The Seated Artist

Dear Reader,

Following on with the theme of my empty wheelchair, and the success of the Now you see me, now you don’t installation, I decided to experiment further with wheelchair sculpture.  I want to explore how I can change the narrative of my chair (a found object), turning it from an aid into art.

I have recently begun to view my wheelchair as a piece of art in its own right; I have always relied on it to transport me and give me independence; despite this I’ve always held mixed emotions towards it.  I am grateful for the support that it gives but I am resentful at how it alters my identity.  After further analysis and self-reflection, I have come to view my wheelchair in a new light; I now see it for its materiality. Stripping it back to its basic components of rubber, plastic, metal and foam, these materials make a sculpture that modifies my identity and societal views. It is an artwork.

I decided to make another 3D print of my wheelchair, continuing with the idea of Conceal to Reveal; this time I covered the entirety of my chair with fabric.  Although, the initial plan was to cut the material and tie it around individual parts of my chair, I was influenced by the Venus de Milo that I had been researching for my dissertation and instead decided to drape the fabric.  This proved to be a better decision as it added to the grandeur and elegance, elevating my chair into something monumental.  It was also physically raised up on a table which forced the viewer to look up at it, adding to its stature and sense of importance.

To hold the drapery in place and define certain features of my chair, I and my study support assistant tied off areas with string and pinned others into place.  By doing this, we concealed my disability aid and partially revealed it, leaving a trace of what once was and room for the viewers imagination to fill in the gaps; it went from functional to fabulous.

Dear Reader

I recently had a workshop about printing with a Risograph machine. In the print room at the university, my first-year tutor talked through the process and showed us some examples of Risograph prints; he then gave us a demonstration.

A Risograph is a bit like a screen print but instead of preparing it manually and using a squeegee, the printer does all the hard work.  The machine itself looks like a photocopier.  Despite the university having four different colour drums (black, yellow, pink, and blue), the Risograph printer can only hold two at a time, this means that you can only print with two colours at once.

To print with this machine, you must first make one image for each colour layer.  The image needs to be in monochrome so that it is sharp enough for the Risograph to make a stencil; greyscale can be achieved digitally.

Due to much of my recent work being digital, I welcomed the chance to draw and be creative in a more traditional way.  I set about drawing my wheelchair using a Sharpie and leaving no room for error; I found this quite liberating as it forced me to accept any imperfections.  I was pleased with the result.  As I liked my wheelchair illustration so much, I decided that I didn’t want to overcomplicate the result, so for my second image I just prepared a background shape which helped to frame my initial drawing.

I am happy that I had a go at this, as the outcome was a success (see photo).  The conventional silk screen printing process has always been challenging for me due to my shoulders dislocating easily, making pulling a squeegee dangerous to do; however, the Risograph takes away the physical strain of printing and means I can still be creative but in a safer way.

Doing this workshop has opened new possibilities for me and I look forward to using this medium again.

Dear Reader,

After the success of my self portrait Now you see me, now you don’t: A sculpture of Alice Crane, my classmate Klaudia suggested that we record what I had done on a video. With Klaudia’s assistance we set up in the creative lab with a camera and tripod.

We recorded exactly what I had done off camera, which was me stepping out of my wheelchair and leaving the label on the seat. It was very powerful to re-enact this moment and see it on film. Seeing the impact this had on video led to further experimentation. We took a few short videos of me sitting in the chair deep in thought and another of my chair after I had left.

In this video of just my chair, Klaudia inadvertently captured a conversation between me and one of my peers as I spoke freely about the experiences I have faced as a wheelchair user. Although this wasn’t intended it added further depth to the recording. The words held more power as you couldn’t see me saying them, in my absence they had a greater impact. Although I had indended for this film to be a silent one, after hearing the audio of myself talking, I have decided that I would like there to be a monologue.

I really enjoyed this collaboration with Klaudia, and hope to work with her again.

Dear Reader,

I have been toying with an idea for some time now. Hoping to use this for my upcoming exhibition in February, I have been thinking of doing a self portrait. This self portrait will be a little bit different to what you might expect to see however, as I won’t be in it.

