Title:Mother
Size: 17.5 cm by 14 cm
Medium: Wax, Paper, liquid spray paint
Date: January 2018
Mother came heavily from my desire to pay tribute to my mother through a sculptural allegory. By creating a sculpture out of the old Velas de Los Santos from my family religious past I am attempting to bring the highest praise to my mother that I can while acknowledging our turbulent past as well as the nature of our relationship. Deeply inspired by the grand Baroque sculpture Gian Lorenzo Bernini and his Constanza, I wanted to depict my mother in the same grand way the Santos are displayed on candles and in sculpture.
Inspiration
Velas de Los Santos
Velas de Los Santos or Saint Candles are candles most prevalent in Latin Catholic culture. These candles portray saints such as the Virgin Mary and are typically lit in prayer. In Latin culture to light a candle during prayer is to begin a correspondence and so to light a candle with a specific saint is to ask them for their specific blessings.
Velas de Los Santos were very prevalent in my upbringing from my home to church. Gradually as not only me but my family phased out of religion the velas began to disappear. It was not until recently that I have stumbled upon my family's old Velas de Los Santos. Some of the most prevalent figures in our collection where the Virgin Mary and the patron saint of travel Christopher. Both of these figures meant a great deal to both my mother and father as not only immigrants but parents. My mom was specifically reverent to these saints as a woman going through peril family turmoil. I decided to create a homage piece out of these velas in order to demonstrate my unwavering respect for the dedication, commitment, and sacrifice she has invested in our family.
Velas de Los Santos were very prevalent in my upbringing from my home to church. Gradually as not only me but my family phased out of religion the velas began to disappear. It was not until recently that I have stumbled upon my family's old Velas de Los Santos. Some of the most prevalent figures in our collection where the Virgin Mary and the patron saint of travel Christopher. Both of these figures meant a great deal to both my mother and father as not only immigrants but parents. My mom was specifically reverent to these saints as a woman going through peril family turmoil. I decided to create a homage piece out of these velas in order to demonstrate my unwavering respect for the dedication, commitment, and sacrifice she has invested in our family.
Gian Lorenzo Bernini
Gian Lorenzo Bernini was a 17th-century sculpture who truly enraptured the essence and grandeur of baroque sculpture. Unchallenged in his time Bernini created magnificent life like works for the Catholic Church. Bernini was able to convey such stunning and lifelike effects through his work by invoking light and shadow to not only create dimension but the texture in his work. Through this and his use of dynamism in facial expressions and poses Bernini creates not only the likeness of skin and hair and fabric but the actual material.
Gian Lorenzo Bernini has always been one of my favorite sculpture. I decided I wanted to invoke his very particular and lifelike style because it was this style that popularized portrait busts and gave a very tangible and real impression of his subjects. I was also struck by the urge to portray my mother in one of the styles that she might have seen and idolized. I am specifically taking technical inspiration from Bernini's Costanza since she and my mother share the same eye shape. With Costanza as my technical guide for the execution of this piece, I believed to have a great grasp of how to manipulate light to create lifelike effects in my own piece.
Sketches
Studies
In this first study of Bernini's Costanza, I was focused on figuring out the relation of shadows to other shadows when the light hits the face. Upon completing this fast study I was reminded that perspective matters a great deal in sculpture. Due to the nature of my bad posture and this being a quick sketch it was warped. This made me take down mental notes to check my work from different perspectives to ensure in order to ensure consistency.
The eyes in the first study were so dreadfully horrible I decided to dedicate an entire study to figure out how to accurately sculpt them. In this study and through the use of value I tried to picture how I would sculpt pupils and muscle structure in the brow such as Bernini. Overall I would say this was unsuccessful as it reads a mess.
|
planning sketches
In these sketches, I am attempting to study the subject of my work and how shadows may appear. I thought a headshot might help me with the study but I felt that while it helped me gather a greater understanding of the anatomy of her face it also takes away and dynamic and tension in other possible posses. Overall these studies helped establish how and where I might want to carve deeper but did not necessarily pin down the direction of the facial expression.
Process
To begin the sculpture I first had to harvest the wax from the candle. In order to do so, I tried a variety of ways such as lighting them for a brief period, waiting for the candle to cool and then using a paring knife to try and edge the soft candle out. While this did prove successful it was also an extremely tedious and time-consuming task. In order to even begin my sculpture I had to drastically improve my harvesting technique, therefore I decided to forsake the glass container and break it. Smashing the candle glass yielded me with more material at a quicker rate but the act also felt vastly disrespectful. As a result of my guilt, I decided to somehow incorporate the broken shards of the glass holder in my sculpture.
After harvesting enough wax to commence the sculpture I collected it in equal portions heated it and molded it into small portions. This was as far as I had come before I needed to make the decision on how the sculpture would be sculpted. I needed to decide whether I would, in fact, be sculpting or carving. My decision was based on which of the two I was most experienced with and would yield a legible piece. In the end, I settled on sculpting the piece but gradually as I progressed through the piece I found myself needing to carve to correct. Once this was decided I began to sculpt the individual features of the face. I used paper to mold the fundamental shapes of more complex forms such as the nose. After these were formed I reheated the wax and proceeded to drench the paper in it several times letting it cool a bit before each dunk. The goal of this was to create layers of wax that would even out the bumpy texture of the crunched paper. After I had enough layers I waited for the melted wax to cool to a point of not hot but warm dough. In this stage, I was able to touch it with my bare hands and mold it around or into the desired forms. However, if the molding process was too lengthy the wax would cool and I would, therefore, need to use a lighter to melt a separate piece of wax as a sort of glue holding both pieces together.
