Overall for this piece, it has two meanings behind it; self growth and Childhood Trauma. For others, it may be specifically from inner challenges but in my case, it's more of a self growth from Trauma. The reason why I chose flowers as a way to convey this message is because each flower I made out of cardboard has a very specific symbolism and meaning behind them. White Roses: Represent new beginnings and youthfulness. Red Roses: represent love and courage. Daffodils: represent a rebirth, new beginnings. I chose to use these flowers all together into one bouquet due to their strong symbolism and the meaning behind them. I am trying to have a new beginning of self growth within myself to have the courage and strength of self love to move past my childhood trauma. Having these flowers all together in one bouquet is kind of representing how I need to have courage, self love, a new beginning, in order to grow as a person. I can't have one without the other, so I made them all together.
Inspirations ꕤ
Arnold Drake World
Arnold Drake World has been making paper morning glories, calla lilies, roses, and other flowers from premium quality paper napkins. Although, he makes his flowers out of napkins instead of cardboard, using corrugated cardboard and peeling the outer layer off is sort of like a very very thin paper, which could be very similar to what Arnold Drake uses to make his flowers as well. He was my first inspiration when I began looking for an idea as to what I should make for my cardboard piece. Seeing his work and what he can do with napkins alone highly motivated me in believing in myself to work with cardboard the same way and make is very similar to normal flowers.
Chris Gilmour
Chris Gilmour is a famous cardboard artist, his cardboard sculpture are more geometric and they usually consist of popular manufactured goods recognizable by the average person. It is also notable that Gilmour uses colored cardboard or paints the final piece to complete the transformation from a piece of cardboard to a finished product. I used him as one of my major inspirations because I was more focused on how he really constructed his artwork and how I would be able to construct my sculpture in the same way as his art. Using Chris Gilmour as a source of inspiration for my cardboard project helped me greatly after I was done with my project due to the fact I was able to really compare my clean cuts and structure of my cardboard to how he cleanly cuts and designed his cardboard as well.
Sketches & Planning ꕤ
Firstly, my overall background plan was to, of course, create some large, oversize flowers! Not only because I love flowers, but because for me flowers are something I almost always have in my day to day life. Flowers hold a very specific and true meaning behind them, and I believe in those meanings they really correlate to my life and my feelings. I decided to do 2 Roses and one Daffodil. Red Roses signify courage and love. Daffodils signify new beginnings and hope. I chose these two specific flowers because I wanted my flowers to overall represent growing from past traumas. Fighting through those past hardships and becoming a new and happier person, Loving yourself, having the courage to fight through past trauma and knowing that you can have a new beginning and have hope to move past that and not let it put you down nor define you for the rest of your life.
For my sketches, I had to deeply analyze these specific flowers and decide as to how I can really make these flowers look as similar to the real flowers as I possibly could. I began to really focus on the individual petals themselves because that's where most of the detail is, the curve of the petal, how delicate the petal seems.. I focused on those main aspects and decided the shape to use for each petal and flower and used that on my cardboard to eventually cut out and duplicate.
Process ꕤ
I gathered my cardboard pieces for each individual flower and began to make every single petal, trace it and cut it out. I overlapped them, and sort of curved them to really make them have the same structure as real petals on roses and flowers. For both of my main roses, I decided to do the same process of tracing one petal and then cutting those pieces out, curving them and creating a rose by overlapping and gluing the petals together like I wanted them to be.
After completing the two main roses, I then wanted to begin working on my Daffodil. The Daffodil was a bit challenging, especially because I didn't really know how I would be able to create the Daffodil the same way a Daffodil really looks like so I began to just try my best to get it as precisely accurate as I really could.
Critique ꕤ
Similarities:
Some similarities that I've noticed with my final project and my inspiration is the fact that even though what Arnold used to make his flowers compared to what I used to make my flowers, I was still able to really catch the effect of a real flower and really tried to focus on those main details of the flowers to correlate to my project and make it also look just as real. Arnold does the same thing, I've noticed that with his flowers that they are extremely detailed and intricate that he must be seriously analyzing flowers deeply to get it as detailed as he possibly can.
Differences:
One major difference is that Arnold's main use of his sculptures are just napkins compared to what I had to use for my sculpture which was cardboard. Since his was napkins, he was able to get more of that flowery and delicate effect and it was more of a challenge for me to do that with cardboard especially. Another difference was that my inspirations didn't use cardboard and my other inspiration only used cardboard to make other things instead of plants.
Reflection ꕤ
Overall, I highly enjoyed this project. This had to be one of my most favorite projects that I have done so far. I enjoyed collecting colorful cardboard, creating the flowers, examining the petals and figuring out how I can convey this with cardboard. Although, I did face some really big challenges throughout this project. I had some hard times trying to figure out how I can get more colored cardboard, I didn't really gather enough. Since I didn't have enough colored cardboard I had to resort to using regular brown cardboard. It really ruined my process of trying to figure out how I can correctly make my flowers since I didn't have the proper colors I needed to make my colored flowers. Another challenge I faced was trying to correctly make the petals as closely related to real petals. Most of the petals were curved and it was highly difficult to do that, but I did try my best. Despite my challenges when making this project, I overall enjoyed it and I had a new experience working with cardboard. I've never worked with cardboard in my life nor made any sculptures with cardboard and I highly enjoyed it a lot.
ACT Connections ꕤ
1) Clearly explain how you are able to identify the cause effect relationship between your inspiration and its effect on your artwork? Although one of my inspirations used napkins instead of cardboard to make their flowers, it still really taught me as to how I can manipulate my cardboard and still let it have the same effect as napkins or even regular paper.
2) What is the overall approach the author has regarding the topic of your inspiration? I feel as though my author would really appreciate the overall topic of my inspirations.
3) What kind of generalizations and conclusions have you discovered about people, ideas, culture, etc. while you researched your inspiration? Not a lot of artists have done flowers made out of cardboard, the artists I have found primarily used cardboard to make more everyday objects such as paperclips, hair dryers, chargers, tables, etc.
4) What is the central idea or theme around your inspirational research? Growing from past trauma and negative experiences, growing to overcome those challenges.
5) What kind of inferences did you make while reading your research? Primarily just the overall fact that many artists haven't made a lot of sculptures based around plants or nature really, and it was hard to find a connection with any artists because of that.
MLA Citations ꕤ
Nakaya, Rion. “Paper Flower Artist Arnold Drake World.” The Kid Should See This, 23 May 2019, https://thekidshouldseethis.com/post/paper-flower-artist-arnold-drake-world.
“Chris Gilmour Artworks.” Chris Gilmour, http://www.chrisgilmour.com/index.php.