Student Work/Assignments

The work below is preceded by explanations of the assignments given and followed by more detailed information about the student and the work. Some of the assignments have two closely related options in order to best accommodate different student situations and materials during this time of both remote learning and limited studio access. As every year and semester is different based on the class and situations, these images are not listed in the order given during any particular class.  When introduced in class, assignments are carefully sequenced and developed to flow from one to the next.

NOTE: Documenting three dimensional work is difficult. We discuss and learn documentation options, strategies, techniques and preferences regularly in Sculpture. Most of these photographs/videos were taken by the students who made the work with consideration of how they wanted the documentation and the work to be viewed. Photo credits are given with images. In the case of no photo credit, the documentation was taken by me.

figure/body/part/extension/prosthetic/gear - Performing with a made object

Working off the consideration that our bodies and the bodies of others are constantly present in our collective minds, daily activities, and the wearing of PPE in a way that we have never before experienced, think about how we encounter three dimensional work in relation to ourselves. Objects and installations create situations that often compel us to experience them in relation to our own bodies and their physical presence in ways that we may not always experience with more two dimensional works. 

Create a body part/extension/prosthetic/gear. What does this object do to your ability to move, see, hear, touch, smell, walk, sit, stand? Is it protective? Covering? Revealing? Functional? Does it communicate something about the person wearing it? Does it relate to space at all? Is it small, all over, exaggerated? Is it private or public? Does it hang loosely or confine in some way? 

or

Performing with a made object: What relationship do you have to this object? How are your actions contingent to the object? How are you interfacing with it? Is it made in a way that determines its use? Is your object functional in the traditional sense? Does it consider function but transform it? Is it playful, serious, urgent? Are there social or cultural references within the object? Is it a disruption? Does ritual play a part in either the use of the object or your performance with it? Is another person involved? What is your role in the performance? What is the site for your performance? How will we see the performance? How will you document it? You must make the object you use in your performance. 

Temishi immediately responded to the language of the assignment, relating the idea of an extension to her experiences with hair extensions. She writes, “My idea stemmed quite literally from the word extension: hair extensions. As someone who wears extensions, the questions that came out of my thinking of this project was both personal and practical: what other purposes could hair serve? What purpose does it currently serve?” Working remotely, she introduced crocheting into the project after experimenting with materials and realizing she needed a structural component to control the strands. She learned how to crochet a bag and wove it into her own hair, initially considering it a built in pocket to carry things more easily. After completing the work, it became more about how she carries herself, her identity and her experiences with her. She continues, “As I crocheted the pockets my understanding of the work did change: I think it brought it into the realm of domesticity and made me think about presentability and what it meant to be presentable. [The pocket bag became] a physical manifestation of the things that a person can carry with them…It shifted my thinking of the piece out of the realm of just the practical and aesthetic and into the conceptual which I appreciated and want to try to apply to more of my work in the future.”

Hannah’s response to figure/body/part/extension/prosthetic/gear was to think about a heightened awareness of touch, the introduction of protective gloves into our lives, and excessive but necessary multitasking. She made these gloves by casting her own hands multiple times in plaster, building a plaster model, coating it in latex, and then rebuilding the full latex gloves from the mold. Hannah writes, “It was really my first time ever making art that was not on paper or canvas, so I had to work through a lot of self-doubt that I could do it…I began to understand this piece less imitating functionality but fully embracing its performative aspect.”

Site Specific/Micro Environment

Create a site specific installation (as opposed to an all encompassing installation) - think about shifting or changing the experience of an environment, place, or space. Or place something into a space that changes/adds to the understanding of the sculpture/object because of it’s location. How is place important? How will you present your idea so that you can get permission to complete the site specific installation? 

or 

Create a micro environment. Is it a personal environment or a communal environment? Think about micro scale, middle scale, actual scale, and macro scale. How would you define ‘micro environment.’ How does a viewer experience a micro environment? Is it an environment that can be traversed mentally if not physically? How is space experienced in the micro environment? How does the notion of a micro environment affect the way you think about building materials? Your micro environment can be digital. 

Or create a micro environment that is placed in a site specific location.

Harrison’s micro environment focuses on our experiences of social distancing and the necessary altered surroundings that facilitate this practice. He has created a bench with a 6 foot gap, or 2 chairs with a built-in 6 foot extension. The construction heightens the relationship between the participants/users and brings to the forefront concepts of proximity and shared space. The bench is installed in the courtyard between the main library and art library.

