Lisa Gerrard Sanvean

2005

Sculpture
The Insides

White cardboard cake sheets
Heart in white cardboard box, red stitching
lungs, white stitching
nerves of hand
female reproductive organs
Lower leg veins stitched and wrapped in blue thread

What really struck me about this project was my response to the ideas, process, and conceptualization. Initially, the idea crept into my notes very subtly and then suddenly one day while brainstorming on my other idea, an image of pure white organs as abstract shapes overwhelmed any other inclination. This rarely happens for me and finding that in this project really motivated me to delve into this physical response and translate it into how I found and worked with my ideas and material. I knew what I wanted it to feel like on a gut level and choosing size, color, joinery, and the actual organs to be represented became a matter of intuitive feeling in the dark, though not without a great many pages of brainstorming along the way. This natural, physical and emotional movement from one stage to the next is what I loved the most about the project. The organs, veins, and nerves I chose were simply the ones that generated the most physical response in myself. White purified and simplified the fear, but the stitching, the raw and often torn edges of the objects themselves, and the sometimes red or blue stitching made it a re-creation of a bodily self that was less scary and less unknown. The stitching was perhaps my most meaningful aspect of the project, representing so many things, but I was satisfied that it was subtle enough not to be noticed in some instances (the veins that formed the outline of the legs were stitched in blue). I would really like to develop this, to be able to work on the unnoticeable, the simple, the hidden, and on tiny details that affect the viewer and myself in a way that is more emotive, physical or guttural.
If I were to do it again, I would probably create even more space between the objects, perhaps try attaching the presentation to a wall in a very large space so that the organs are about level with our actual organs or straight across about level with our heart, and I would probably create more "parts." I think it would be interesting to create an opposing structure too, maybe one that is not full of parts that disturb me such as the skeletal structure, and give that a different "color". I would also refine the base of the circle the reproductive organs rest on since I attached a crescent shape that seemed to detract from the simple lines.
As a side note, during my critique, the idea of "permission" to touch objects came up and this really interested me. I was curious from the beginning of whether anyone would even think to open the box the heart was in. I didn't see anyone open it and this was really intriguing to me since before class started I had been keeping an eye on my project so that no one would accidentally step on it. Without knowing it, when people would step over it, tiny globs of dirt and dust and sculpture-room debris would fall onto my project. Aware of it, some would walk around it and gently, unknowingly send one of the leg veins twirling or moving to an animated pose. I went to help someone bring out her project to the hallway and when I came back one of the ladder legs was on top of one of my bases, a tiny edge of a footprint was on one corner, and one of the bases had been turned a fraction of an inch. I noticed, not in a disturbed way, but in a fascinated way, that people were in such a hurry to get their own pieces up that they were aware of my object, and sought to keep clear of my object, but unintentionally kept invading its space (or it was invading their space) and leaving their mark on it without being aware. However, I didn't see a single person open the box.

Photographic Self-Portrait
Art 8