This picture is of a piece I made for the last assignment in Beginning Sculpture in the fall of 2009. The tree is made out of single ply plastic sheeting that I melted together with a heat gun. The sculpture is inflated by a fan at its base that is enclosed in a white wooden housing (not visible in the photo). I chose to post about this piece because it very much relates to the topic the Intermediate/Advance Sculpture class is focusing on for our first piece: “Nature and Artifice.” When creating this piece my mind was very much full of thoughts revolving around the natural and the artificial. The tree itself is a very natural form, while the plastic material profoundly relates to a world that is artificial and fabricated. I wanted the meaning of this piece to come purely from the full-bodied experience of the viewer. I wanted to explore the effect such a natural form would have when fully extracted from nature. Would a complete artificial recreation still embody the same meaning as its natural counterpart? Would the associations made with the form in nature remain intact, or would such meaning fall away and create room for a completely new interpretation?Nature has always been one of my biggest influences, and I may go as far as saying it IS my biggest influence. Trees especially affect me in a unique way. In a sense I feel overpowered by them. Not a forceful overpowering that I try to resist, but one that brings with it a sort of comforting warmth and sense of security. The thing I like most about the tree is the fact that through the slow process of persistent and steady growth, using only water, sunlight, and soil, a tree can reach a magnitude that challenges and even overtakes structures created by humans. To me the tree is a very tangible representation of nature's unyielding power.
great image Curtis, and a great piece in general! so much of the power of this piece is in exactly how it does relate to both the architecture and site. it looks like it was made to exist there, in contrast and collaboration with the window, the duct work, the expansive white box space itself. it appears as if it is on some sort of life support (the fan, despite its being well hidden). it seems a ghost. and yes, a terrific embodiment of the tension between things natural and artificial. a tree of the future, or a duct system for the delivery of oxygen once too many trees have been eradicated and we need to fabricate a new source of that precious element. eerie..
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