As I headed back to Junction for another summer session, this year I took Glassblowing! It was so great to see friends from last summer! As people wandered out to the glass pad to enjoy an evening watching the glassblowers, my friend, Lynn arrived. I wasn't sure she was going to be there this summer. I was so happy to see her. We started chatting about the past year and what we had been up to, the artwork we had created and where our lives had taken us! I was excited to share with her all the artwork that I had been busily working on throughout the year. After talking about the last piece about my body, I told her that I wanted to create another piece about my body but that was in a more positive light. That's when the ideas started flowing, we were searching the web, and talking excitedly. She suggested a body cast, to make a 3-D cast of my body and that would serve as the mold that I would be able to make as many casts from as I would like. As the evening wound down and friends went to their perspective cabins for the evening, I couldn't help but be so excited about where this could take me! The next morning, at breakfast, I started sharing with 2 of my friends Becky and Corina. We started talking about how we could make this cast. Thank God for Corina! She had a great solution and was just as excited to do this. Becky and I made a trip into town to get plaster, burlap (which I found a HUGE sack at the feed store for $5, in case your interested) and a few other supplies we would need. Returning to campus, we set up, and began cutting the burlap into strips, the plaster was ready, I was covered in Vaseline (to make it easier for the cast to come off my body) and we were ready. Corina started dipping the strips into the plaster and we were off! It was incredibly cold! below is the process of how the cast went! Thank you Becky for documenting this process for me and Corina for getting your hands dirty and creating this wonderful piece for me! After the plaster set up and we were able to remove it from my body, I let it set up for at least 24 hours. Then I had no idea where I wanted to go with this piece. So it sat, and sat and sat.....
When I got home, a week later I started my second class for the summer, an online class. There was a project that comes with class and I really wanted to somehow tie in my mold. So I made a papier mache cast from the mold. My original intentions were to take old photos of both sets of my grandparents and then my parents and my son, and somewhat make a family tree. I still want to do this but have changed my mind about the piece I want to do for class.
I have many ideas that this cast will be used for, with many more molds to be taken and transformed into many more pieces to go with my series. I am looking forward to where this chapter will take me and the healing that I know will take place along the way.
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