Mixing Sand into Plaster

Making curves with plaster

Since I had started moving back into my comfort zone, I decided to try and mix other materials into plaster to see what would happen.
I also decided that rather than making simple lumps of plaster,  wanted to make a shape that would actually curve.

At first, I had planned to create two different lumps of plaster and join them together by a found object, inspired by an earlier experiment I had done where I had used the plaster as a plinth for a found object, rather than using a plinth to present plaster.

While it isn't clear in the image, the plaster does in fact bend where one of the pedal cranks comes out from the gear wheel and down. I wanted to try and make an arch with plaster without having the support of something running through it. Of course I was aware that I would have to build on it slowly and in pieces because it would be impossible to make the shape all at once. I also decided to add in some scrim for texture, and also to add some support where I would be joining the plaster together during the building process.

I started by covering an old experiment in plastr mixed with clay, but as I had poured red ink over the plaster in the previous experiment it began to sink through the new plaster in places. I decided to make an entirely new base and start from there.

Building it up was the easiest part, as it didn't really need any support like it would at the curve. All i did was bring some of the new plaster down to the old to blur the gap between the two parts.

The newer base that I had started turned out to be too round, so I chipped away some of the plaster to try ad reshape it, but in the end I decided to start again, and chipped away all but the bottom of this lump. Once I had built it u again to a shape I was happy with, I knocked my found object into it (a construction support) and added a ball of scrim on the top of the support so that I could add plaster over it later.

After that,  began to build the curve on top of the plaster lump. At first it was quite easy, as it was still slightly vertical, but as the curve flattened out, it got harder to keep the plaster onto the end of the curve, especially since my plaster mixes varied in consistency.

After reaching the mid point of my curve, I decided to leave it and work on it another day. I had built on top of the construction support as well, which I had to wedge into place so that it wouldn't fall. I left it because I wasn't sure I wanted to join the two pieces together. I liked the idea of having a solid arch made of plaster better than having an arch joined by a found object.

After coming back from the weekend, I found that the arch had collapsed into four different pieces. It was obvious that they had split where I had added onto the previous plaster batch, and each varied in size. The main cause of it collapsing was probably because the plaster hadn't set at all since making it, and even felt more damp than before I left it. I can only assume that this was because I added sand into the plaster when making it.

 I find these four pieces quite interesting, as they are remanents of what was, and fully demonstrate my project theme of the ever-changing and stability within objects. Though this wasn't a case of setting myself up for purposeful failure, it coincidentally fits in, and also will enable me to build on that side of experimentation.