Jolanda-Pieta van Arnhem, MFA

Today some more backtracking because I don’t have the energy to do much else. Jerry and Grendel came by for another play date. Jerry goes to Tennessee tomorrow and promises to take pictures of Graceland for my Little Black Dress Project. I can’t wait. I also get to watch Grendel for Thursday, Friday, Saturday, and Sunday. Bonus! Grendel is a wonderful snuggly couch puppy. Other than the fact that Little Dog is enamored with Grendel and can’t stop trying to get him to well…let’s say…play… it’s all good.

Well, with all of that said let me give you an update on WordPress Wednesday. Didn’t get much done today but Jerry said I need to get the pictures together for the simpleviewer portfolio stuff. Cool. That’s really the last big piece of the website (minus tweeks of course). I will try to work on this while I am off.

To the backtracking: Today I am going to talk about David. David is a 6 foot (70”H x 20” W x 32” D) Day of the Dead sculpture I created in December of 2003. He was my first try at a couple of different things 1) building an armature for a large piece (which I did not do successfully), 2) learning how to braze metal, 3) working with stained glass paint to create semi-realistic drawings, and 4) working with re-used/found objects (bottle caps, clothing, and other miscellaneous found things. This piece took me a couple of months to complete since studio time is often difficult to come by in conjunction with my rather demanding and hectic day job. Here is the original sketch:

First lets talk about the guitar. Here is a picture of the guitar body for a point of reference.

The guitar was made out of baling wire. Each piece was cut, shaped and then brazed using a propane torch. Interesting process and could be a lot of fun for many things. The cost is not prohibitive and it was great learning experience. Once the guitar frame was complete I drew paper patterns for each piece that corresponded with a drawing. I put wax paper over the patterns used stained glass paint to draw each panel. This was an interesting experience and since all the pieces were drawn freehand they tended to “blend”. The end result did not have the clarity I had hoped for but the intention for using this material was that when I installed battery operated christmas lights inside the guitar it would take on a stained glass look. It did when it was completed and was very interesting illuminated. It took the stained glass paintings approximately 48 hours to dry. Once they were dried I peeled them off the wax paper and used industrial strength adhesive to glue them to the guitar. Here’s a picture of the neck and guitar strap.

The neck on the guitar was created the same way using the cut paper patterns. I added bottle caps on the end for the tuners and the guitar strap was made out of found metal mesh. I added lampwork beads for some interest and color.

Now lets talk about the hat, hands and head. Here’s a picture of David’s head and Hat.

David’s Hat is a separate piece that comes off. His head and hands were made using sculpey mold paper mache and chicken wire. I highly recommend that if you are going to do a project like this you DO NOT purchase the paper mache. Here is a great link all about Paper Mache from the UK. It has recipes, galleries, tutorials, and lots more! Visit http://www.papiermache.co.uk/. The down and dirty about Paper Mache? If you use the strip method with paste it will be lumpy here and there. Even with sanding, etc. it is difficult. There are great recipes for better versions and I highly recommend that you check them out if you want to do something like this. Another helpful hint: If you are looking for additional resources google “sculpture paper mache for large projects” NOT ” how to make paper mache”.

Ok, now about the armature and actual body of the piece. I used a wood frame for the body and that was ok. I decided that instead of making the entire piece out of paper mache (because I did not now how to make a better version of it) that I would use a vintage black suit I had found from the thrift store instead. The suit is where the name for the piece came from. It was custom made for David. I like the suit (and the label that came with it) so I bought it. I really didn’t know what I was going to do with it at the time. Christopher wound up wearing it one year for Halloween when he was the Devil and I was a Kid Witch. But back to the armature. Because I did not use chicken wire and paper mache for the body of this piece it was wobbly and really won’t transport well. Live and learn. I tried dipping the suit in plaster to give it more strength but that did not really do it. It did give a nice texture to the material and allowed me to “sculpt” it. I do recommend the process, just not if strength in the piece is dependant on it. Here is a picture of David in his entirety before he started stooping with age and all the stained glass paint started falling apart.

“David of the Dead”
Mixed Media Sculpture
70” H x 20” W x 32” D
2003

If your interested in constructing a piece like this I recommend that you look at these two articles: Paper Mache Satan and Satan Making Sunday. A picture is worth a thousand words to a visual artist. Once I found these everything suddenly became very very clear to me. I will be re-working David with my new knowledge and he will become part of My Tribute to Mojo piece. What will different in the stronger, better David? 1) He will be made completely of paper mache and chicken wire including his boots, 2) The guitar will be remade using a real guitar I found in the trash by the church (score), and 3) all the drawings will be Day of the Dead drawings on paper and framed behind him of our life with Mojo. He will also get his bride.

Check back to see how he evolves.