Disclaimer: This article was originally published in the previous host, GoDaddy on November 2, 2024, and has been transferred for preservation.

In my second article, Another Year in Texas Tech, I mentioned that I would apply for a sculpture class. As the other classmates and I learned, we created two kinds of sculptures based on metal sculpting and woodworking. Therefore, we had reached halfway through a whole semester of Beginning Sculpture. Thanks to my high school experiences in wood and metalwork, I am proud to discuss my latest two 3D projects: The Rainbow Rail and the Bauhaus Blocks.

The Rainbow Rail

The Rainbow Rail is made of thick metal bars welded together. The outer layer of the rail resembles the arches of a rainbow, hence the model's name. When I did metalwork in high school, we had to learn the fundamentals of grinding, plasma-cutting, and welding pieces of metal when making a sculpture. At the time, we were taught how to weld with a handheld welding gun in which the ultraviolet power activated the wire attached inside. In the college sculpture class, I learned a much different technique in welding: using a blowtorch (activated with combustion of oxygen and acetylene) and a thin rod of wire to hold while welding the metal pieces. Of course, we needed to test our skills with this unfamiliar welding by creating lines of melted wire from steel sheets. Not too late, we finally could begin our final project of welding a rail. It took us weeks to shape the thick rods, assemble them to the proposed structure, and weld them to their complete build. As soon as everyone's rails were full, we each performed a "tightrope" recital by balancing our feet on our rails. The process involved putting our rails on the edges of two heavy tables. Then, we could balance on our rails (with optional assistance from the professor if we were afraid of heights) and see if our weight didn't crush our projects, thus starting all over. I felt terrible for some of the kids whose rails broke apart. Some looked frail or sloppy, but that didn't mean they could make up for what went wrong and rebuild themselves into something better than before. I'd say that working with metal was probably a complicated subject for us, but we managed to try our best in the long run.

The Bauhaus Blocks

Moving on from metal sculpture, we started new projects for woodworking. They were inspired by the Bauhaus, an innovative art school in Germany from 1919 to 1933. The school was known for developing modern art and mass productions in various fields. However, financial struggles and the rising plague of Nazism led to the closure of the Bauhaus. Thus, artists and staff members fled to Chicago and Tel Aviv. They escaped to share their modern art and concepts. Considering that the Bauhaus artists created innovative products like modernized chess and building blocks. This inspired me to make wooden sculptures using these building blocks. Development began with cutting off multiple pieces of wood into various shapes with a mechanical sawblade. The pieces were smoothed by a sanding machine and were glued together in structures that would seem impossible to build solely by hand. The blocks were then painted with six primary colors: white, yellow, red, blue, green, and black. These colors came from the original building blocks of the Bauhaus since the artists relied on primary colors that helped their compositions and products gain a simple yet modest appeal from other artworks. However, there is one significant twist: the paint on the blocks is splattered in several places, making it look like a collaboration between Piet Mondrian and Jackson Pollock. Overall, I wanted to create these blocks that serve as a tribute to an innovative school that changed the fine arts world but include some uncanny touches of mine.

In conclusion, my journey through the Beginning Sculpture class has been a fine opportunity to refresh my metal and woodworking skills. The Rainbow Rail and the Bauhaus Blocks reflect my learning experiences and artistic growth. While welding challenges tested my perseverance and adaptability, the detailed craftsmanship in creating the wooden Bauhaus-inspired pieces inspired me to embrace a new branch of innovation and creativity. Each project emphasizes the distinct techniques I've learned and pays homage to the influential artistic movements that continue to inspire contemporary art today. As I move forward, I am excited to explore even more new ideas and techniques while carrying these foundational experiences I embraced in the beginning of this class.