Outside the BoxDANA PIERCE
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ARTIST STATEMENT
A cornucopia of twists and turns that would make even M.C. Escher confused, my piece hones in the important qualities that thrive in the 3D art world. Taking on a challenge given to me, I constructed this piece out of six different deconstructed slab-built boxes and two smooth extrusions. And here's the fun part, this piece manages to keep the viewer's eye moving at all times from any and all angles. Believe it or not, this piece details the sense of mind I tend to be in during the day; always going outside the norm and straying from the guidelines and still managing to keep intact no matter the mood or behavior I happen to be stuck in. I'll always stay apart from the cookie cutter shape that society may impose and forever keep my place Outside the Box.
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Instructor Resources
INSTRUCTOR
Tim Benson
Mission Hills High School
Dana Pierce’s piece titled, “Outside the Box” was generated by a Deconstructed/Reconstructed Box project in my Advanced Ceramics class at Mission Hills High School in the San Marcos Unified School District. The students in this class are grades 10-12 and are in their 2nd through 4th year of working with clay. The material focus of the class is predominantly clay, but students are welcome to bring in other materials and found objects when their project ideas warrant it.
The project’s objectives are to refine technical skills at the beginning of the year and exercising envisioning and critical seeing, connecting the hands and the eyes in the perception and interpretation of three-dimensional design. In week one of this two-week project, students build multiple closed box forms using stiff-slab construction in a variety of sizes and proportions. In week two, students then deconstruct the boxes and reconstruct them into a new and original, complex three-dimensional form that is asymmetrically balanced, viewed in the round, and actively engages positive and negative space.
The technical repetition of building multiple similar forms forces students early in the year to practice, polish and refine slab building and construction skills that they learned in the beginning class. In week two, they confront challenges of structural engineering in building composite forms that actively integrate positive and negative space. As they work, I act as a consultant in facilitating their solving of structural problems as they arise. As a rule, my intent is to walk them through the investigation of technical problems and consult them as they design their own solutions as opposed to giving them direct answers or explicitly telling them how to do something. They often find this frustrating at the beginning of the year, but become much more independent problem solvers as the year progresses.
Conceptually, this project is restricted to non-representational form. This restriction is intended to free them of the spatial limitations of representational forms. Freed from representational imagery, the students’ designs are much more boldly adventurous in their exploration of pure and complex compositions of the elements and principals of three-dimensional design.
Year after year, students consistently do some of their best design work for this project and I attribute this to a high degree of engagement they approach it with. They are continually encouraged to assess the piece as it comes together, reacting to new observations and problems and allowing their designs to evolve and develop. The high degree of calculated improvisation that they employ as the constructions take shape keeps them tuned in and present in their work as they progress.
Overall, Dana’s work here is a particularly successful example of the work that students produce in this project. She manages an intricate interplay of positive and negative space and she is especially successful in creating conversation between the negative shapes cut out of surfaces that echo the geometric forms from which they’re cut. The interiors and negative spaces invite the viewer inward and I especially enjoy how the composition changes as one walks around the piece offering continuously changing compositions of rectilinear form and shape from an infinite range of perspectives, angles and depths.
Tim Benson
Mission Hills High School
Dana Pierce’s piece titled, “Outside the Box” was generated by a Deconstructed/Reconstructed Box project in my Advanced Ceramics class at Mission Hills High School in the San Marcos Unified School District. The students in this class are grades 10-12 and are in their 2nd through 4th year of working with clay. The material focus of the class is predominantly clay, but students are welcome to bring in other materials and found objects when their project ideas warrant it.
The project’s objectives are to refine technical skills at the beginning of the year and exercising envisioning and critical seeing, connecting the hands and the eyes in the perception and interpretation of three-dimensional design. In week one of this two-week project, students build multiple closed box forms using stiff-slab construction in a variety of sizes and proportions. In week two, students then deconstruct the boxes and reconstruct them into a new and original, complex three-dimensional form that is asymmetrically balanced, viewed in the round, and actively engages positive and negative space.
The technical repetition of building multiple similar forms forces students early in the year to practice, polish and refine slab building and construction skills that they learned in the beginning class. In week two, they confront challenges of structural engineering in building composite forms that actively integrate positive and negative space. As they work, I act as a consultant in facilitating their solving of structural problems as they arise. As a rule, my intent is to walk them through the investigation of technical problems and consult them as they design their own solutions as opposed to giving them direct answers or explicitly telling them how to do something. They often find this frustrating at the beginning of the year, but become much more independent problem solvers as the year progresses.
Conceptually, this project is restricted to non-representational form. This restriction is intended to free them of the spatial limitations of representational forms. Freed from representational imagery, the students’ designs are much more boldly adventurous in their exploration of pure and complex compositions of the elements and principals of three-dimensional design.
Year after year, students consistently do some of their best design work for this project and I attribute this to a high degree of engagement they approach it with. They are continually encouraged to assess the piece as it comes together, reacting to new observations and problems and allowing their designs to evolve and develop. The high degree of calculated improvisation that they employ as the constructions take shape keeps them tuned in and present in their work as they progress.
Overall, Dana’s work here is a particularly successful example of the work that students produce in this project. She manages an intricate interplay of positive and negative space and she is especially successful in creating conversation between the negative shapes cut out of surfaces that echo the geometric forms from which they’re cut. The interiors and negative spaces invite the viewer inward and I especially enjoy how the composition changes as one walks around the piece offering continuously changing compositions of rectilinear form and shape from an infinite range of perspectives, angles and depths.
