Time Heals All Wounds: Final Assignment
Time Heals All Wounds
My two biggest passions and interests are art and science, and paleontology is a particular love of mine—my ideal career is that of a fossil preparator and reconstructive model artist, studying the remains of the past and creating models of prehistoric life for museums. Because this final project was wonderfully open, I wanted to do something that culminated projects I had completed this year, and expanded on them, as well as do something I truly enjoyed. I decided to create a model of a prehistoric creature. Initial ideas included making a wood frame and draping it in hardened canvas, in the form of a plesiosaur (my favorite prehistoric marine reptiles) or perhaps a therapod of some sort (for recognizability). When it came to considering how I would display the piece, however, I realized I could settle for nothing but a grand, soaring pterosaur—and what better choice than the biggest and grandest of all, Quetzalcoatlus? Of course, Quetzalcoatlus (the largest pterosaur to ever fly, with a 35 foot wingspan and height of a giraffe while grounded) is far too large to fully recreate, which is why I chose to nod back to the maquette project done earlier this year. The piece is at a scale of approximately 1:7.5 and is constructed of a wire skeleton (a nod to the line project from this semester as well) covered in canvas. Originally, the canvas was to be hardened via concentrated starch, but time constraints prevented this step from occurring. Perhaps this step will occur post-project, as I would like to see the piece more rigid in form. More than a (somewhat) scientific model, this piece is fueled by the idea that “time heals all wounds,” or rather that perhaps it doesn’t—hence the band-aids. Time isn’t much help when you’re extinct and not coming back, without modern representation either. And it isn’t much consolation that though there is an interest in remembering you and understanding your life, no one will ever really know. Will we as humans, as individuals, be fully remembered? Or will we be forgotten, or misunderstood? What about within our own lives—those little discretions in our pursuit for happiness, will they be healed over time? Maybe it’s okay to just let some things die, as fruitless as it can be to live in the mindset that everything will be fixed in the long run. |