Created for Sculpture III. Each scullpture class during the Fall 2010 semester had its students using water as a concept for one of their projects. Instead of using water directly, I decided to address the concept of desertification - lack of water.  There were several reasons for this and I will be brutally honest about them.  First, every student was doing something with water bottles, it was simply played out.  Second, this was the semester I did my BFA thesis exhibit so I was a little taxed and this project didn't really get my full attention.  I had wanted this to be larger and backlit but every spare dime I had went to the BFA thesis project.  Besides, the area had to exhibit in didn't allow for any lighitng at all.  Simply put, 99.9% of my attention was on The Last Sin, and about .1% of my attention was on this.  I probably shouldn't admit that but I was honest with my professor about it too.  While I didn't get to make it as large as I wanted, or as well lit, it actually didn't turn out half bad.  The backlighting would have been nice though as the oil on the drawing papers created a nice translucent effect that you could only see with proper lighting.  I should point out that I did use two types of paper, watercolor paper and a slightly heavier stock drawing paper that was leftover from a previous class.  The latter was very, very delicate while wet but allowed for more intricate shapes. 

The basic concept was to mold the wet papers into shapes reminiscent of water and the motion of water:  the circles the form in a pond when a pebble has been dropped in; waves in various forms; the splash of water at various stages (I looked at stop motion photos for ideas).  One piece of the watercolor paper is formed around my mini muffin tin as it looked to me like raindrops falling onto the water’s surface (sans burst).   The dehydrated art supplies were to remind us that without a steady supply of water many artists would be without a means to create their art.  The dehydrated foodstuffs were to remind us that without continual water there is no life.  As I went through this project I began a side exploration of food safe dyes vs. artistic dyes.  However, the semester came to a close and the project stopped before I could take that exploration any further.

The initial stage of The Water Project, for every student, included research into water - as a general concept.  This was to help us formulate what we wanted to do.  Please understand that I use the word "research" in the loosest possible sense, it was more like surfing the web and downloading articles.  In any event, the italicized portion of my artist statment, which I hung with my project (I believe I was the only one who wrote one as it was not a requirement) referenced one of the articles I printed and hung near my project. 

Artist Statment: 

What happens when we run out of water?  Cities and countries around the world face critical water shortages every day.  Even cities as unlikely as Orlando, Florida made a recent list of the Ten Biggest Cities That Are Running Out of Water.  Drought and desertification (both natural and man-made) are the major causes of water shortages.  Needless to say, without water we cannot survive. 

To try and bring a large issue down to a visually impactful level, I decided to take two basic categories of substances that artists use regularly, liquid foodstuffs and art supplies, and dehydrate them.  I added paper to the mix so the dehydrated elements had a surface to adhere to.  I then took the nearly dry papers and molded them over surfaces that gave the impression of water in some way.  I also played with the ideas of dyes that are food safe (Kool-Aid) versus dyes that are not (Higgins Inks and Alcohol Inks).

Materials Used:  Watercolor paper, drawing paper, various inks, dyes,  liquid foodstuffs and oils (see below). 

Completed:  November & December 2010.