Drip, Swing, Squish Tour; Part Three

During our last stop on the tour, we looked around the gallery to see what all the sculptures have in common.

All of these artworks are made of fabric and are stuffed with fiberfill, much like a pillow. 

Sterling Ruby has made many textile sculptures. He learned to sew when his mother gave him a sewing machine at the age of 13, and he began making clothes for himself. He often makes clothes for himself and his studio assistants from remnants, or leftover scraps, from his soft sculptures.

We had a lot of fun sharing what the different sculptures looked like. What do you think of when you see these artworks? Look below for a little insight from the sculpture titles.

Top to bottom: 

CANDLE (5136) and CANDLE (5448)
VAMPIRE 62
VAMPIRE FLAG (RWB)
Laying Figure
Soft Vortex 2 and Soft Vortex 3

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2nd grade - vampire teeth!

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Drip, Swing, Squish Tour; Part Two

We played at a game at our next stop. First, we looked quietly at this sculpture for a full minute.

SCALE by Sterling Ruby

Then we turned around. Without looking back at the artwork, students wrote down everything they could remember from the sculpture in one minute. After they shared their lists, we turned back around to see what we noticed and what we didn't.

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Sterling Ruby made this sculpture with remnants from his studio: bits of cardboard he used to protect the floor when pouring urethane and painting, product packaging, a bucket, a baseball bat, circles cut from plywood, firearm handguards, metal, and yarn. These are items from Ruby's archives, things that the artist has collected and kept over many years. He often creates new works of art using these leftover items that are or have become meaningful to him over time.

This sculpture is titled SCALE. A scale uses balance to determine the weight of an object. How does this sculpture remind you of a scale? Does it look balanced? Why or why not?

We finished our stop with a couple of balancing activities. Some groups tried to balance a pencil on their finger. All groups transformed themselves into human scales, imagining what might happen if we added imaginary objects to one side (a boulder, a person, etc.) and what we would need to add to the opposite side to balance our scale.

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Drip, Swing, Squish Tour; Part One

We started the Drip, Swing, Squish tour by listing all the materials that artists use to make sculptures. Then we named all the verbs that describe what artists do when they make art. 

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How many materials and verbs can you name?  Here are a few that students shared:

Materials
clay, wood, glass, ideas, wax, iron, stone, string, cement, fabric, plastic, bark, wire, pencils, food, cars, gold, paint, silver, buttons, canvas, popsicle sticks, glitter, toys, rocks, glue, tar, ice, chisels, hands, boxes, people, fabric scraps, brains, blowtorch, space, electronics

Verbs
sculpt, roll, paint, shape, think, carve, draw, sew, focus, sketch, look, paint, mold, build, create, plan, glue, color, spray, shade, make, design, put together, melt, focus, cut, mold, brainstorm, carve, write, experiment, gather, combine, weld, talk, look, improvise, feel

We kept these lists in mind during our tour, as well as our vocabulary:

Visit 2/Visit 3 Vocabulary: 
gesture/el gesto
balance/el equilibrio
archive/el archivo
remnant/el resto
textile/el textil

We sketched and walked all the way around our first sculpture to see it from all sides.

The Cup by Sterling Ruby

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The artist who made this sculpture, Sterling Ruby, poured liquid urethane to create the dripping, melting look in The Cup. You can watch a video of him making this sculpture here.

It almost looks as though The Cup is frozen: it is frozen in the air, and the urethane is frozen where it dripped. Sterling Ruby feels that sculptures like this show a frozen gesture. A gesture is a movement of the hand, or arm, or face, or body that expresses an idea or emotion. The gesture here could be a big imaginary hand holding the cup, or the urethane dripping from the artist's hand.

You might say that this cup froze in the middle of scooping or pouring. Which do you think it is doing, and why?

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The 5th graders had testing the same morning as our tour, so we got the wiggles out before we got started. :)