20th February, 2012.

Today sees the start of the last Electives, mine is Sculpture.    After mind maps we picked ten words that appealed to us and after discussion narrowed it down further.   My two words were melt and stretch.   So I'm going to look at different materials that I can stretch and melt.   I have also decided to look at both sides of the coin to see what materials can be stretched and what happens if the same material is melted. Will it shrivel and contract or can it be made even stretcher if melted.   I started with a plastic building mesh used for plastering.  This is what happened when I stretched it.  As with a lot of fabrics the mesh was only able to be stretched when pulled on the bias.

 

Stretching and pulling

cutting into strips stretching and returning it to the square again.

The next experiment I did was stretching with tights, being nylon they stretched very well and could be pulled more than twice their original length.   They were easy to pull and stretch width ways as well.  To keep the emphasis on the stretch I used invisible thread to pull them apart. These are the results.

                                            

 

My next experiment was to melt and  do this I used sugar.  I used sugar because there are no fumes or strong smell from it and because of this I was able to use it very comfortably.   I put the sugar in a pot and added heat.   The grains dissolved into liquid.   I let it boil until it became clear and then I poured it on to grease proof paper.
Below  are the results.

 
                                 

When the sugar dried it became a solid form again, but very brittle and fragile.   When lifting the shapes off the paper they crumbled and broke.   I decided to make another batch and while I used the same method  I let it boil longer.   This changed the colour and texture but it was still brittle and hard to handle.   Originally I wanted to hang these shapes like icicles or stalagmites but this did 't work out so I put them together with a glue gun.    I used the glue like sugar strands let it fall and stretch over the sugar shapes.  I had no particular shape in mind when putting these together.  The hot glue did melt the sugar a little further in places, but not as much as I would have liked it to do.  They have a transparent feel about them in places you can see through them and they kinda look like ice or icebergs.   I also like the way some of the shapes have that slightly different colour and a different texture, being rough and pox marked rather than just smooth.   I'll let you judge for yourself.

The most exciting thing about this experiment was the unpredictability of it all, no result was exactly the same.   Even when I used the same method and allowed the same time there were still some differences.  Of course if I was using it in a culinary sense it would be totally frustrating but for this process it added another dimension to the experiment.  This is one I will revisit at the week end and when doing so,  I hope to think about scale and maybe incorporate some other material as well.