based upon the readings, presentations in class, discussions and your own research, write a proposal, make a drawing/design (not just a sketch), make a maquette, and create a wood sculpture that integrates the concept of Passage.


What is a passage?


Thirty spokes gathered at each hub:

absence makes the cart work.

A storage jar fashioned out of clay:

Absence makes the jar work

Doors and windows cut in a house:

Absence makes the house work

Presence gives things their value,

but absence makes them work.

-Lao Tzu, Tao Te Ching, No. 11



“The primal generative process revered by those earliest of Chinese sages takes on new dimensions in Lao Tzu’s Tao, dimensions that carry it into realms we now speak of as ontology and ecology, cosmology, phenomenology, and social philosophy. Tao originally meant “way,” as in “pathway” or “roadway,” and Lao Tzu recast it as a spiritual Way by using it to describe that inexplicable generative force seen as an ongoing process (hence a “Way). This Way might be provisionally described as a kind of generative ontological process through which all things arise and pass away, and Lao Tzu’s way is to dwell as a part of that natural process. In that dwelling, self is but a fleeting form taken on by earth’s process of change.” (David Hinton, Introduction to Tao Te Ching, 2000, Counterpoint Books, p.x)


“Look at the simplest object. Look, for example, at an old chair. It does not seem to be much. But think about the whole universe that it contains: the hands and the sweat of the person who carved the wood which was once a robust tree, full of energy, in the middle of a thick forest high up in the mountains; the loving work of the person who built it; the pleasure of the person who bought it; the weariness it comforted; the pains and the joys which it probably supported in a great living room, or maybe in a poor dining room in a working class suburb. All, absolutely all of that represents life and has importance. Even the oldest chair carries in it the sap which, far away in the forest, rose from the earth and which will still serve to give heat the day when, having become mere pieces of wood, it will burn in a fireplace.” (quote by Antoni Tapies, Catalogue, Martha Jackson Gallery, NY, 1975)





SCHEDULE:


WOOD PROJECT


Aug.26 Introduction to course. First Project introduced. Shop Orientation with Brad Smith. Locker and storage assignments. Assignments given out for Tues. Aug. 28 on letter/symbol exercise.


Aug. 28 Demonstration by Brad Smith on one joint. Discussion of possible joint solutions for letter/symbol designs. Begin work in shop. Discussion of one Reading.


Sep.2 Continuation of letter/symbol joint exercise. Must be completed today or outside of class prior to Sept. 2. Discussion of one Reading and slide viewing. Begin discussion of next project, Passages.


Sept.4 Proposals for Passages due, this includes detailed drawing, scale, materials, sizes. Group discussion of proposals. Discussion with Brad Smith before 5:00 pm of possible problems to look out for. Continuation of discussion and project revisions until 6:00 pm. Discussion of another reading if time remains.


Sept. 9 All materials must be with you and you must be ready to begin the Passages project. Final discussion of remaining readings.


Sept. 11 Intense work in wood shop.


Sept. 16 Intense work in wood shop


Sept. 18 Intense work in wood shop. Mid project review.


Sept. 23 Intense work in wood shop


Sept. 25 Intense work in wood shop


Sept. 30 Project Due. Critique. Mandatory attendance.