Sunmin is taking Sculpture I remotely this fall semester. This micro environment/site specific project was given and discussed with remote students in mind, allowing for alternate ways of building and materials. She began the sculpture thinking of urban density and its relation to micro environment. Sunmin collected various small natural items such as branches, leaves and stones and began to combine them with other simple materials she gathered from around her house - small pieces of wood, plastic, wire, seeds, paper, etc. As the work developed, it shifted to allow the objects and set ups to become individual moments on their own scale and through its sprawling environment.

Logan created a half sized fully functioning shower fountain placed at the center of the octagonal bench circle near Ely Hall. The shower is plumbed to re-circulate the water from the tiled basin drain back up through the plumbing to the custom shower head. The idea of ‘fountain’ references simple lawn decoration to classical fountains and even more historical public works and monuments. The half scale of the shower - a space that we all have experience with - is meant to feel tight and uncomfortable when looked at and experienced in person. His placement of the shower fountain brings what is typically a very private space and activity into the public realm - a situation that he feels deeply during this time of covid. While we are separated physically, there is so much of our private selves on view in order to continue with work and school. The shower is a box display, much like our zoom boxes, but empty. Its emptiness allows viewers to imagine ourselves or others on display.

Jules worked to create a micro environment representing concepts of communication, encounters, negotiations, and floating in Sunset Lake. Materially the work is simple - a built wooden float covered in burlap with two used chairs facing each other, secured to the surface. In order to float the piece, they calculated the weight of water and ordered twenty 2 liter bottles of soda to empty and secure to the bottom of the raft. The rope, which can just be seen on the surface of the water, was not part of their original concept, but was necessary to secure the installation. Once installed, the rope added tension to the piece, pulling from both sides. The rope visually and physically holds the raft in place, keeping it centered in the lake, out of reach of its viewers. This physical tension seems to add to the concepts of negotiation at play on the raft. Students couldn’t help but observe that that chairs also represented a closeness and proximity that goes against the social distancing parameters that they have been following. 

Expand and Collapse

This assignment is about creating space using pieces and parts that will take up more space when installed than when they are not installed. The work will expand upon installation and collapse upon deinstallation. When installed, the work should consider space or a spatial concept. The work should be made of multiple items - at least 2. Think about scale and materials, and how the items interact with and relate to each other. How does the size of the individual objects affect the overall scale? Is the space you are ‘creating’ actual size or a different size? Vast or small? Think about accumulation. Are the parts of your work similar and repetitive or distinct? Is there a system at play? Think about absence as well as presence, open areas as well as objects. What happens in the spaces in between? Pay attention to the difference between an installed exhibition, and a single work that is composed of multiple parts taking up space.

please click on image to play video

Mitch Davis, 2019, Expand and Collapse

Mitch used the simplest of materials to create a fully immersive experience for the expand and collapse project. He used plastic wrap suspended at a certain height to force viewers to crouch, bend, squat and sit in order to enter and engage the space. The material moved with the slightest brush or poke, creating an experience that went beyond the simplicity of the material itself.

Sophia worked mostly in Photography while at Vassar. In Sculpture, she was interested in blurring the lines between two dimensional and three dimensional work - complicating, collapsing and exploring the translation from one to the other; playing with image and form simultaneously. For the expand and collapse project, Sophia used photos she had taken on a recent trip of her suitcase in various rooms, a situation that she was particularly conscious of during this trip as the container of her things and her ‘self.’ She wanted to re-create these images and situations in three dimensions allowing the suitcase to once again become an object. She built large boxes to project images onto and installed the work so all three situations converged in one room, re-focusing the narrative of travel away from the destination and onto this object of travel; this container for personal belongings, expressed as both a flattened image and a three dimensional box.

Luka created a pared down work consisting of two parts to reference expanding in space. The pieces fit together, but sit apart, activating the space between them. He was very interested in plywood as a material, later writing that works built with exposed plywood celebrate the plywood as more than just a building material, but also for it’s composition “made up of plies, layers of thin wood glued and pressed together so that the grains are alternating layer to layer. It is this connection and composition that gives it its strength.” The work reads simply, but is more difficult in it’s making than it appears. Luka was interested in exploring the concept of parts working together as a whole. This can be said for both the plywood itself and the two parts of this piece, parts that need to be experienced together in order to make a whole. Luka continue working with and thinking about this concept throughout the remainder of his time at Vassar. 

please click on image to play video

Isa Pengskul Shoes Video, 2018, Expand and Collapse, video by Isa Pengskul

Isa applied the concept of expand and collapse to physical movement as well as objects. She built elongated walking devices whereby her movements would be altered. This physical action becomes the piece, with her body having to change and expand in order to take each step. The shape of the shoes themselves take up space around her, in some ways turning her physical presence into a small room, acting as a kind of wall/floor structure. 

Action

Do something. Do something to something. Make one thing do something to another. 

