Submitted 'Undeliverable Letters' to the RA

 I finally got v4 of the piece done to my satisfaction (including a stand) and took pictures and submitted to the RA site:

I'd forgotten that the RA don't let you submit any sort of description for the piece, which I guess is fair enough, but does mean that the piece has to stand-alone.... Hopefully they will be interested enough by the text to look a bit closer, and fathom some of the meaning, although a lot of the nuance is lost... But aren't I always the one saying pieces of VISUAL art shouldn't rely on TEXTUAL descriptions?

I'm not particularly optimistic of my chances - people submit every year and go decades before getting in - but I'm pleased with the piece, and it pushed me to do more and better... There's something wonderfully unsettling/alive about the closed eyes - when I lent in to take a photo, I had the strange unease that they were about to open!

Prototyping was again important - it took 4 attempts to get to a place where I was happy (and about to run out of time!):

The first one taught me that 'casting' paper mache in layers is possible, and was sacrificed to prove that applying the text AFTER the mask was de-moulded didn't work well. The technique is basically to smear the pieced with undiluted PVA and lay them in overlapping patches on the inside of the mould. Bigger pieces for flatter areas, smaller pieces for more curved areas, as usual.

The second proved that the text survived being cast and made me realise that I needed to apply 'loose' scraps of paper afterwards, as the mask was quite dull without it. The second one also demonstrated the importance of applying different text densities to different areas, of orientating the text the same, and of using all the same paper. Finally the second one bought me some time to make while I waited for the wonderful volunteers to complete their real letters. 

The third one SHOULD have been the final product, but having finished it and de-moulded it, I realised I had exactly the wrong idea about where the denser, typed letter should go - putting it around the eyes made it very hard to see the detail of the eyes, and that the lids are closed.

The fourth and final mask was made in a bit of a low-level panic, but with the least-dense script around the eyes, and the most densely marked paper around the outside. I was also pleased that I was able to stand-back and see problems with the balance of the marking in a fairly intuitive way - definitely something I would have struggled with two years ago where I would have been able to see that something was 'off' but not what.

Time now to sit back (ha ha, I never sit back) and wait for the inevitable rejection in March.