Project Timespan
A few days in May 2018
Inspiration
M. C. Escher has one of the most recognizable styles of any artist. In particular, his distinctive tessellations, optically-distorted scenes, and impossible objects have captivated generations of admirers over the past century. During spring break senior year of high school, I was fortunate to have the opportunity to travel to Europe with my parents; one of the stops on the trip was The Hague, Netherlands, where we be able to visit Escher in Het Paleis (Escher in The Palace). As far as European museums go, the Escher Museum is certainly on the more intimate side, though I had a terrific time exploring the woodcuts, lithographs, and prints of the great artist. I went to the museum in the spring of 2013, but when skimming over the Wikipedia article, I found a reference article from 2015 describing how more than 150 purported Escher originals displayed at the museum were actually replica prints. In my mind, the museum staff probably should have indicated that the prints were replica scans, but at the same time, who can really tell the difference? Marcel Duchamp certainly could, for one!
Project Overview
I wanted to recreate one of Escher’s impossible object depictions, and one of his more famous lithographs is Relativity, first printed in 1953. In this work, gravity exists along three planes. Inhabitants of each gravity well go about their daily activities, which includes walking up and down stairs. There are a total of seven stairways in the lithograph – depending on one’s perspective, inhabitants walk uʍop-ǝpısdn or right-side up!
Relativity
Design and Creation
The project incorporated laser cutting and ceramics sculpture, a neat juxtaposition two craft media. The original work is not a perfect square but instead measures 27.7 cm × 29.2 cm (10.9″ x 11.5″). However, as I used a 12″ x 12″ studio wood panel from Blick’s, I lopped off a slight amount from one of the edges, and actually scaled up the design by approximately 10% along both the x and the y axis. The laser cutting portion of the project was simple, and it was only a matter of importing and scaling the image file of the work into DraftSight, a CAD design software. I stained the wood panel with a light brown finish and then etched away the light areas of the original lithograph to recreate the image. I was happy with the high-resolution of details in the completed laser cut work.
As for the ceramic portion of the project, I wanted to make an abstract sculpture of a man walking his dog. In part due to an inability of technique, but more so out of stylistic choice, I incorporated sharp, geometric lines for both figures. I sculpted two separate pieces, both with porcelain clay, and then bisque-fired without color. After, I used a flat-toned gray glaze before glaze firing.
After firing, I used a necklace-like brass chain with clasps at either end to connect the two ceramic pieces together as a leash. I poked a hole into the dog collar before bisque firing, and I also sculpted a handle as attachment for the man. To secure the ceramic figurines to the frame itself, I used a few metal staple fragments as stakes for the loops of the brass chain leash. I placed the dog on the upper side of the frame, where gravity (of our world) holds it down in place; for the man, the tension along the brass chain and a couple of supporting staple fragments secure the figure along the right side of the frame.
While not anything spectacular, the final work does evoke a sense of curiosity! The colors are muted and neutral, so one’s attention is not immediately drawn to the artwork, but I’d like to believe that on closer inspection people will appreciate the absurdity of Escher’s work and the complementing vignette of man walking a dog.
Lessons Learned & Improvements
I had a great time putting the work together, but there certainly are areas to improve upon:
1. Sculpting the man: It would have been a nice touch to sculpt the figure to appear like those in the lithograph itself
2. Securing the figures: The dog or the man have fallen at least three or four times, leading to fracture lines that even once reduced and glued together still show as cracks through the glaze. I’m sure that there can be a better way to secure the figures along the top and side of the work.
3. Adding originality to the laser cut: I used an exact image of the lithograph to create the laser cut artwork, but perhaps in hindsight I should have modified the image somehow… though the version as is looks amazing!
Reflection
Relativity is a such a great name for this Escher work! What one person deems normal may be completely absurd for another person; therefore, my mindset towards others is to try to first understand from which they are coming before letting any judgement come into play.