Making The Objects (Part 2)

Making these necklaces out of parts from the car was important. Jewelry for me represents an object of luxury and thus reflects our use in modern culture of the car as a luxury object. One thing that was important to me in creating these was the use of luxurious materials in their crafting.

The first one I made was the bulb necklace. I started there because the parts were easily accessible. I liked the shininess and color of the turn signal bulb as it seemed to simulate the use of amber in jewelry. after attaching it to a wire making the general form of the necklace I wound the wire with a great deal of copper wire taken from various electronic components. This step was quite time consuming, but that time was apparent in viewing the finished product.

After that I decided to get away from using the glass bulbs and move toward pendants. At first I was looking at a lot of different materials, but I decided upon pieces of copper from the electronics of the car. The first problem I had to solve was how to free the pieces of copper from the plastic molds that held them. As the pieces did not come apart I surmised that the plastic was molded around the copper pieces and would have to be destroyed to get the copper out. I took what seemed the most appropriate course in solving this problem...I hit the plastic piece with a rock to try and break it. The principle was sound as the piece broke, but pieces of plastic and copper went flying all over the studio. Then, to much success I amended the method by placing the plastic pieces between two wooden boards and hitting the top board with a hammer. After a half of an hour of what I like to call 'harvesting' I had a decent amount of small, interestingly shaped copper pieces.

I took these copper pieces and began placing them in different formations until I had an arrangement that pleased me. I then took copper wire from the car and wound it around the pieces to bind them together creating the pendants. I made one of the necklaces in the same manner as the one with the bulb (simply attaching the pendant to a wire for the necklace and then wrapping that wire with more). However the last necklace I produced was much more intricate.

For the final necklace I produced, instead of simply attaching the pendant to a wire and wrapping it, I decided to produce a braided copper chain. I used six strands of very thin copper wire and wrapped them around the pendant itself and then began braiding two separate strands to comprise the necklace. This was the most time consuming step in the production of this piece. 7 to 8 hours of straight braiding produced the two ends of the necklace each almost 8 inches long. This was well worth the time and in my opinion it was the most impressive of all the necklaces.

Add something about masks importance here.

This mask was actually the first thing I created. The maroon molded plastic pieces that comprise the overall structure of the mask were taken from the interior wall paneling. the face of the mask was the part that covered where the seat belt was attached to the ceiling. The mane around the face and the eye lashes were constructed out of snipped sections of the cars electronic wiring.

The only binding agent I used was gorilla glue. This proved to take quite a lot of time as the parts needed to dry. I first glued the face to the base of the mask. Next the wiring was placed to make the mane. Each strip of wire was dipped into gorilla glue and placed....it seemed like there were hundreds of them. Once it was all dry a wire was glued to the back for a hanging mechanism (this was a work of art, not a functional mask).

This mask was produced very quickly. the bulk of the work happened over a two day span. The first thing I did was to shape the metal pieces of the mask from part of the sheet metal from the bottom of the car. This metal wasn't actually part of the frame but was attached to the frame on the bottom between the frame and the exhaust pipe. I believe that this was a form of heat shield. I took the metal because it seemed to be shaped so perfectly for my task.

All I really did to the metal was cut out the eye holes and to pull the ends together so that it would wrap around a head. I then drilled the holes and secured it with bolts. This made the general frame for the mask. Next I used a section of tire to place inside as a top (for your head). I then began placing wires, tubes, and various other interesting looking parts from the car. I secured everything in place by pouring various glues over the top....not the best binding method, but it worked for my purposes.

Of all the masks, this was by far the easiest to construct. The pieces were composed of parts from the air filter compartment for the engine and a plastic piece that was between the hood and the windshield wipers. I simply cut a hole in the air filter compartment and placed the wiper part (the tall part with the face on it) on top of it and secured it with long bolts.

Because of the resemblance to Darth Vader's mask, I began thinking of this as my version of a Vader mask. As an homage to George Lucas' Vader, I placed a Darth Vader sound maker inside it during the thesis exhibition that continuously made the iconic breathing sounds. I felt that this was a nice touch to the piece as it hinted at the origin of the parts for the mask as well as winked at one of the most loved pop culture phenomenons of all time.

The Throne was fairly straight forward in its construction. I made use of an old futon frame to make the base. Next I modified the width of the frame by cutting out sections and welding the cross bars together. I then put down a board and secured that to the frame. Next I wrapped that board with the carpeting from the floor (I turned it inside out as I enjoyed the look of the bottom side more). Next I secured the seats to the board and a good deal was complete.

