Death and life

 "Eventually, all living things die. And except in very rare cases, all of those dead things will rot. But that’s not the end of it. What rots will wind up becoming part of something else,"(Kowalski, 2014). Thus creating life cycles, "life would end without rot," in other words decay promotes growth which is implied by my sculpture as it looks as though the plant is growing out of the vertebrae. The sculpture occurred through the serendipity of taking a photo of my castings last year that I hoped would evolve into a wearable piece.

Bowes, K.,(2020). Instagram photo of sculpture.

Kowalski, K., 2014. Recycling the dead. [online] Science News for Students. Available at: <https://www.sciencenewsforstudents.org/article/recycling-dead> [Accessed 21 October 2021].

Flower pot links

 I used ring wax to make my 'flower pots' and warmed up the metal and pressed it into the wax. Pressing the hot casting into the wax will make sure that the succulent will fit perfectly into the 'flower pot' once it is cast. I tried to keep the walls thin but the blue wax kept snapping so I decided I will file them out after casting. I don't want the walls too thick because I love the negative spaces between the succulent leaves because when worn the wearer's skin will make the colour of the 'soil' the succulent is 'growing' from. Casting in gilding-metal has a colour similar to a terracotta flower pot.

Bowes, K., (2021). Wax 'pot'

Bowes, K., (2021). Wax tree

Bowes, K., (2021).   Perfect fit

Bowes, K., (2021).Succulent in its pot

Cast leaf skeletons

  The leaf skeleton cast was somewhat successful as the whole leaves did cast but the details of the veins did not completely translate into the metal. I think I pressed the skeleton a bit too deep into the wax. This could have happened when I moulded the wax into a more leaf shape instead of it casting flat.

Bowes, K., (2020). leaf casting 1

Bowes, K., (2020). Leaf casting 2

Sedum Adolphii castings

I cast juvenile Sedum Adolphii succulents as a test to be used possibly as studs for my sister's wedding next year. My sister was thinking about wearing succulent studs to match her bouquet as she wanted to use succulents instead of flowers for her wedding due to my pollen allergy. The plan changed as she found artificial flowers that match her colour scheme. I can still use the silver succulents so I have hung onto them.

Bowes, K., (2020). Succulent casting for studs.

 

Bowes, K., (2020). Sedum Adolphii

Cast Succulents

 My succulent, Aeonium Sedifolium, I bought during the lockdown grow enough for me to cut off sections for casting.

Bowes, K., (2020). Sterling silver cast succulents.

 I had an idea of making the succulents into rings, as seen in the image below, but the leaves are delicate as where they join the stem is narrow in comparison to the tip of the leaves thus making them brittle and easy to break off. I tumbled them for some time to help harden the silver but I am still wary about making them into rings.

Bowes. K., (2020). Succulent as a 'ring'.

Plant casting

Using my inspiration from Burnout casting and my very badly made Silicone molds. The vertebra I found on the beach and made a silicone mould of it which I then injected wax into the mould. The wax roses I cast in the same flask as the vertebra were from a mold I made last year (Fig. 2). Wax is what is what is normally used for casting as wax burns out easily in the kiln but I wanted to try cast plants.  I grew succulents (Haworthia and Sedum Adolphii) and picked the newly budding ones so that when it is cast it will not weight too much in metal(Fig. 1). Plants will burn to ash in the kiln unlike the wax that will vaporize in the kiln but succulents are water based. The flask would need to be raised so that the water which will turn to steam has somewhere to evaporate rather than being trapped in the flask.

Figure 1 -Bowes, K., (2020). Succulents for casting.

Figure 2- Bowes, K., (2020). wax vertebra and roses.

I cast the succulents and vertebra in gilding metal (Fig. 3 and 4) as I was not sure if the burn out method for the succulents would work. This was an experiment as I did not have a final goal or use for these items once they were cast.

Figure 3 - Bowes, K., (2020). Haworthia and Sedum Adolphii. 

Figure 4 - Bowes, K., (2020). cast vertebra.