All sculpture requires some kind of physical action. Do something that is about the action itself. 

Consider small action, large action, repeated action. Does a a repetitive action become something more through its repetition? Or does your action take place in a single moment, or second? Does it evolve over time? What will your viewer experience? Where does your action take place? Why do you want to do this?

Think about verbs. Think about gestures. Think about everyday activities. Think about exaggerated expression and body language. 

Further confounding the action are questions of where and how the work exists: in the action itself, as an implied action, as the result of an action, as a photograph or video, etc.

For this project, consider collaborating with another person inside or outside of class, someone, or many people, on or off campus.

Midway through the semester I often give an assignment that switches gears from more labor intensive object or material based work to an action project that encourages students to work quickly and consider their own ‘actions’ or the actions of others and things. A component of this assignment is the option to work collaboratively with people inside or outside of the class, or even from afar, through digital communications. Jonah wanted to involve students outside of class with a kind of absurd, participatory instructional survey. The piece is partially about the lack of choice of fruits available to students on the dining plan and the question of choice when the options are limited. In order to participate, viewers need to physically hammer into the fruit and wood using very large nails - an action that is harder than it looks.

Luka’s response to thinking about ‘action’ was to consider the opposite - stopping or pausing action. He made a stop sign that was as close to real as possible while also retaining the look of being handmade. The stop sign was installed on a walking path by the library (left image), meant to provoke a brief moment of pause or re-calibration, where a passersby might realize it is out of place, or perhaps out of habit, a real moment of pause by obeying the signage. Before Luka could retrieve the sign and bring it back to the studio, the sign was moved (we think by Buildings and Grounds or Security) over to the entry/exit road of the TH’s (right image), turning it into a real, functioning traffic stop where it creates actual moments of stoppage throughout the day.

Waste

What is considered waste? What are the realities and physical nature of waste in our lives and as art students? Is the piece made of waste (it does not have to be) or is it about waste? Is the waste transformed? Who’s waste is it? Is your work about NO waste? The concept of waste beyond ‘trash’; many things can be thought of as waste. 

Students were asked to consider definitions, realities and the physical nature of waste in our lives and as art students; where waste is part of everything we make. When confronted with the notion of ‘waste,’ Maggie immediately related the concept to her anxiety of wasting time and that wasted time cannot be recovered. She tracked all of the moments she wasted time over the course of a week, by her own definition, and then created a mold to pack in measured quantities of dirt collected from the ground around the sculpture studio (mixed with glue) to create a labor intensive, cumbersome and extremely heavy cube representative of all the time she wasted. The entire process of creating this absurd cube marking wasted time, in some ways, may add to the wasting of time in its all its concreteness. 

Material as Subject

Material as Subject: Create an object/still life where the material you choose to use functions as the subject matter of the piece. The ‘subject’ of the piece needs to be created by the use of the material you have chosen.

Think beyond the visual of the material. Does the material have a social/cultural context? Is the material usually presented in another way? Does the material have a common, or not so common, use?

Consider using materials that you might not usually think to use, outside of the things that are readily available in the studio. 

Siyue built a model sized house made from plexiglass and covered the exterior with fly paper. The material of the sculpture is not separate from, but rather essential to, its meaning. Siyue acquired fruit fly eggs/larvae from the Biology department and placed them in the house with food and water. The flies could potentially live their entire life cycle on the interior of the house that was created for them, but if they managed to escape through gaps in the structure, they would get stuck on the fly paper and die. 

Contain/er

Make a container for an unknown thing, or for a thing that is not present when we look at it. Is it fully enclosed? Does the inside indicate what belongs there? Does the outside? How specific is it? Does it require specific materials? Does the intended thing to be contained exist? Materially?

This case assignment asks students to create a container, box or case for something that will not be present when the container is viewed. ‘HaveANiceDay’ is both object and performance. The hand painted bag is supposed to contain Lulu’s anxiety; this anxiety however doesn’t exist until the container is placed around her head. Lulu later wrote, “In order to wear the mask for only a couple minutes it took a massive amount of mental control,” as she had to succumb to the claustrophobia and anxiety that the work is meant to encapsulate. She continues, “To the viewer there is a perceived calmness, contrasted by what the wearer wants to do: rip off the mask.”

Site Specific Gesture

Consider ways to change a space/place with small gesture(s). Will you use one gesture or many? It can be a stand alone object that relates to the space, an addition to the space, something that you think the space is missing, a kind of correction to the space. In its site specificity, it should be relevant to the space. It should be in place for at least 24 hours in an area that will be experienced by others. You will need to get permission to do it.

