It's About Time: Student Work

Final Solution:

Changes Made to Bear #2

  I wanted to make changes to my sculpture that functioned on an awareness of what it was a sculpture of.  Because I chose to carve a bear, I wanted to make changes to the sculpture that perhaps a real bear might go through, or that reflect the fact that it is a bear.

Both bears completed.  The green one I chose as the observation bear, and the pink one will be going through the changes. 

Change #1: Exposure to Rain.

     For the first change, I chose to put the bear outside for a couple of days in my garden.  The forecast indicated that in the next one or two days, there should be storms. While outside, the bear also got covered in dirt, just like a real bear would.

The bear outside in the garden, before it rained.

The rain made a change to the bear that was subtle in appearance, causing a few shallow cracks in the surface of the soap and exposing some of the carving marks underneath the top layer, such as the gouge down the bear's back.   Rain also made a difference to the bear's structural integrity, which was noticeable when I initiated the next change.

Cracks in the surface and some carving marks have been revealed

The rain also made the bear even dirtier

Change #2: Leaving a Scent

Bears sometimes rub up against trees to mark their territory.  I rubbed my soap bear against a tree in my front yard, wearing down one side of the bear and leaving a visible, and very heavily scented mark on the tree.  This particular bear marked his territory rather vigorously, and due to the compromise of structural integrity caused by the first change, his leg fell off from the pressure of holding onto him during this change.

He definitely succeeded in using his scent to mark his territory

Bear was a little rough with the tree and lost a foot

       

Change #3: Shedding the Winter Coat

For the third change, I picked up the butter knife I had originally used to carve the bear and shaved off any remaining texture in the top layer, taking into consideration how a bear's fur contributes to his shape and how some of his proportions or his shape might change without his fur.

Quite the haircut

The tummy fur is all gone

Change #4: Visiting a Hot Spring

I tried to make my changes in a chronological order that would make sense in the life of a bear.  I suppose the onset of fall would be a good time for a bear to visit a hot spring (I don't know if they do that or not, but it sounds nice); his winter coat would just be coming back in, but maybe not as quickly as the weather changes.  To simulate this, I partially submerged the bear in a pot of water and brought it to a boil.  He lost a lot of weight in the hot water, and it didn't smell too bad, either.

Bear smells pretty nice

Bear definitely lost some weight in that warm water

Change #5: Feasting

I gathered some flowering weeds from outside near where the bear had been left out in the rain.  I poked holes in his mouth and added the flowers from the weeds.  Since the bear was so hungry, he might have made quite a mess, so I sprinkled him with some of the seeds from the dandelions that had been nearby.

Change #6: Hibernation during Winter

I added some of the soapy water from the "hot spring" to a pan and put the bear in it, and then put it in the freezer for a few hours.  Winter has come.  When I removed the bear from the freezer, he had a slab of soapy, seed-strewn ice attached to his left side.  

Change #7: Exposure to Extreme Heat

If Spring were to be abnormally hot and come a little too early, this bear would have a hard time.  Straight out of the freezer, I put him in the oven.  The ice melted and created a pool of soapy water at the bear's feet, which then boiled into an air-filled, cloud-like structure.  The same thing happened to other parts of the bear that had been wet, including his left side and parts of his right side that the ice water had pooled up on as it melted.  

The white mass around the bear is the cloud-like, air-filled baked soap

Change #8: Colour

This bear has been an albino this whole time.  I discovered earlier, when my mum accidentally spilled hot chocolate on the block of soap I made out of the shavings from the first bear carving, that hot chocolate adhered decently to the soap and showed up as a semi-translucent brown layer.  I'm not sure how well it shows up on the bear as opposed to a large block of soap with a flat, level surface, but it changes the smell of the soap significantly (perhaps not for the better).  

He looks to be in pretty sad shape now.

In Progress Photos of Carvings:

Soap Bear #1:

Bear #1 Finished!

Soap Bear #2: