Plastic (not so) fantastic

Disclaimer: This is a bad idea, don't do this (and if you do, don't blame me for your subsequent respiratory issues)

Still mourning the 'loss' of epoxy, I've been looking around for alternatives. Somewhere along the line, I got the idea of seeing if I could recycle plastic into some form of fairly clear, hard, epoxy alternative. I did some research, and the general consensus was that this is a bad idea as many plastics don't melt, they degrade, giving off toxic fumes in the process...

However, never one to be deterred by common sense, I pushed on... It seems that Polyethylene terephthalate (PET) and Polypropylene (PP) are two of the safer plastics to melt. PET is by far the most common, so I settled on that. After collecting food containers marked with the PET recycling symbol, I discovered that there are further nuances to this - namely 'A-PET' and 'R-PET'. These are sub-types of PET, and while most things are just marked 'PET', they are useful because 'A-PET' is probably better than average, and 'R-PET' is probably worse... 'A-PET' is amorphous PET, which means it's less likely to crystallise and go white (see below). 'R-PET' is recycled PET, which means it's been through the ordeal once already and is less likely to go through it well a second time.

I found an old saucepan (Carolyn used to cook amazingly, I barely manage to cook at all, so there are lots of saucepans looking for a new career), and 'shredded' the PET containers into it as best I could. I started heating over a vigorous heat (I'm a vigorous kinda guy), with the window open and my daughter at school as vague nods to safety.

The PET began to turn white, without even starting to melt. I think this is because the PET is crystallising - the disorganised polymer chains are unionising and that turns the solid white. I decided to add a saucepan lid, and lower the heat. The good news was that the PET did start to melt and even turned clear, the bad news was:

• It turned white again when it cooled
• A lot of containers yielded a very small amount of liquid
• The molten PET is really viscous, making it very hard to work with (think cold honey)
• The molten PET solidifies almost as soon as the heat is removed, making it basically impossible to pour
• The solidified PET was very very sticky and almost impossible to remove from surfaces

The good news was that it was really hard once set, but also brittle, further suggesting it had crystallised.

I had a second attempt using even lower heat and the saucepan lid from the start, but with the same outcome:

The resulting 'vomit' of plastic is kinda cool, and so I did some experiments with it in GIMP and Blender:

However, overall, this hasn't been a huge success! I think I will try one more time using only PET bottles (which I'm hoping are better quality PET than the vegetable cartons) and if that doesn't work, I'll go back to putting my PET in the recycling like a good citizen.

Holey Face - a happy accident, or an accidental abomination?

 I created this:

What's interesting is that I didn't really intend to create it - it sort of happened by following a process of intuition and experimentation. Is it art? I don't know, but I find I can't stop engaging with it - it is both horrific and sad and beautiful at the same time. The 'face' is plaster, the red is velvet. I didn't intend it to shock, but rather to express something deeply painful.

It started by an experiment of covering string in plaster and lying it into the mould. This came out more interesting than I expected - I expected a sort of lattice work, but in my concern to make it strong, I probably added more string and more plaster than I intended. As a result, a lot of the plaster ran between the strings, creating much more of a solid cast than I expected. I needn't have worried about strength - it's rock hard! I liked it, but felt it needed something to distinguish the surface from the 'internals', so I decided to paint the exposed string gold. Tomgos felt gold was a bit cheesy, but Tathos was adamant. Unfortunately, I think Tomgos called it right... I have a broad rule of thumb not to paint natural materials. 

I felt it needed something behind to give it more structure. I considered wax and even plastic (I'm exploring recycling plastic, one of my more stupid experiments), before hitting on fabric. I attached the fabric by stitching it through the lattice, which worked really well, and was fun, plus good practice if I want to explore using fabric in my art in future (textiles is one area I haven't really explored before). However, when it was done, it had quite a 'Venice carnival mask' and/or 'Queen Amidala' aesthetic which I really didn't like....

So, fatefully, I decided to paint it with a thin black wash. I intended to just do the gold, but got enthusiastic and started doing the plaster, with the aim of highlighting some of the finer detail. Unfortunately I forgot how thirsty plaster is, and it immediately started drinking the wash, leaving a dark black mark. Moreover, when I painted the gold originally, I got a bit on the white surface, so I painted over that with white paint... Which was invisible until I applied the wash, which sank into the exposed plaster, but barely touched the areas painted white... Causing the blotchy grey surface you see here.

At that point I decided to just go with it... And so you get what you see above. I hung it on the wall to contemplate what to do with it... And it sort of 'popped' - hanging it at an angle (again by accident) gave it a sad, melancholic expression.

So now what? I don't know! I feel like it's something slightly horrific that I made by accident. But I also really like it. It speaks on a deep and uncomfortable level to something we would rather forget. The plaster is cold and hard and bloated, the velvet is soft and creased and comforting. The fact that it works for me feels like an accident, but an accident I made happen?

I am tempted to enter it into an open call called "Outer Layer" - almost because I feel like other people should see the fucked up thing that I made... If it's accepted, I guess maybe they see a bit of what I see. If it's rejected, that's ok - it's my precious broken thing which can hang on the wall and make visitors to my house uncomfortable ;)

Art and play as behaviours, not an activities

 I was thinking about art and play (the subject of my research paper), this morning. More specifically what insights it might give us about the purpose of art, by thinking about the purpose of play. I have been coming to the conclusion that art (like play) is about communication. However, is the purpose of play really communication? Group play perhaps teaches about cooperation, but solitary play doesn't.

Ellen Dissanayake talks about art as process of "making special". She noted that artists liked this definition, but scientists hated it (to paraphrase!). With a foot in both camps, I can see why! Certainly as an 'artistic definition' of art, I really like it. I really like it's simplicity, but robustness. It speaks to a universal-ness that we have perhaps lost sight of. It also makes me reflect on how we talk about art as a activity, but experience art as a process or even just a behaviour. We don't do this to play although, perhaps tellingly, we devalue it in the process. We see play as something everyone does. We don't identify people as 'play-ists' ('player' has come to have its own connotations that we irrelevant here). People don't train to 'play'. People don't pay thousands to watch people play. People expect people (usually children) to play for it's own sake, with no expected outcome, and no expected material gain to themselves or society as a whole.

But perhaps this gets us close to where the dog is buried? Certainly in english-speaking culture, play is dismissed and devalued. Adults would never say they like to play (and when they do, it is taken to have sexual connotations). Adults are allowed to have 'hobbies and interests', but even these are tinged with disapproval and flippancy. They are seen as slightly embarrassing obsessions to be kept well-separated from the workspace. The self-respecting individual doesn't really have time for anything except work. Play is not work and in a 'productive' society, work trumps all.

And if play is not seen as work, perhaps by trying to 'elevate' art to the status of work, we are creating a raft of problems? We are immediately 'fighting on the back foot'. We are taking a human behaviour, and saying some people should be paid to do it. To justify this, we create social pressure to define a purpose. We risk denigrating those that would do it for fun. We create an exclusivity on something that all humans (and perhaps other animals) just naturally do. 

Imagine if we did this to play! Imagine people at parties proudly saying they were 'playists' and complaining that other people play, but they are just doing it for fun, and they don't really understand what a real playist does... If they had been to play-school, then they would get it.. Maybe.. In fact, nobody really understands what playists do except other playists... And even then, opinions vary... But it's all so very unfair... The government should make more money available to playists to let them play... Playing is hard enough as it is...

And so, perhaps this leads to purpose. What is the purpose of art? Is art for pleasure? Social awareness? Beauty? Therapy? Sending a message? Making people think? Community? All those things... And more... Like play, I think art isn't FOR anything. Art simply is. It's a thing humans do. Some of those humans do it to make themselves happy, some of them do it to spread a message, some of them do it to make beautiful things, some of them do it to express things they can't put into words. Some of those people (a very small number) are lucky-enough to be able to make a living from it, but with money comes constraints and expectations... But maybe that's ok?

