Metalwork: Making wire.

Wire is a very versatile material in metalwork,  and I have now learnt how to make my own wire the diameter and shape I want it. This means I can make the wire to suit the piece I want to make, rather than changing the piece depending on the wire. I started off with a rod of copper, about 4mm diameter and about 6cm long. I used the rolling mill to roll it down, making the diameter smaller and a slight diamond shape. This also made it longer because the metal was being squashed through the roller.

I then used a draw plate to make the wire thinner, and give it a square cross section. I decided to make it square because wire is generally round, and I thought square would be more interesting because it could be twisted to create different effects.

The end of the wire is a little bit chewed up because of the pliers I used to pull it through the draw plate, so this little bit is unusable, but could be made into something else or put in a scrap pile to melt down later.

Self directed project.

I've just started semester two, and our new project is entirely self directed, we haven't been given a starting point, or a certain media to use, but we can sign up for whichever workshops we want to do. I've decided to continue researching the theme of unnoticed, which I've looked into quite a lot in the past. I've decided to focus on how art can make the unnoticed very obvious, or how artists can make something that goes overlooked because of its scale or how they present it. In my initial research I have looked at artists who use these themes.

 Susan Collis makes everyday objects, which are often overlooked in her exhibitions. Many people think the exhibition isn't set up yet, but in actual fact they haven't looked at the objects properly. 'As good as it gets' looks like a screw in a wall, but is made from 18 carat white gold, white sapphire, turquoise and onyx.

 'The oyster's our world' is a wooden stepladder, which looks like it's been splattered with paint, but the splashes are actually mother of pearl, shell, coral, fresh water pearl, cultured pearls, white opal and diamond inlaid into the wood. I think these works question the way we see things and how we assume things about what we look at without investigating them properly.

 Grace Eun Mi Lee is a ceramic artist, who looks at microorganisms and uses the shapes and patterns from these to inspire her work. I really like how she collects them together, hundreds of tiny pieces making up one monumental work of art. tiny creatures and dust particles are everywhere, thousands of them, and her work makes people thing about 'another form of existence' which coexist with us everyday.

The Boyle family are a family of artists, who are quite well known for their replicas of places. they travel to an exact spot and use various media and pieces they find on location to create exact copies. I think the thing I like best about these pieces is how they are displayed. These pieces are not recognisable pieces of land, they don't have specific defining features, but presenting them vertically, it makes people really look at the patterns and shapes, which ordinarily they would have walked over without a second thought.