Project 3: Reasoningor this project I wanted to research something I was already very interested in and knew a little bit about. While it may seem a bit unserious I chose to do my project on the Godzilla franchise. The movies, especially the first one and the sequel, hold heavy themes of the dangers nuclear war, pacifism and the destruction of Japan with Godzilla being the what's essentially a living nuclear bomb. The movies strayed from their original themes after Toho, the company producing the movies, realized the opportunity for profit. This was not the direction Ishirō Honda wanted the films to go into. For art I made a ceramic sculpture of a ball and flail connected to a cross on the other side. I pulled from several different religious symbols from Christianity as a reference and I researched the Spanish Inquisition throughout the building process.
EnglishI created a website to present my information. The website goes through the first movie released in 1954 and its American rerelease, the sequel and its American rerelease and the eras of Godzilla. It explains the reasoning behind edits and cuts made to the original and sequel films, how and why the eras are broken down the way they are and the symbolism behind Godzilla and creative choices made. To view the website and learn more click the link below.
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Art
For art I made flail like weapon with a long chain attached to a cross. Before making the piece I looked at religious symbols used in Christianity and medieval weaponry for inspiration. Along with the very obvious symbol of the cross I also added textured coils around the ball as a reference to the Sacred Heart of Jesus which has Jesus's heart wrapped in thorny vines. While this isn't a part of my project I also made a crown of thrones.
Making the SculptureI made this sculpture over the course of about a month with a good bit of breaks between working on it, especially in the beginning. I think the amount of working days I had was around two weeks. On those days I would spend at least and hour to upwards of four hours a day.
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SizeThis sculpture is the biggest one I've made so far. I chose to make this sculpture so large because I wanted to be at a realistic life-sized scale. From the start I imagined this sculpture as well as the crown of thrones I made being used in a photoshoot where somebody would be draping the chains across their shoulders and down their arms while they wore the crown. I could've made the chains shorter but I opted for them to be longer so they would have slack and hang down. Because of this the chain itself is about seven feet long. The cross is roughly nine inches in length and the ball is about nine and a half inches long and six inches tall making the full piece about eight and a half feet long.
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Chains and Coils
This project relied heavily on coils. I generally dislike making coils but they were essential to every step of this project. In order to make the chains I would take a chunk of clay and roll it into a long coil before cutting it up into about four to five inch pieces with angled edges for easier attachment. I would then separate the cut pieces into groups of three before starting to make the chain. I would take a coil and bend it into a circle before scoring and slipping it closed. I would repeat this again leaving me with two circles. I'd then take the third coil and attach it though the two circles I made making a chain of three. I'd keep repeating this before attaching the chains of three together into one long piece. I did this for both the large chain and the significantly smaller chain wrapped around the cross. I found that this was the the most efficient and easiest way to create the chain. Keeping it in groups of three prevented me from having to move the chain as it got bigger which I found ripped or distorted the shape of some of the links. I would try to not move it as much as possible as it was wet and moving it was one of the most stressful parts of building this sculpture.
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The BallMaking the ball was fairly straight forward. I started by making who pinch pots which I then put together in order to make the sphere. I used a coil and slab to make the part at the top that attaches it to the chain and wrapped coils around the center of the ball. I used an old piece of dried stonewall (basically a rock) to get the texture on the coils. There was a good bit of trial and error making the spikes but I found rolling out a cone and then beating it on the table while flipping it around lengthen, thinned and squared it off creating the look you can see. I'd pinch the base of spikes to create an indentation and a more interesting shape. To get the different sized I'd just use different size cones and hit it on the table more or less.
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The Cross
The cross took me three tries to make and I had to change the way I went at it to get the results I wanted. The first cross I made was way too small and didn't match the scale at all. For my second attempt I rolled a slab that was around a half inch thick. I then carved away at the side in order to create a beveled edge. I flipped it over to repeat this step on the other side but it wasn't working and I was messing up the other half that I had already carved. For my third attempt I rolled two roughly half inch slabs and carved cross lightly into both of them before cutting them out. I then cut away the edges on both halves to achieve a beveled edge that was crisp and even. I used a clay knife that I held at about a forty-five degree angle against the table. I then scored and slipped the pieces together and smoothed out the seam before carving in a whole and attaching it to the chain.
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GlazingI chose to use an iron oxide wash to glaze this piece. I thought this option would be the best because the wash won't cause the sculpture to stick to itself or the kiln shelf unlike most other glazes. I wore gloves and mixed the iron oxide in a large bucket with water. The iron oxide settled to the bottom very quickly so I had to stir it often. I then dunked about one third of the sculpture in the water at a time, trying to get an even coating on all the pieces. I poured the water on top if there were any hard to get places and repeated the process til there was a thick coat on the sculpture. I then got a clean sponge and fresh water and began to wipe off the excess iron oxide off of the sculpture. Doing this will prevent the sculpture from looking flat and will highlight texture on the piece. The places I had a hard time getting to will remain a darker color while easier to reach places will be considerably lighter. I'll be firing the sculpture at cone 5 which reaches two thousand, one-hundred degrees Fahrenheit. The high temperature allows more pigment in the color than a low fire does and I'm expecting it to turn into a fairly dark redish brown.
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Final ProductThe final piece turned out almost exactly how I expected it to and I'm very happy with the result. Two of the spikes broke off the ball during the firing but I fixed it using super glue and it's almost impossible to tell where the breaks were now. A small piece also chipped off of one of the spikes but I won't be able to fit it because I can't find the piece that broke off. There were a few places where the kiln wash was stuck to but, I scraped them off with my nails and sandpaper. The crown looks a lot darker because I brushed a thin layer of burnished steel onto it. I also added the burnished steel to the tips of the spikes. The glaze is pretty runny so there is a good bit of variation between each spike. I am going to be submitting my flail and chain to the Scholastic Art Contest and to YCase.
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