It was not until a conversation with John and Happiness (fellow graduate students) that the idea of using the ceiling panel as an umbrella surfaced. This was in my opinion a brilliant idea and I freely adopted the idea. It was short work to figure out that a section of exhaust pipe could be used as an upright pole. On the other hand, the process of finding the correct pieces to accompany the pipe to support the panel in a good position and carefully balancing and gluing the entire thing together took quite more time. After that the throne was mostly complete, but it still felt unfinished, and the futon frame was obviously visible which disturbed the idea of everything being made out of the car for most viewers (myself included). The solution to this problem was to make use of the front and back bumpers of the car as armrests. After a few alterations, they fit perfectly. This addition truly finished the piece off well. They served both to hide the futon frame and make the throne seem more majestic. The last thing to do was to place the crown jewel on the top. This was a piece of the alternator which I had removed and disassembled quite a while before actually constructing the throne. I knew I loved the piece and wanted to use it for something but was unsure what I could do with it...once the throne was complete and I realized it needed something to top off the exhaust pipe I knew exactly what to use. Balancing it on took some time and glue and patience, but In my opinion it was exactly the perfect thing to top off the piece.

The inclusion of the throne was a critical decision and the piece itself served a crucial function to the viewers of the exhibition. Thrones are seats for kings and dignitaries, the Idea of a throne for my viewer brings about ideas of a king (perhaps winking at the song "King of the Road" by roger miller). Also, the fact that my throne has two seats should imply that this king has a queen by his side.

The positioning of the throne in the gallery was also of importance. It was situated directly across from the television displaying video documentation of performances and crucial process steps. This setup for me represented hints toward a couple of things. For one it simulated the modern practice of placing comfortable seating across from television in American households. Also, it brings about notions of the inclusion of televisions in many of the vehicles of luxury today.

One of the earlier constructed pieces was a ritual chest adornment that was supposed to be worn as part of the Burning ceremony, but was unfortunately not packed when I left the house. It was constructed out of the air filter from the car's engine and some wiring that just happened to match the color of the plastic edge of the filter perfectly. The black center piece of the adornment was a vent for heating near the rear passenger seat. I cut the shape out of the filter and simply placed the vent in. It looked messy inside so i cut out a panel from a matching orange t-shirt and placed it behind the vent. All that was left was to glue the vent in and the piece was complete.

The display for the piece was provided by Raquel (a fellow graduate student) and looked quite different when I got it. I painted it with spray paint and then sanded it to smooth out the rough torn paper surface of the display. Next I coated it with gesso three times and sanded it. One more coat of white paint and i felt it was display worthy. In the exhibition this piece served as a transitional piece to usher in the garments that I produced.

The suit of ceremonial garb I created was for the most part fairly simple to construct. at several times It seemed as if the pieces of the car were already made to be the garments they became. The first thing I made was the cloak garment. I knew from the start that I wanted a cloak or cape like robe to be included, I selected a large portion of the trunk liner as it was of a decent material and size. I wrapped the liner around my shoulders to see if it was large enough and how it had to be modified. When I looked in the mirror what I saw already seemed to be perfect and I was overjoyed. All that had to be done was to sew on the graphical design (a ready made piece of insulation from a door panel) on and find a broach to hold it together. The Chevrolet emblem from the front of the car was a perfect choice for this.

The waist garment was entirely as simple to put together as it too was a slightly modified floor mat from the back seat of the car. All I had to do was drill two holes in the right places and clasp it together with a nut, bolt and the large button like piece of metal from where the spare tire rests in the trunk. The hat was almost as simple to construct. I took a piece of fabric that was glued to the door panel and simply sewed a seam to make the cone. I sewed the seam with the fabric inside out so that when the hat was turned right side out the seam would be clean.

The most complicated parts of the garment to build were the shoes by far. The first thing I did was to cut the rubber soles out of the spare tire. I let the air out of the tire and cut the rubber into sections with my reciprocating saw. After I had the rubber in good sized chunks, I traced my foot onto the rubber where the tread was. After cutting the shape out of the rubber with an expandable utility knife, it was time to make the cloth portion of the shoe for it to attach to. To make it I followed the design for a low top converse all star. I examined the shoe to mime its pattern. I drew it onto more of the trunk liner fabric and cut the bottoms, side walls and tongues out. I then sewed all the pieces together which took a good deal of time.

After building the two main components of the shoe I had to find a way to attach them to each other. I tried a few different adhesives (liquid nails, hot glue, Elmer's, and rubber cement) before I discovered Shoe Goo. This was the only adhesive that seemed to bond the rubber to the cloth very well. Once the Goo dried, there was still a problem, the seam where the shoe and rubber met looked ugly. I solved this by covering the seam with the serpentine belt from the engine. It had to be washed well to remove the dirt and grease, then cut into short strips which had to be individually glued to the shoe and secured with rubber bands while the goo set. This was important though so as to match the irregular shape of the shoes. After The last pieces of the belt were dried all that had to happen was for lace holes to be punched and for black wiring to be strung up as laces. in the end, the shoes did not fit me as I had used my own foot as a pattern, resulting in shoes that where a bit too small after being built.

