It seems weird having finished college to go back and try and put some words with this so I'm going to try and keep it short. As the photos show, I had cast a pigs head for my final piece of my final major project, to be exhibited at the end of our course. It was the second attempt at the cast after having a disastrous first try but admittedly that was down to not having the right materials but that's another story.
I had been unsure right up until the week before the deadline of how to present the cast. I had toyed with the idea of spray painting it with a white gloss to give a clean and finished look to it. Through sampling and experimentation I found for this piece, the gloss to be a no go. I would loose far too much of the detail and I would be going back on my own theory of why I made it, what it would represent or the message I wanted it to convey etc. To be fair, in the end, it looked good. I had wanted to include 'blood' and a butchers sign to link it into the rest of my project and at first was unsure how to do this and when I looked at the cast on the plinth, with the sign I had made (I COULD NOT FACE going back into the butchers and asking for one of their signs, I was just DONE with trips to the butchers) I was worried it looked 'off' or cheap, but then, that's the way it is, meat shoved onto plastic trays with a little plastic sign shoved in front telling you how much per pound or kilogram or whatever the weight metric is. So I went with it and for the most part I think it worked.
Casting and sculpture is definitely an area I want to work more in and maybe even specialise in. Photography will always be something that I'm excited about but as has been suggested to me, I could work to tie the two together, make casts, make sculpts, to then incorporate into photos or use in photo shoots. And I like the sound of that. Hopefully university will give me more chance to go further with it.
Also, this should have its own post but I'm over it already. The pig head, as was displayed at my exhibition was turned down for an alumni exhibition of past students, teachers etc from college at a small cafe which has a gallery space. Alongside two of the photos Ive already posted on here of dead birds legs on top of a photograph of lillies I had taken some time ago, the three submissions I made were deemed 'unsuitable for the cafe environment'. Wow, first dose of censorship! Knew it'd happen but not straight off the bat. I understand the organiser of the exhibition had been told to keep things 'safe' but for the reason 'they may put people off their food' is ridiculous. The pig cast, ok, I can maybe see.. theres 'blood' but doesn't that just TOTALLY back up my theory of the cast - THIS IS HOW YOUR MEAT LOOKS BEFORE YOU BUY IT IN ASDA ALL NICELY WRAPPED UP. Is it a vegan or vegetarian cafe? no. But whatever. At the end of the day, the photos weren't blood splattered or graphic, the cast didn't have entrails falling out of it but
it was a case of picking your battles, and this wasn't one of them. It would of been non productive and a waste of energy. And despite further bollocks of that exhibition (I submitted three more pieces, one large framed photograph : nice, safe, and two smaller framed collage prints, again, safe, not crude, no bad language or body parts included) the large photo wasn't included because they couldn't hang the frame right and the two collage pieces were shoved in a cabinet in a corner. But fuck you right back as I sold one of the collage prints, and it was my first ever piece to be sold, which I am really proud of (i didn't know what that 'pride' shit felt like) . So I'm glad I didn't just throw the towel in after my first pieces being rejected, I wanted to be part of the exhibition and it was the case of adjusting your personal settings to fit in somewhere not on your frequency, which is always a bit of a compromise but, lesson learnt I guess, keep pushing forward.
Just to finish, what remained from the two pigs heads I ended up keeping. One full skull, top and bottom and one lower jaw.
