Narrative Sculpture

Assignment

Your assignment is to create a three part sculpture that tells a story, inspired by the Native American tradition of totem pole carving. You will need to figure out the arrangement of the sculpture and decide how you are visually representing each part of the story. You will use hollow forms to create your sculpture.

Objectives:

Students will understand the significance of the totem pole in Haida and other First Nation cultures.
Students will create a sculpture that tells a story.
Students will create a hollow form.
Students will use additive and subtractive sculpture to forms for my design.

Art Inspiration: Totem Poles

What are Totem Poles?

Read the following article & watch the video on the page:

Types of Totem Poles:

Crest Totem Poles: Usually part of a house, they portray a family’s ancestry and the emblems of its clan.
Story-telling Totem Poles: The most common type, these are made for a wedding, to preserve history or to ridicule bad debtors.
Mortuary Totem Poles: These totem poles are made to honor the dead. Cremation ashes are often kept in a compartment in the back. A single figure represents the deceased person or their clan.

Contemporary Wood Carvers:

Preserving and Honoring Culture:

Examples

Creating a Narrative

How to tell a story with your sculpture:

Create characters: as with the Haida tradition, they use crests to describe important figures of the family or story. You can create individual characters as subjects for your sculpture.
Plot: you can choose to represent different elements of your narrative by sculpting the beginning, middle, and end of your narrative.
Theme: you can combine setting, characters, and events to create an overall theme to the narrative sculpture.

Hollow Forms

Why create hollow forms when you are making clay sculptures?

Clay will explode in the kiln if it is too thick!
Your sculptures will be overly heavy if they are solid!
It is a waste of clay as a material to not build hollow forms!

Constructing a Hollow Form Structure on an Armature:

Hollow Form on Armature.mp4

Using an armature:

Wrap newspaper around the armature so the clay doesn't get stuck.
Wrap slabs of clay around the armature until your get your desired height and shape. Score and slip seams together.
Tap with wooden piece to smooth and blend. '
You can add clay to then shape into your desired design piece.

Creating Hollow Forms : Pinch Pot Method

Creating hollow forms for your sculpture is important because clay that is too thick will likely explode in the kiln.

Tips:
**Always make sure to poke a hole in your hollow forms so trapped air can escape.

**You can stuff your hollow forms with newspaper so they will hold their shape better.

** You can paddle your form into other shapes other than an oval.

** You can add clay to your hollow forms and sculpt beyond the initial shape as along as you score and slip.

Planning- 10 points

Directions:

Create a narrative sculpture design sketch with:

At least three components to your design.
Consider your sculpture from all angles.
Consider the arrangement. For example, stacked as a pole, laying side to side, three different forms or designs in one.
Color in your design to plan for future glazing.

Turn in your sketch on Google Classroom

Skill Builder- 15 points

Learing objectives:

Students will be able to create a hollow form out of clay
Students will practice being careful with hollow forms when blending and forming

Directions:

Follow the visual directions and the video directions provided to make your clay whistle.

Create a hollow form with clay
Create a mouthpiece
Make the openings
Decorate

Making a Clay Whistle.mp4

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