Art 1010 – Found Object Art Project

“The Scientist”
Ashley Ockler
7/10/18
For me, I found this project extremely challenging. Ever since I was small, I’ve loved making

art. My earliest works were usually free-handed pencil drawings of cartoons or Pokemon cards,

drawn to much larger scale than its original was drawn to. When I started high school, I began

exploring oil painting and grew to love it more than any other medium I’d tried. After

graduation, I was finally brave enough to try watercolor and it is now my medium of choice. All

my life I’ve practiced art in the traditional mediums typically found in our mainstream school

systems; drawing, ceramics, painting and photography. And so, this project challenged every

creative bone in my body, as I came to realize that none of these mediums could be utilized in

producing my sculpture. I was in the dark for the first time in a long time, while I tried to create a

piece of art to my liking. It was hard at first, but I dealt with this issue by changing my state of

mind and tearing down any doubts I’d placed on myself.

In my original thought process, I had wanted to use more naturalistic elements such as leaves,

branches, flowers, pinecones, etc. I originally created what I thought looked exactly like a

chicken (which was my intention) out of iceberg shrubs, aspen leaves, a corn cob, a pink rose, a

pinecone, a butternut squash and the atlas bone of a cow. As I took pictures and showed the piece

to my family, I realized I was the only one who saw it for what it truly was. I learned that the

problem with using “fresh” and natural items in art, is that it eventually loses integrity and wilts

into something unrecognizable. I’d also created the sculpture from a bird’s-eye-view (no pun

intended), the only view that my intended audience (you) would not be seeing the sculpture

from. The idea I’d started with, had become lost in translation and I decided I needed to start

again with a more stable medium.

With a new set of ideas flowing through my brain, I decided I’d design something after the

human figure, and use much more stable ingredients such as metal, rubber, and plastic. As I

gathered supplies from the neighborhood I live in, I began to picture in my mind, the exact

design I would use for my sculpture. As I found items, I examined their shapes and imagined

their playabilities as I decided whether or not they would help me achieve my idea. My design

finalized itself in my imagination, only after I’d collected my intended items. Once I had all the

supplies I believed I’d need to assemble my sculpture, I began by using pliers and rubber gloves

to handle and shape the chicken wire I’d found. I decided the gender of my human would be

male, as I was making him out of man-made products. These items also played a role in the

appearance of my sculpture, as well as the name I would choose for it.

I first started with the legs, as I was concerned most about creating a stable base for my sculpture

to support itself on. Once I’d created a flat base, I started to mold the legs but cutting the wire

and bending it together to create two, tower-like shapes. The abdomen had molded into a nice

little pot belly shape while making the legs, and so I then added a little bit of hip definition to the

sides of the man. For the arms, I knew I wanted to use utensils and so for the right arm I curved a

large metal spoon in such a way that it would rest on the hip, while the left arm was a metal fork

molded into a thumbs-up. For the face I wanted this man to be kind and welcoming, so I chose

large golden bolts with small silver screws slipped inside for his eyes to portray that bright-

twinkle you may see in the eyes of good company.

I also added silver staples above the eyes for eye brows, that would be slightly raised in

encouragement and positivity. For the mouth I wanted to use something flesh-like and malleable,

so I chose a popped pink balloon that would make smiling lips on my sculpture’s face. Small

silver bolts at each end of his balloon lip line, serve as dimples. I then used the handle of a bottle

washer for a long and wise-looking nose. I wanted to further illustrate my subject’s identity by

giving him a white mustache made of white bristles, which had been taken off the bottle washer,

to indicate that he was later in years. I then finished my sculpture’s ensemble with the top of the

bottle washer consisting of a blue sponge in the shape of an “X”, placed under his chin, to make

a bow-tie of sorts, while adding a square-shaped metal teaspoon measurer over his left breast, as

a pocket protector. Once I’d had a moment to stand back and take in the sculpture’s attitude, I

decided to name it, “The Scientist”. This was mostly inspired by the fact that I’d used common

scientific elements to create my figure but also by the “outfit” I’d given my character. I kept

hearing a catch-phrase in my mind to explain his personality and it went something like,

“Although his pocket-protector only holds one teaspoon, the heart behind it has megatons of

love”.

As I before mentioned, the challenges of this project were many for me. I have been trained to

use traditional art mediums whenever I channel my creativity and so having to scavenge for

supplies that would ultimately be combined in an abstract way to create a mundane character of

the natural world, was completely foreign to me. Finding objects that possessed the shapes I

needed was quite the challenge, but I enjoyed expanding my horizons by trying something

completely new. Although I had to dig deep at times to see the ways in which a certain item

could aid in completing my sculpture, I came out on the other side with a new perspective of
items we may label as “junk” in our world. I marveled at the way in which such rudimentary

items could be brought together to create something that not only made sense but had a

personality. Although I may have suffered a few blood blisters and scrapes, I liked the process of

sculpting and adding detail to make the figure I wanted to make.