As a wheelchair user I am often identified as my aid, “that wheelchair girl”, “the wheelchair student”, “my wheelchair friend” (yes, I have actually been referred to as such!). People in the street will call out or stare at me when I’m in my wheelchair; and I am often spoken over, and conversation is directed to the person pushing me. I’m regularly  ignored by sales assistants, medical professionals and hairdressers to name but three, who assume I can’t speak for myself and choose instead to talk to my carer as if I were a child or have limited mental capacity.

My wheelchair and I are interchangeable in the eyes of many, we are one and the same. I feel that my identity is concealed by my chair; when you look at me you see my disability before you see anything else.  For most, the chair is all they’ll ever see.

For my self portait, I decided that I would just display my wheelchair, as it is an integral part of my identity. Displaying my wheelchair as a sculptural piece, I created a label to go along with it. This label reads:

Now you see me, now you don’t: A sculpture of Alice Crane

I took advantage of my time in the creative lab space at the university to display my self portrait; this space is dedicated to solo experimentation and exhibition. I used my allocated time to trial this work, setting it up with my study support assistant before then scurrying back to my studio space to hide. I felt that this work would be more impactful to my peers if they didn’t know what I was up to. Many of my classmates aren’t used to seeing me without my wheelchair, and were shocked to find it empty.

This piece had more of an impact than I had anticipated; the reactions were strong and emotional. Those who I had known the longest were in tears; I had to administer hugs to sooth them. I was overjoyed that this work had the affect that it did, especially as I wasn’t sure about it. It provoked lots of discussion, including ideas about how I might display it in next years interim exhibition; it was thought that this piece was best shown in an intimate space and that we might place display panels around it.

Dear Reader,

After last semesters failed attempt to capture the detail of my wheelchair in a 3D scan, I decided that this academic year I would like to try again. Due to the 3D scanner struggling with the materiality of my chair, and not liking the shine of the metal, I had to come up with a new strategy to capture this missing infomation. After brainstorming with Danielle the university’s lead technician, we came up with a plan for me to wrap my chair in stretchy fabric. By wrapping the wheelchair in a stretchy cotton, it would not only erase the shine but would be done in a material that’s easy for the scanner to register. The biggest benefit to the cotton fabric being stretchy is that it will retain the original shape of the wheelchair.

Today, I had my first attempt at stretching fabric over my wheelchair. I wanted to start out small and work my way up to a full wheelchair covering. This morning’s focus was my right wheel. In last semesters scan my wheels were lost entirely and were replaced by artificial discs. The saddest part about this was that I lost my self propelling bars, so when covering my wheel today, I started by stretching the fabric over the wheel and tying string between the tyre and the bar for further definition.

Although this was good in theory, I found this quite difficult to do. The string kept popping off and I had trouble keeping the fabric taut, this could of happened for two reasons; firstly, I wasn’t strong enough when pulling the fabric back, or secondly, because by pulling the fabric so tightly the string would keep popping off.

I found the best method to be stretching the fabric across the whole wheel and tying it behind. This gave a smoother, tighter finish.

I then used the hand scanner to scan my wheel, I had to keep a forearms distance away whilst scanning and slowly move around the wheel capturing every angle. It then rendered on the screen.

The scan was successful, but it picked up a lot of background noise that I had to edit out. Using the editing software Artec Studio, I utilised various different eraser tools to cut out any unwanted bits.

My favorite eraser tool was the lasso, where I could loop large areas and make them vanish. It was very satisfying to watch such large parts of the scan disappear. This tool was also really good for erasing some of the finer details that were close to my final peice, as you can draw your lasso loop in any shape so I followed the curvature of the wheel.

After compressing the scans and editing out the baground noise, I was left with a wheel-like cylinder, I then made it water tight and rendered it.

After the editing of the wheel was complete, I transfered my scan to Prusa, a software used to send your work to the 3D printer. Although I didn’t print this work, as it was an experiment, I could see how it would look as a 3D print.

It was fascinating to be able to see how the layers inside the scan would build up a 3D print.

I really enjoyed this experiment, it turned out to be very successful. I always love being able to learn a new skill so I have thoroughly enjoyed learning about the softwares behind making a 3D scan, and how to use them. Moving forward I will incorporate more fabric so that I can wrap my entire wheelchair and perhaps myself too! Although today’s scan was a success, I think next time I will try to tie the string around the bar of my chair after the fabrics been stretched; maybe this way I can have the same desired smooth finish but with more detail of my wheel.