Multiples: Latex Moulds

Okay so since last posts stressing out things have taken a change for the better i was worrying about making heat resistant moulds and lecturer Dot suggested latex to me. Ive used liquid latex before but not for mould making but i gave it a try and made a little mould of a coffee jar lid. It took a bit of time and liquid latex smells really bad but i managed to get a nice little thick mould by dipping the latex instead of painting it, which takes ages and ruins any brush you use and speeding the process up with a hairdryer. When i took it home to pour it managed to take the heat really well and there was no problems.

getting set up to paint with latex

finished UTEE with condom inside

So going on from this little victory ive made some basic shoe shapes using blue styrofoam stuff based on a pair of wedges i already own and im covering these in layers of latex, the really long part. Ive spent about three hours on Thursday and three hours on Friday doing this and now we're on holiday i have latex home with me to do the last few layers which will be done in the spare room with the windows open definately.

Multiples: Stripper Shoes

So the idea that ive been considering most as a final piece revolves around the idea of stripper shoes. Im thinking of creating a pair of shoes made of resin or something that is clear and plasticky with condoms suspended inside. I want to take these shoes into edinburgh and have them photographed, on their own or with me wearing them in the older parts of the city, with that juxtaposition of modern day sex work within the city and the historical setting. Ive done a bit of testing in edinburgh to see what the photos might look like, im also going to have to think of how to edit them to get the feeling i want.

Multiples: Plaster Moulding Part 2

So finally got to finishing my plaster mould and doing the messy fun part. My clay model was all finished and smoothed down so it was time to put a wall using bendy metal stuff this creates two half moulds. Once thats done its time to don a boiler suit and some fashionable college boots and make up the plaster. Start by chucking the plaster at the clay making sure theres no gaps and no air bubbles getting a thing layer of plaster. he rest of the plaster will stick to this first layer getting thicker until you can just pour and smoothe it on like melty ice cream.

one half of the mould done

Once dry you have to scrape away a bit of clay to see your bits of metal and pull them out with pliers, once this is done you can run it under the tap which makes the clay expand a bit and the two halfs come away from each other.

pulling out the little bits of metal can be tough

at the end you still have your mostly intact clay

Multiples: Alginate Moulding

I know i haven’t finished my plaster mould just yet but im getting to it. In the meantime we had a new moulding technique in the 3D workshop, alginate moulding. Alginate is basically the stuff thats used to mould body parts and faces because its skin safe and relatively quick drying. You start off by mixing up the powdered alginate at a 50 grams of powder to 100ml of water ratio. Next you just mix up the powder and water not whipping the mixture up, you don’t want air bubbles, and it forms a really thick creamy paste thing. Then you just apply it to the chosen body part making sure to vaseline any hairy bits.

The alginate powder and water waiting to be mixed.

 

 

 

Because i've been looking at shoes i decided to mould my foot, because i might decide to do something with it as part of the brief. It was pretty cold and really annoying to try and keep my foot still for so long, it did this massive twitch on its own halfway through but all in all i got a pretty good mould out of it.

Getting the alginate between my toes

Waiting for the alginate to dry

when the alginate is dry mod rock is put over it to create a solid base for the mould

 When it was all dried i managed to get it off my foot intact and closed up the missing ankle bit with some more mod rock so plaster could be poured in it (make sure to vaseline up any exposed mod rock). I was lucky enough to get two plaster pours before my alginate shrivelled up over the weekend.

Multiples: Plaster Moulds Part 1

As part of our multiples brief we have a 3D workshop just to teach us more sculpture stuff and help out if we choose to make something 3D for our brief. The first moulding technique we are doing is plaster moulding, which gets started off with a clay sculpture of what we want to mould. At this point i wasn’t really sure about what i wanted to make but going with my sex work brief i chose to do a kind of Henry Moore style reclining woman. I know i don’t want to make anything with womens bodies but it’s a pretty basic little example for the technique.

So you don’t use up a bunch of clay unnecessarily you start by planning the shape of your little sculpture and working out where you can put wood blocks to make the bulk of the shape before covering it in chicken wire and stuffing with paper to get a relatively solid structure. The chicken wire is such a pain to work with so wear gloves!

The basic outline of my sculpture covered in chicken wire for the clay to stick to.

