Stephanie Metz InTouch: Carving Styrofoam

[Music] Stephanie Metz here in the studio about to start carving one of my Mac cats it's in kind of in-between size form for these larger pieces that I'm going to be making that will be almost human sized I'm gonna be carving styrofoam using hot wires so I'm in this part of my studio where I've blocked it in with plastic right by my windows and the windows are open because fumes come off that stuff as you cut it I don't want to breathe it or spread it around the studio I'm gonna start with as I often do just kind of a sketch and then I've scaled it up a little bit and then I've made these puncture marks because I just held it over the styrofoam and just quickly transferred the marks and then drew them into the pen so I'm gonna start carving away that's using some of these different shapes of tools which are basically just wires with an electrical current through them I have to move them slowly through the wool through the styrofoam because they melt it as you go so here we go I am much more of a build-up additive sculptor than a carve away subtractive sculptor I just just the way I work so this is kind of a stretch for me a little bit it's theoretically so quick to cut the foam with the hot wire that sometimes you end up rushing and bending the wire you could snap it so you got to really let the heat cut it it's not the force of your hand moving the water so I've got a rough shape formed you see there's one two three four five lobes on my drawing and only one two three four on this so I couldn't fit it on that original piece of styrofoam so I'm just gonna glue it other beads on and and then carve it back it's stuff again it's just super forgiving I can just glue it and then I get together whoever works won't be much I'm gonna carve it away here's a piece that I had to stick on so I've done as much carving on this piece as I'm going to with the hot wire tools you can see how faceted it is from all the little cuts the reason I like to do most of the removal of material using those tools is because it eliminates all the tiny little bits that come off the styrofoam but next I'm going to move into another part of my studio to do some sanding and shaping which is just a little closer to what I'm looking for but for now you start I closed off a whole separate part of my studio so I could keep all the tiny little styrofoam bits contained when I'm doing any sort of sanding so I just took plastic sheeting and hung it from the ceiling and then did some contractor zippers that are sticky and attached to the plastic so I can keep it all inside here inside this space I've got basically a table I can work on I've got some shelves holding some of the styrofoam and foam rubber that I work with I've got a jump suit which is important for putting over my clothes and trying to keep some of those little bits from getting all over the place and then I have a shop vac that I cleaned up before I started it's only for use of styrofoam bits so I can reclaim all those tiny little bits and use them to stuff other pieces and then I've got various rasps and sandpaper and knives to further shape the work okay so I'm suited up in my coveralls which keep some of this staticky stuff from sticking to me all day I at least eliminate some of it and I wear gloves too I even put little rubber bands around my cuffs because that's where a lot of the tiny little bits want to go in and I wear a dust mask because not only am i standing off tiny little particulates but virtually all of my styrofoam and foam rubber is previously owned recycled which means a lot of it has been stored in dusty gross warehouses for a long time and I don't know what else I would be breathing in so I'm just trying to you know prolong the life okay you can see how quickly and easily I can smooth over those facets using just this simple rasp tool so after about less than an hour of sanding and shaping and then about 15 minutes of vacuuming everything up I've got this a lot more shape than I want it it's kind of I'm hoping will show the effect of gravity and in the actual piece there are going to be some more folds in between were the different lobes neat quick for a sample piece and I'm only somewhat covered in bits after a lot of that giving myself oh so I've gone from a block of styrofoam and a drawing to a three dimensional form by cutting it with hot wires and then rasping and sanding it but this really is a means to an end for me this is not the finished sculpture this is a tool I can use to create a three dimensional pattern well a two dimensional pattern out of industrial felt so that then I can scale this shape up larger in a stitched shape I'm gonna do it kind of like this one where I've got the foam inside so I'm laying the industrial felt over it putting it in place cutting it so that I can figure out how to make a larger pattern so as far as preparation and tools goes you know it's a pretty pretty good way to do it so I hope you have learned something about my process or how you can carve and contain styrofoam thanks for watching you

Channel: Stephanie Metz

Views: 86,107

Keywords: stephaniemetz, stephanie, metz, sculptor, sculpture, art, artist, fiber, felt, wool, industrial, industrialfelt, styrofoam, eps, foam, carve, carving, hot, knife, wire, cutter, tool, safety, clean, cleaning, touchable, large, scale, scaling, up, pattern, patterning, process, behind, the, scenes, intouch, project

Id: nf38dB5OJv0

Length: 7min 49sec (469 seconds)

Published: Thu Mar 15 2018