Sculpture -- Transformation

Our assignment was to take an everyday object or series of them and transform it. I chose drinking straws. My artist statement follows the photo of the sculpture.

The Transformation sculpture, Spiral Trapezoid, is a symmetrical, standing sculputure created from plastic drinking straws and glue with a paper-covered mat board base. The sculpture is mounted to the base and should stand slightly below eye level. Its dimensions are roughly 7” high x 10” wide x 10” deep. It is a mostly “closed” form and should be viewed from all four sides.

The sculpture was created from seventy-six drinking straws, including nineteen of each color: striped red, striped yellow, striped green and striped blue. Each trapezoid contains one straw of each color. Straws were trimmed so that as the spiral rises, the ends of the straws converge. Each straw was also notched twice with a paper punch, Lincoln-log style, so that the structure would have more stability.

The sculpture is designed to explore color and line. First each straw itself is a line in a trapezoidal structure and each straw has several straight, colored lines on it running from tip to tip. Second, these colored lines form the basis of the exploration of color in the sculpture. The colors are the three primary colors plus green. The order of the colors as the spiral is formed is always red, yellow, green and blue. As the colors revolve around the spiral, one complete rotation is created. Third, there are eight implied lines formed by the ends of the straws that rise in the shape of the spiral and converge slightly above the sculpture. The movement of these implied lines, up and toward the center, and converging above the structure, provide the “open” aspect of the form.