MOLD MAKING & CASTING
Course Description & SyllabusThis course explores moldmaking and casting as a way to reproduce sculptural form and generate meaning. In this class, students are introduced to techniques for reproducing form such as open face molds, two-part molds, and castings from life. Students learn to express ideas by exploring the conceptual significance of material and form. Assignments teach technical skills while fostering conceptual development. Course content introduces students to contemporary artists and critical dialog.
Life Casting
This is a collection of student projects from various life casting assignments.
Multiples
The objects in our lives act as touchstones to our imagination and memories, to our ideas and stories. Students were asked to select an object to cast that they find to be interesting. Students created a two-part mold of the object using silicone and plaster and then cast 10-15 multiples of the object in different materials such as plaster and wax. Students experimented with adding pigments and found materials to achieve different results. They created a display for the objects that conceptually related to their collection.
Bio-Plastics
Absence
At its core, the process of casting is about absence and conversely, presence. The original object has been replaced by a replica that is formally identical yet materially unique. Because of this tension between absence and presence, casting is often used to by artists to gesture metaphorically towards such intangible phenomena as memory, impermanence and mortality.
Students were asked to create an object that conceptually engages with the idea of absence. How does the choosen object, the casting material, the process of casting itself, as well as the final display generate the meaning of the work?
Students were asked to create an object that conceptually engages with the idea of absence. How does the choosen object, the casting material, the process of casting itself, as well as the final display generate the meaning of the work?
Images of various casting processes.
