Starting in March 2005 I participated in a yearlong class to further my skills and focus on making art; a Master Class with NanC Meinhardt. Our assignment was to make a significant piece of artwork. I started the year wanting to work in mixed media — fiber, beads and wire. The class was filled with bead artists; there was a great deal of bead weaving and bead embroidery being created by the other members of the class. Although my own mastery was making things with wire, I kept trying to make beaded art. At the same time I started playing with colored wire. Up until this time I had used primarily silver wire, making jewelry. I started “doodling” in colored wire, making little “flowers” — small sculptures on a stem.
From small I started to think big. I thought about making a sculpture with wire, or embellishing an armature. How would that work? I was already fooling around with foam as a core for my mixed-media experiments; what if I used it as a base for a sculpture? A friend in the class came in with a wig form; when it didn’t work for her project, she offered it to me. Without thinking I started to cover this with wire. I modified the form, made a base and proceeded to wind, curl and apply various combinations of wire and beads to embellish the form; a technique I call wire embroidery.
The resulting sculpture is 10” X 10” X 10” on a copper-covered wood base. It is made with enamel coated copper wire coiled, twisted, formed and coaxed into pleasing lines and three-dimensional shapes that cover the form; in addition, resin, glass, and shell beads are also applied to the surface.
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