I’m going to give you a little bit of my backstory. This probably would have been better if I had done this in the “introduceyourself” post, but I like doing things without really thinking them through. I’ve loved art since I was a kid, drawing painting, you name it, but another big part of my childhood was working on cars. My dad owns a small auto body shop that fixes all sorts of car problems but mostly dents, dings, and paintwork. I was probably around 12 or 13 when I started helping out down at the shop, doing small tasks to earn some spending money. Over the years I started picking up the “art” of straightening sheet metal, but it wasn’t until I graduated from art school and started to work full time at the shop. But I wanted to try to bring some creativity to my day to day and this is what I came up with. I make little sculptures.
Alien Head
Now, for everyone that is not familiar with the auto body business and the process of fixing dents, the first thing to do is try and beat most of the dent out with a hammer to roughly shape the metal used to be. At this point the metal should be fairly close to the shape you are looking for but it still won’t be smooth enough to paint. In order to smooth out the hammer marks and roughness of the metal you need to apply what most people refer to as “bondo”, but I just call it mud, because that’s what it reminds me up. In order to use mud it comes in two parts, the filler and the hardener and when you combine them it creates a chemical reaction and causes it to harden. You always want to try and only use as much as you need but it is always better to mix up too much than not enough, which raised the question, “what should I do with the extra mud?”, now you know.
Angle# 2
I’ve always been the spacey type that likes to stare up at the clouds and take the time to pick out the “puppy” in the sky or at least admire the shapes and forms that collect up above. When I began making these mud sculptures they were pretty simple forms, basically resembling tear drops, but as I continued making them more intricate I began to see more interesting shapes and forms. Because these are made using gravity and I don’t have control of the dry time I have to work quickly with not much direction. Its this randomness that makes them even more interesting because with all of these uncontrollable variables somehow creates interesting forms and shapes.
Angle# 3
When you see most sculptures in a museums or anywhere they are usually viewed “in the round “ which means that it can be seen from every angle, but generally there is one true angle that the artist intended it to be viewed from. But what I like about the randomness that is created in these blobs allows each viewer to create their own perspective. Potentially that perspective could even change. Depending on what angle they are viewing it from or the direction of light can change the forms and shapes that are created from their point of view.
Angle#4
Eventually I think would be a really cool to do would be to 3-D scan a few of my favorites, enlarge them, and cast them in bronze. The bigger the better but I think it would be cool to make them at least the size of a traditional bronze bust of some rich or important guy that you never heard of but walk by at the front of nearly every library or public building. These sculptures are pretty small but I think they could be even more interesting if they were bigger in order to appreciate the forms and shadows and make more of an impact on the viewer.
Angle# 6
I posted a few of my favorite angles. Let me know which one is your favorite and what you might see. Hope you enjoy the first Mud sculpture because I there are a lot more where this came from, (literally I have hundreds) so stayed tuned.
-inkmud