By knocking art off it's pedestal, are we smashing it? Debasing it? Or are we returning to everyone what always theirs?

Undeliverable Letters?

 Slow but steady progress with my piece for the RA Summer Show. I think I'm close to a name - "undeliverable letters" - probably not quite the mote juste, but close - it clues people into what might be going on, and the letters are both literally undeliverable (you can't send a letter into the past) but also emotionally undeliverable (how could you share such news with someone?).

I was struck by an idea today (probably inspired by something I saw, I genuinely can't remember), and decided to add some 'stray' bits of paper to the edges of the mask, so it looks like the face is almost 'emerging' from loose paper. I did a rough prototype to see what it might look like:

It's not perfect (neither is the photography) but I already like the idea a lot. I think it makes it more dynamic, less mask-like, less "Castle Fine Art", but it also gives me the ability to add more paper after the mask has been demoulded, potentially giving me a second bite at the cherry if the moulded stage isn't very legible/interesting. The above is my rough prototype (the one I applied the letter to after it had been demoulded), now I will try with my good prototype (the one I moulded directly from fake letter material). I will also make sure I match the paper colour, and I have written an actual letter to use. The actual letter was intended to be just 'free writing' but ended up being a bit more 'raw' than I expected. My writing is almost illegible even to me, so there's no point posting it, but it concluded with "we gather the pieces from the floor, the ones we can find, and play on as best we can".

Further adventures in the land of paper mache casting...

Hmmm, I still don't have a working title for my piece for the RA Summer Show... Which is odd... Often the title comes around the same time as the idea. I'm not going to try to force it, I guess. Working titles are usually odd and/or descriptive, and actually "Waiting Place" was called "Where you from submission" for most of it's life ;)

I've been doing further experiments to bottom out the technique for the paper mache, and then try to bottom out the aesthetics of how I will display the piece... "Bottom out" is such a silicon valley phrase... "Once we bottom this out, I know a great steak place in the Sunnyvale Heritage District that does local beers"...

Paper Mache - the text: build in or apply later

With regards to technique, I tried covering the first mask in a layer of written-on paper, to see if I could just apply the letter to the face at the end - doing so has some big pros as it makes it easier to see exactly what text is going where, and what is covering what. The layer went on really well:

However, it did cover a lot of the finer details. It also 'wetted' the lower layers enough to cause the mask to 'sink' slightly. 

In parallel, I've finished a new mask, this time starting with 2 layers of written/printed paper, then a layer of newspaper, then a layer of writing paper. For this mask, I used the technique of rubbing undiluted PVA into patches of paper with my fingers, then carefully applying it to the inside of the mould and rubbing it down to expel the air/excess glue, plus iron out any creases that form (even with using smaller pieces for more curved areas, there are inevitably a few creases). 

I allowed the first two layers 24 hours to dry each, and then allowed top two layers 24 hours together. I discovered that it's ok to lightly mark the first layer to make it easier to see where the second layer hasn't covered (otherwise it's a bit 'painting a white wall with white paint'). 

Demoulding this morning went well save the tip of the nose becoming dislodged, at which point I discovered that the tip was still wet since it can't really dry once it's trapped between the silicone and the layer above. Thankfully I was able to smooth it down, and a few hours later the whole thing was dry and really rigid (although i suspect it will continue to further cure and harden for another couple of days yet):

I was amazed by how well the detail came out, and how smooth the surface looks. 

The major con with this approach is that you have to work 'upside down' - the first layer in will be the surface and you won't see what it really looks like until afterwards. However, I think the pros of not having distortion and not loosing detail really outweigh this. 

Once the surface was dry, I did use a pencil to just slightly darken the creases on the eyes and mouth. I'm struck by how much the colour/surface design of the paper affects how you 'read' the face e.g. the lines of vertical printing on the top lip give the immediate impression of skeletal teeth. Something to try to design for when building up the face later...

