Day one, for the first day of “the day today” brief I chose an article from the Scotsman to focus on. The article is about a Sergeant major James Hamilton savage, He was a prisoner of the war who refused to take commands and work for Hitler and as a result, was made to walk across Europe to Poland after his capture. He was then brought to Bavaria where he convinced the Nazi guards to allow him to set up beehives behind the barbed wire fence.
I wanted to capture the determination and the will power in my piece that the prisoners of war had during that time, they were tortured yet never surrendered. I wanted to incorporate the use of a cube in my piece. A cube symbolises stability and constancy which I believe are two key themes which stand out in the article. I wanted something to represent the men yet not be too literal. I wanted to incorporate wire or barbed wire in my piece. The barbed wire shows the danger, we associate barbed wire with conflict and fighting which links to the article, but you could also say it is a way of protection.
I experimented making nets to create a cube out of paper, I wanted to keep the cube white to create the feeling of hope and innocence, just like Savage looking after the bees during that time creates a sense of hope and add a bit of light to the world. I experiment colouring the inside of the cube black and yellow like the bees and ripping holes in the cube so the colours would shine through however I thought it was a bit too literal to the bee theme so chose to just make the inside of the cube bright yellow. I explored cutting holes out of the cube or wrapping holes or just leaving it complete, I thought it would look interesting to cut cube and rectangles out of the cube to shower a yellow core.
I had to think about how I wanted to incorporate the wire into the sculpture, I tried just wrapping it around or intertwining the wire through the cut-out shapes. I think the intertwined wire worked much better as it makes the piece look more connected and one piece. I think lopping the wire through the holes works very well as it links to the theme of protection, as the danger (the wire) is protecting the purity and hope (the white box) which is what I wanted to show through my work. I also think the combination of sharp edges in the cube and curved edges in the wire are visually interesting and leads your eyes around the sculpture.
time- 22:30
maxinesnowden 