After I had completed the features of the face I began to add those features onto the base. The base was a general form of a face I had created my using a sort of paper-mache method with the wax and water. To stick the features on the face I first needed to build up enough wax on the base. Once I had played enough layers of wax, while they were fresh I pushed the features onto the base. While this did not stick the features on the base it did leave indents. The indent then guided me with their right placement. Holding these pieces in the correct positions I then poured several layers of wax onto the crack until it held up. After this more layers were added to the entire face.
Experimintation
My experimentation in this project was every decision I made. The choice I made to create this out of candle wax was the first experiment I conducted. Along the way, however, I played with various wax types and ways to melt and sculpt the wax. In trying to find the most effective way to create Bernini's distinctive life-like style played with various ways of molding and sculpting the wax. From heating spoons with a lighter to using a scalpel, trying to get clean cuts and smooth finishes was a struggle. This along with the waxes inabilities to melt together with other types of wax or even stick on to itself meant I had to be very careful with how much I cut away and tried to add. Ultimately, this whole project was one experiment. As someone who prefers painting to sculpting with clay sculpting this in wax was a great way for me to learn new techniques and develop my ability to acknowledge when enough is enough.
Reflection
The end product of this experiment is something I am less than content with. I feel it lacks a resemblance to not only the subject it is meant to portray but the style in which I wished to portray her in. The process of carving, molding, and melting was one that brought me many lessons on my limits. This project also helped me be able to gain a deeper perspective on other's work and technique compared to mine. While In theory, I was able to understand how Bernini sculpted the way he did I was not able to implement it in my own work. Not only was the material a struggle for me but the concept of a three-dimensional object. When creating this piece I focused heavily on perfecting one angle and then found the rest of the perspectives suffered.
Reflection of Critique |
|
The critique at UWM resonated with many of the same doubts I had about my own piece. From the critique, I have taken learned that as an artist I should focus more on the power of the message I am trying to convict. Additionally, I have learned to reflect and digest what decision I make when creating before implementing them in my work. Although not officially content with the outcome of the piece the critique propelled my wish to continue working on it. In conclusion and overall they work is definitely not in its last stage and I have now through the critique acquired advice on how to continue the piece and develop an effective message or theme.
ACT Responses
1) Clearly explain how you are able to identify the cause-effect relationships between your inspiration and its effect upon your work?
The cause of my inspiration was my passion for Baroque art and the overwhelming amount of candles at my disposal.
2) What is the overall approach(point of view) the author (from your research) has regarding the topic of your inspiration?
The overall approach to my research involved studying images of the sculpture to try to observe technique the artist used instead of reading accounts of his work.
3) What kind of generalizations and conclusions have you discovered about people, ideas, cultures, etc. while you researched your inspiration?
From my research I generalize the sheer amount of determination and motivation artist must conjure to not only learn how to sculpt. I have also learned to generalize the importance of something or someone who has been sculpted.
4) What was the central idea or theme around your inspirational research?
The central idea for my research was understanding sculpting techniques and the importance of saints and traditions in my own family.
5) What kind of inferences (conclusions reached on the basis of evidence and reasoning) did you make while reading your research?
While conducting research I came to the conclusion that at times the memories of practicing tradition is far more important that what it actually was meant for.
The cause of my inspiration was my passion for Baroque art and the overwhelming amount of candles at my disposal.
2) What is the overall approach(point of view) the author (from your research) has regarding the topic of your inspiration?
The overall approach to my research involved studying images of the sculpture to try to observe technique the artist used instead of reading accounts of his work.
3) What kind of generalizations and conclusions have you discovered about people, ideas, cultures, etc. while you researched your inspiration?
From my research I generalize the sheer amount of determination and motivation artist must conjure to not only learn how to sculpt. I have also learned to generalize the importance of something or someone who has been sculpted.
4) What was the central idea or theme around your inspirational research?
The central idea for my research was understanding sculpting techniques and the importance of saints and traditions in my own family.
5) What kind of inferences (conclusions reached on the basis of evidence and reasoning) did you make while reading your research?
While conducting research I came to the conclusion that at times the memories of practicing tradition is far more important that what it actually was meant for.
Citations
Bernini. Bust of Costanza Bonarelli. 1637, Museo Nazionale del Bargello, Florence, Italy.
Garrett Gundlach, SJ ~ Approx read time 4 mins, et al. “Beyond Bed and Bath: Candles in Latino Culture.” The Jesuit Post, 7 June 2015, thejesuitpost.org/2015/05/latino-candles/.
“Gian Lorenzo Bernini.” Artble, 19 July 2017, www.artble.com/artists/gian_lorenzo_bernini.
“National Gallery of Art.” Artist Info, www.nga.gov/Collection/artist-info.2025.html.
Ramondaur, Bernardo. Digital. MONTERREY, 18 Nov. 2017.