How to display the piece

I really like the piece as it is, and I might just display it flat as it is... But I also feel it doesn't look very 'finished' so I've been experimenting with some ways to display it. Firstly I used a manikin head I have to see what adding a full head might look like:

I really like it, but I don't THINK it adds enough to justify the significant effort required to do this for real.

Having done some research, the typical way to display a mask like this is what I have come to call the "head on a stick aesthetic". As you can guess, I have some reservations about it. I did try it (making myself a simple stand from some wood I had lying around):

I don't HATE it as much as I thought I would, but it still feels a bit forced to me. I might still come back to it, but I do like the idea of lying the head down, so I tried various ways of making a 'hood' to give the mask a bit more mass and form:

It's a bit weird, but I actually kinda like it! I am tempted to try combining the 'hood' with the 'head on a stick'... Decisions decisions... 

I also popped to Hobbycraft and bought a couple of posies of fake daisies - I must have looked so cute coming out grasping them in my huge hand ;) I tried playing a few on the hood (above), plus making a simple 'crown':

I kinda like it, although it again pushes the idea of the mask as 'dead' rather than sleeping innocently... Dunno. It's hard ;)

I have two weeks left (eek). I've asked the amazing volunteers to start their letters, and I need to nail the question of how to display the finished thing...

Paper Mache casting experiments for RA Show Submission

I'm feeling fairly confident that I want my RA Submission to be a paper mache cast of my face, papered with a 'letter' from me-now to me-before-bereavement. I've tentatively reached out to other people to see if they want to take part, but it's a big ask, so I'm cautious to even ask. I'm thinking there will be elements that imply sacrifice - the innocent victim, about to be sacrificed to destiny... Probably flowers around the temples. I had a good (if slightly creepy (my fault)) conversion with Google Gemini about different flowers with symbolism of sacrifice, but the main one, hysslop, has biblical connections what don't really fit for me.

I did some experiments on casting paper in the face mould. I decided to go for layers, not a pulp. I initially checked the PVA wouldn't stick to the silicone, which it didn't. I first experimented with newspaper soaked in diluted PVA. This worked fairly well, although the newspaper adsorbed a lot, meaning that the mask was soon awash with glue, and secondly that it took an eon to dry... I then tried a layer of printed paper which I smeared with undiluted PVA. This was much 'dryer' while still being quite workable, but the PVA working time was quite small, so it made more sense to pour small amounts at a time.]

I was planning to build up a lot of layers, but in the end I caved in and demoulded it after just two layers so I could experiment with using the smearing approach for all the layers instead, plus starting with the paper layers (which will more closely match the final version).

The result was actually pretty awesome! There's a lot more detail than I feared there would be. The challenges with the nose are clear on inspection (it's very narrow and deep and the nostrils make it very hard to get paper in) but not obvious unless you look. It was quite floppy with only two layers, but is stiffening up more now that it can actually dry properly... I clearly need more than two layers, but I was quite worried about how limp it was initially.

I've now done the first layer of paper smeared with glue, which is sticking well to the mould (hopefully not too well) and looks much more solid than the newspaper. It's drying much faster too, but I'm going to let it dry out well overnight before I add more - firstly because I want it to be quite robust before I risk a second layer, and secondly because once the second layer is on, it will be almost impossible for the bottom layer to dry before it's demoulded.

Write Drunk, Edit Sober

Came across the quote, attributed to Ernest Hemmingway -  "Write Drunk, Edit Sober". Looking it up, the internets seem to agree that Hemmingway didn't say it, and that glorifying addiction is a bad thing. Clearly as literal advice, it's terrible, but surely most people understand that it's better taken metaphorically... Surely?

As metaphorical advice, I think it's interesting - it validates a few things I've concluded over the last year. Firstly, that the process is broadly about expansive creation, but also reductive curation - and that these are somewhat separate processes - clearly this is considered obvious in writing, but seems to still be up for debate in visual art? Secondly that the expansive creation process is better undertaken with a relaxed, non-judgemental mindset. Tomgos and Tathos strike again!