Maggie, a work study student in the library, knew she wanted to use the space within the library as a site to deploy a non-permanent simple gesture. She tied bells onto chairs in certain areas of the library to draw attention to the typically quiet nature of the space. The sound from this gesture, that would otherwise not inhabit the space, was meant to bring awareness of movement, even subtle, from the students using and sitting in the space. Her sign frames the sounds as positive - “Please enjoy” - though there was concern that the sounds could be seen as disruptive. No complaints were made; instead, students stated that the bells did bring a welcome awareness to both the library space and their own movements. For a second installation in the Retreat, the bells were more in keeping with the busy use of the space. In this instance, students felt that the bells were related to the noisy atmosphere and the constant movement shuffling of people and things. The bells took on different meanings in different spaces. We discussed noise versus sound, context, and the participation of sometimes unwilling or unknowing participants. 

An Independent Project Exploring Representation of the Figure

Jennifer, through an Independent project, worked on sculptural depictions of figure and body, both partial and full, often playing with various levels of (un)finish and hyper realism. For the end of year Sculpture show in the Palmer Gallery, these legs with feet were constructed to fit from floor to ceiling, pushing the limits of how we experience scale and the space they were in and our relationship to this enormous figure.

Multiply, Distribute, Repeat

This work must take the form of 20 or more objects. They can be multiples or individual objects. One of the ideas behind this assignment is to look outside of typical gallery or museum structures of display, sale and ownership, and think about alternate ways of making, distributing, selling, or attaining artworks. Who can possess art? Who can afford it? Where is it available? Who is it for? How will you make it available to people?

Consider value and methods of ‘payment’: barter, free, inexpensive, gift, qualify for, etc. Are there more methods than these? What are the possibilities for both the art work and it’s distribution?

Note: This assignment encourages students to explore methods of actively interacting with others outside of class to discuss their ‘objects’ and distribution processes. I have had students give away instructions, gift handmade books to people in pain, trade and barter objects, give items to students in need, offer haircuts, or ‘sell’ sculptures based on the number of steps someone has walked that day. Some students set up tables in College Center and elsewhere on campus to exhibit and distribute their work.

This alternate distribution project encourages students to think outside of the gallery/museum model of both placing and viewing artwork, but still thinking in terms of objects. For this project, Frida created handmade non-functional ceramic ‘Sculpture I’ pens, mimicking the pens that are given out at businesses for advertising purposes. She placed these sculptures on the Palmer Gallery desk for anyone to take.

Hybrid / Both/And

Create a Hybrid considering Lorraine O’Grady’s notion of “Both/And”, retaining both, creating an “and,” keeping the identity of the original things.

This assignment draws from Lorraine O’Grady’s notion of hybrid and “Both/And”, including reading her “Thoughts in Diaspora and Hybridity,” 1994, an unpublished lecture delivered to the Wellesley Round Table, a faculty symposium, on O’Grady’s “Miscegenated Family Album,” focusing on her earlier life and work through the prism of cultural theory. (available at http://lorraineogrady.com/writing/thoughts-on-diaspora-and-hybridity-1994/)

And “The Diptych vs. the Triptych,” excerpt from a conversation between Lorraine O’Grady and a studio visitor, 9.12.1998. Unpublished artist statement. (available at http://lorraineogrady.com/writing/the-diptych-vs-the-triptych-1998/)

Karly’s hybrid is a play on words and a play with objects. ‘HAMACAJA’ combines 2 words, hamaca and caja (hammock and box), naming the new creation of the box hammock that Karly wove and installed in the installation room. The sculpture has ties to her family, culture, and ideas around cultural production. She writes, “the novel and traditional aspects of this object came across to my relatives, fostering some really wonderful conversations. I really enjoy the level of interaction this piece - as a tactile object - allows the viewer to engage in, and the way it exists within the gallery space but also transforms the viewer’s experience of the gallery space from within.”

Time, the way we experience time, and the connection between time and work are all part of Sky’s hybrid. The physical invitation to sit on ‘time’ is palpable; the non-stop ticking of the clock somehow seems more intense and personal in this situation. Sky spoke about this work relating to his own struggles with having ‘enough time.’ There is a sense of anxiety associated with this clock/stool by merely looking at it and its use as a utilitarian device.

The following is in reference to the Broadcasting Printmaking installation mentioned in the letter.

Broadcasting Printmaking Installation, as referenced in cover letter

These prints consider messaging in open spaces. Created with the installation in mind, they explore ideas both private and public, both straight forward and puzzling. Using repetition and multiples inherent in printmaking as a medium, this installation plays with everyday dissemination and bombardment of messaging. Some students used this opportunity to create text plates in the Innovation Lab that would have been prohibitively difficult to hand carve.