inside the chrysalis

inside the chrysalis

i don't like to predispose my audience, so at this point i
am not going to describe my intentions for this piece.
my artist statement is at the bottom of the page. i am
willing to discuss q uestions regarding this project. the
piece has three components: a life-cast of myself, the
outer structure and the coiling . the entire project took
over eight-hundred hours, at least half of them were
spent on the coiling project.

the following set of images shows various stages of completion of
my lifecast. it was a multiple step process; this started with making
alginate molds of each part of my body. while the alginate was
setting i made a plaster mother-mold for each piece. then to
prevent shrinkage i made a positive plaster cast. using this positive, i
made a plaster negative. i painted about 30 layers of liquid latex
into the plaster negative.

to create the model's hair
i used loose wig hair that i
made into small flat
sections, using liquid latex

i feel that the attention
to detail is what make the
model look disturbingly
realistic

the following images
portray my fabrication of
the structure that
contains the model

i started wrapping the whole piece in yarn
(seen on the left) the opacity was not
visually appropriate. i bought a bolt of
tulle and began wrapping the piece with it
(seen on the right) the tulle looked
more fitting, so i cut off the yarn (lower
right) and started over, by wrapping two
inch strips of tulle

a cool spider that was living
on my piece, i escorted him
and two of his friends back
outside, and i tried to
inspect the pine needles
before i brought them inside

the pine needle coiling had so many days that
felt as if it would never be complete. for about
three weeks in april i didn't get more than ten
hours of sleep. i had conversations i couldn't
remember and looked ill, but between going to
school full-time and working 30 hours a week,
there was no time for sleep if i wanted my
senior show to be finished

i spent about an hour every
morning collecting pine needles
from one tree in overton park. i
was lucky enough (after a severe
storm) to find the rich green fresh
branch (seen left and above)

after the show, i had to dismantle
my piece it was emotionally
difficult at first but when i had to
cut my welds apart i was
unexpectedly okay.

inside the chrysalis

and what if the caterpillar dies?
unable to experience the dreams of things that life could offer
the sleep is endless waiting for the chance to emerge
it will never come

back to spring 2005

click here to leave feedback

i took measurements of my body in order to fabricate an exact model of myself with
hardware cloth. i sewed canvas and burlap around the model and then used more
liquid latex to attach the latex casts. after the model was dry i painted many layers of
acrylic onto the body to create the look of decomposing flesh.

these positive
casts are results
of insufficient
mother-molds,
causing the
casts to bubble
and pucker