Final Project: Cotton Spiral

REMEBER TO CLICK ON PICTURES TO MAKE THEM LARGER...it is hard to see a lot of the detail in the pictures unless you make them bigger.










My final project, which I named Cotton Spiral was made with toothpicks and cotton twine. In some places, I found the ground to be too hard to put the toothpicks in or too soft. I had to feel out the few areas that would hold it. I started at the center of the rock and spiralled outward. Each ring was a little wider until I got to the tree.

As I was making this project many people passing by and neighbors stared at my strangely. I noticed the people living next door seemed concerned. I hope they were not mad. Construction workers stared and thought what I was doing was pretty funny. I didn't have to explain myself though, so that's good.

I left the project there, we will see how long is stays up. I'm sure someone will take the toothpicks out of the ground soon. But that is how Earth Art is, evolving. I had a lot of fun doing this and would like to do another project like this on a larger scale with different, more noticeable materials. I'm a design student and really love typography and felt this project was a great outlet for this. It was great to get away from the computer and do some more hands on work again.

This project is influenced by "Spiral Jetty" (1970) by Robert Smithson. After reading through Overlay I realized this pattern has been around for a long time. As long as humans have been on Earth it seems that this pattern has been popular/used. It is seen represented on old cave walls, as well as being pattern that occurs naturally in nature, such as in many plants and seashells. By using toothpicks to lay the string down, my project became one of repetition, which is something very common in the projects shown in Overlay. All of Andy Goldsworthy's work uses repetition as a theme. I found that doing this repetitious basic pattern became very meditative. The process was very peaceful and relaxing and cleared my mind. I decided to circle the tree in the end to show the relationship of the rock to the tree and how even though the rock looks really small and insignificant at first, it is somehow connected to the same world the tree shares.

project concept

I had a few ideas that began to develop while we were in class- After going over borders and private property, I thought about the trees that lined our side walks, and the little space they were allotted. I felt it might be funny to make a fence around the tree, to serve as an emphasis of what space it had left, as if we were infringing on its rights, something which had to be protected.
After collecting wooden pallets for this concept, I thought it might not be such a good idea considering it would be on private property (city of Richmond maintenance). So instead, I went a different, but related direction. I wanted to find a rock, hopefully one that naturally stuck out of the ground on campus. My goal was to emphasize its presence, by circling it with twine, almost like a topography map or as if the rock could make ripples on the grounds' surface.This wasn't the easiest thing to do. I guess most rocks are removed so you don't trip over them and sue VCU or whomever's land it's on. Instead I found one of those smooth round white stones (I guess marble?) that are bought in bags at Lowes and used as decoration under bushes outside of restaurants and such. One of these had been tossed in a nearby vacant lot from where it originally was. I thought it would be interesting to use that rock because it was mined from the ground then shaped by people - then was sold to Lowes or someone else, then bought by the restaurant only to immediately be put back in a field, where it will probably get buried over time. By circling it, I could somehow tell this abstract story...well anyway, I'll post pictures tomorrow of the actual project.