After you have this outline you just cover with a bunch of clay making sure theres no jaggy bits of wire sticking out and you  can start smoothing the clay down with a damp sponge.

Multiples: Second Trip to Edinburgh

I decided to go back to Edinburgh once more to get a bit more research done and see if anything inspired me, i didnt really get to go to places i had originally wanted to like around the lap dancing clubs so i went up that way to get photos of them, but only by day. I also managed to get to the modern art gallery but pretty late in the day to see the Generation exhibit whichi was quite enjoying until we got kicked out.

Close up of the neon at Babydolls

saw this card for club rouge on a windowsill, the closest thing i found to a calling card

its funny that neon is displayed on this historic building as well as in the strip clubs

from the garden of the gallery

Multiples: Sterling Ruby and Stalactites

Another idea I had was inspired by the work of Sterling Ruby who creates these large drippy sculptures. I started thinking about stalactites and stalagmites and how the represent the passing of time. I thought about one of my street relief panels and how it could be made to look like a shoe had been suspended there with the rock growing over it, again thinking about modern sex work but also how long sex work has existed within the city. Im not so sure about this idea its visually interesting but I still have another idea that favourite right now.

I started by looking at Sterling Ruby who I came across by chance in a youtube video about his work, I really liked the drippy look

Multiples: Mark Boyle and The Street

I mentioned before about looking at the street as a representation of streetwalking and prostitution I got an idea in the middle of the night right before bed of doing a Mark Boyle style relief panel which looks like the Edinburgh street but maybe incorporating womens shoes, like shoe prints and condoms maybe using them with the vacuum mould.

Relief panels by Mark Boyle from Boyle Family Website

Mark Boyle created lifelike reliefs of streets and surfaces along with his family, ive taken my own images of some street textures in Edinburgh, I really like these run down and cracked pavements taken outside some strip clubs. If I recreated these I could include the condoms and shoeprints but having the exact streets from outside a strip club is a bit more subtle way of including sex work. 

I also have the idea of using modern heels and a shoe from maybe the 1700s and a mix of old cobbled streets and modern slabs and yellow lines in a series of panels which show this idea of streetwalking or sex work through the ages.

Multiples: Stressing

Ive been pretty stressed out this week trying to figure out how im going to create the moulds for my shoes, ive just finished up the plaster moulding with Alison and i think that the plaster would be able to take the heat of the melty plastic stuff ive bought. Its really annoying me i tried to make test samples of how the condoms would suspend in the utee (ultra thick embossing enamel) in yoghurt pots but they just melted away. Thats what triggered this whole stressy thing for me. I need to get a material that isnt going to melt due to the hot enamel, ive already bought the stuff and im just gonna run with it or its a waste of money but i really wish i had just gone with resin.

Multiples: Shoes, Condoms and Art

I’ve settled on the theme of Sex Work in the city of Edinburgh. I’ve been thinking about things that maybe represent sex workers and sex work over the 100s of years its existed in Edinburgh. The street is one idea, it can represent streetwalking and there’s all these nice old looking cobbles juxtaposed with yellow lines and mummified chewing gum. I also thought about condoms which represent more towards the prostitution side of sex work and shoes because we all know what a ‘stripper shoe’ is and maybe a certain kind of heel represents a certain kind of woman and is a very feminine thing itself. 

Chiharu Shiota is a Japanese artist who creates these installations using donated shoes which have a memory attached to them and links them together with red threat symbolising the path we take through life. I think there really visually impacting as well as being sad and hopeful and I like this sort of idea about the footprints we leave as we go through life.

Luz Interruptus used condoms to create big water droplets in a space that was once a swimming pool, 800 condoms were filled with blue coloured water to create a sensory experience, this installation was poked full of holes by children but the artists didn’t seem that bothered about it, it was supposed to be interactive. From their website:

‘In this context, we wanted to carry out our interactive installation Prophylactic rain that doesn’t wet anything, with which we intended to leave a little lighted water in memory of former uses, this time we wanted to do it with drops of water falling on the deteriorated remnants of cement.’

You can read more about the installation here

I found more condom installations by Christopher Sacre who creates ‘babies’ by pouring plaster into thousands of condoms each creating a unique squishy looking shape which is given a smooth bottom to sit on and Bryan McCormack whose Preservation of Life installation at the Pompidou Cente used 80,000 light bulbs covered in coloured condoms as part of the centres AIDS campaign.