Art 1010 Found Object Art Project

The Earth Butterfly

Gabrielle Cohen
July 22nd, 2015

When I started planning for my project, I had no idea how to start it. I have created sculptures
before, but usually they were out of clay or out of papier-mch. And I live in Park City, so it is
relatively clean, and there is more nature than trashed man-made objects, so the found objects I
assumed would have to be more natural. So, I decided to take a walk. I thought by looking at the
things around me, I would have some idea in which what to do my project on. I passed by
amounts nature, such as flowers, butterflies, and many colored pebbles. I then went through Park
City Main Street and weaved through the houses near by.

As I weaved through the houses and alleys, I was able to find and obtain a few man made
objects. The objects include a falling apart umbrella with broken arm rods, what looked like an
old towel stand with the rings missing, an old utility light with some screws and things found in
it, and some old wire lying in the grass. I continued down until I got to the thrift store and found
a couple of old wire hangers, with one smaller than the other. I also collected a few screws and
bolts, a beer bottles, two wine bottles, and a

The next day, I decided to take another walk, in which I found assortments of rocks and minerals
lying around. They were flat or pebbled sized, and were granite with pieces of quartz,
hornblende, and mica, all of which are mineral prevalent in this igneous rock. As my family and I
continually travelled around Utah, I picked up more rocks along the way, and also decided to
used the ones that I picked up for my rock collecting, but had excess of to use in my sculpture,
with most of these rocks being from Arizona. The other rocks and minerals include were slate,
shale, fossil, schist, and I thought that by incorporating rocks and minerals in my sculpture, in a
sense, the sculpture would become part of what I love, which is geology.

As I looked at all the objects around me, and thought of all of the nature that I saw on my first
walk, the fates have decided that the end result would be a butterfly. The butterfly would used the
hand towel rack as its main body, with the utility being the thorax and one of the metal pieces
found with the utility light would serve as the proboscis, which is what extracts the nectar and
pollen from flowers. The hangers would act as the wings, with the rocks to fill in the hangers.
The old umbrellas arm rods would serve to be the legs, and the old wire would serve wherever
needed.

The construction process start with the hand towel stand as the main body of the butterfly, in
which I then attach the utility light to the hand towel stand so that it surrounded the holder, to
become the thorax. I order to attach it, I used one of the old pieces of wire that I found and
wrapped it around the top of the towel holder. I also used one of the screws and bolts to lock the
back part of the utility light to help in stay to the main body.

I then moved on to the wire hanger and the rocks and minerals. The main challenge was revolved
around this part of the process, with how to get the rocks to stay balanced on the hanger and how
to get the rocks to stay together and to the hanger. With this in mind, I started with laying out the
rocks inside of the hanger so I had an idea on how to organize the inside of the wing, with the
heaviest rocks on the center part of the hanger. I then start gluing the rocks together, one by one,
starting at the ones in the center of the hanger. After that was finished, I then slowly glued the
outside of the combined rock pieces to the hangers; slowly taking my time to make sure that the
wing was secured. After doing this for both hangers, I wrapped a piece of the old wire I found

around the center part of the wing in order for it to be balanced and attached, since the rocks
caused the wing to be slightly disproportionate.

When it came time to attach the wings to the main body, it was another challenge, with it being
how to attach the wings to body with the wings being the same direction and not wobbling over.
I started with hooking the hook part of the hanger into one of the holes in the utility light. I then
used wire to wrap the hanger in place. I did the same with the other wing, in which I then
wrapped the two wings together in order for them to be balanced on both side of the sculpture. In
order to secure the wire, though, I had to glue the wire in order for it not to move, which added
more stability to the wings.

As I finish than part of the construction process, I moved on to legs, which ended up being the
arm rods from the falling apart umbrella. It was a little difficult to do the legs because some of
the arm rods were rusted off and not the same size, but was able to do it by making them all look
the same length.

When I finally finished, the sculpture ended up being 19.5 inches in height, and 15 inches in
width. With it done, I had to think of a name for my piece. Since my project contained a metal, a
metal alloy, and rocks and minerals, I thought that perfect name would be The Earth Butterfly.
It was simple and to the point. But there is a deeper meaning to the name. In a way, this butterfly
is a spirit of me, because I love the earth, with the thing I love the most being the geology. In a
sense, it is my core, just like the Earths inner core, which is made molten metal, making it heart
of my being.

In conclusion, I have to say that this project was a journey, a journey which started with pieces of
man-made objects and of natural occurrence that people wouldnt think twice about and ended in
a beautiful piece of art work. And that is what I enjoyed most about the project, to be able to
create things with things unexpected. I have accomplished a lot with this sculpture, and it helped
me incorporate my own medium, which was the rocks and the minerals. I would definitely do
this again, but maybe use all natural occurring items instead of include man-made.