The photograph of me wearing the garment was quite necessary to include in the exhibition. As the garments were displayed as art objects out of context. Including the photo allowed the viewers a glance into the appropriate context of what they were viewing and thus helped them to understand what they were looking at.

The survival tools and weapons I created took some time as I had never attempted anything like this before. A lot of the work involved cutting and shaping metal from the car to make blades. I cut the metal with either tin snips or a cutting torch and then hit the metal repeatedly with a hammer on an anvil to either flatten or curve the metal as necessary.

After the blades were produced I had to provide grips and handles for them to make them more useful. in a few cases I simply used wiring from the car to wrap directly around the metal blade to make a handle. For one knife however, I cut a special handle from the simulated wood paneling and secured it to the blade with epoxy putty. In the case of the two axes, I searched the woods and found suitable branches to perform as handles for the blades and then attached them.

After all of the Bladed tools were constructed I sharpened them. This took some time, but provided a functionality to them. The knives really cut and I even used the larger axe to cut wood during the burning ceremony.

The bow was fairly easy to produce as all that was involved was cutting some mount arms off of the rack where the windshield wipers were mounted to the car. This piece was then turned upright, a handle was wrapped out of wiring from the car and a bungee chord from the car was strung up as a string. The shaft of the arrow mas made out of the radio antenna from the car. I cut an arrowhead out of sheet metal from the car and secured it on with epoxy putty and wire. The fletching was made from the woven cloth of the seat belts which were glued on and then secured with felt from the trunk and more Shoe Goo.

The musical instruments were complicated objects to produce. I had never made musical instruments before, not to mentions that I was making them out of parts from a car.

The upright bass (more accurately the upright acoustic peg stick wham-o-la) was made from the gas tank, the support from the passenger side where the front door latches and the back door was attached, a hinge from the door, a metal part from the car that seemed to be the perfect shape for the bridge, and a thick gauge wire.

First I had to drain the gas from the tank and allow it to air out. Next I pured water into the tank and rinsed it out (i repeated this step three times). Once I had let it air out some time longer it was time to weld the neck (door support) to the tank. This was a nerve wrecking moment as I had some fear that there would be enough fumes left in the tank to explode (the tank did smell strongly of gasolene). Fortunately the tank did not explode but there was still quite a problem with the welding. The metal of the gas tank was rather thin and when I used the MIG welder to attach the thicker metal of the neck, the tank metal simply melted away. In response to this I was forced to dial back both the speed and temperature of the welder and move quite quickly. The result worked even though the majority of my welds were rather ugly. even still they did the job and as one of my professors commented, the project was not about welding so the ugliness did not matter. Next I welded the hinge to the top of the neck this served both as a place for the string to attach as well as provided the function of a fulcrum to pull back (tightning the string and raising the pitch of the tone produced by the instrument). I then welded the metal bridge onto the gas tank (slow going and ugly welding again) beneath the sound hole. Then I welded a metal rod into the base so that the rather heavy instrument would have something to sit on. This was mostly an aesthetic choice to mime the floor peg of standard upright bases. After this the only step was to affix a handle to the hinge so that the player would have something to pull on. This part was a metal rod from the trunk that was attached to the hinge with epoxy putty. A rubber stopper from the spark pulg connection was used as a rubber grip for the handle.

As I have already discussed the construction process of the rattle, I will jump directly to the guitar seen on the right. Finding all the pieces and putting them together to make this guitar like instrument was quite a challenge. I searched for some time to find all the parts I would need, and in the end had to apropriate tuning pegs from an old guitar.

The sound chamber is the engine coolant resivoir. this was attached to a bent metal bar that was a support for the trunk door. Both of these were unmodified other than a couple of drilled holes to attach the two with bolts. The head stock for the instrument is made from an aluminum coolant chamber from the radiator that I cut open. this was secured onto the top of the steel bar and set in position with epoxy putty. I then cut a pice of black plastic for the nut and found a couple bent metal pieces from the car that could be bolted together to support the tuners. After bolting all of this together and modifying the tuning pegs (I removed three and replaced the plastic finger holds with knobs from the trunk of the car) I had to put a bridge on the instrument. I cut a section of the maroon plastic from the interior and used liquid nails to set it in place. All that was left was to string and tune the instrument. For the exhibition I chose to string the guitar with the electrical wiring to maintain the aesthetic of the piece. These wires did not sound very pretty as strings (or tune well) but they certainly looked the part.

After making everthing all that was left to do was install it all in the gallery, the last step before the exhibition.