Text & Symbols on Bulbs

second amendment

I've been using text on my bulbs since last year. This year I wanted to use text again, but I wanted to address how difficult it is to read a whole surface of text, especially since the surface that I wanted to cover with text curves. Last year I had used the first amendment and the declaration of independence on the surface of different bulbs, but I found that during the year, when I showed these bulbs, I couldn't quickly identify the source of the text. The text looked just like a pattern.

first amendment list

This year I was thinking of the first and second amendment in contrast to one another. I was thinking about how factions in the political world of today latch on to one or the other of these amendments as their favorite or their rallying cry. I decided to add a rifle over the text of the second amendment to provide a visual clue to the content of the text, and I broke up the themes of the first amendment into bullet points instead of writing out the whole text. I also considered highlighting these terms in the whole text with contrasting color to help viewers quickly see the topic.

protest signs

I've used some hand written text as well. The signs I did earlier this summer are lettered by hand instead of using stamps. I wanted the text to look like marker on a poster board sign, rather than the fancy serif font of my text stamps.

"please vote"

I am trying to complete 30 (ahem, or 60 or 90) pieces for this Art a Day project and using text, and especially text stamps, helps speed up the building process for those pieces that use text. I had been trying to think of how to think of how to capture the amorphous and by nature slightly invisible issue of women being left out of the room in the current administration. We keep seeing rooms full of old white men with nary a woman or a person of color in sight. The small size of the bulbs doesn't really leave room for detailed drawings where one can discern gender, so I decided to go with symbols of gender.

"gender inequity"

To do this, I decided to cover the surface with identical circles, but mark very few as women and most as men. I used stamp for the circles, but chose a fairly large one. I then used a carving tools to draw in the arrows and lines for the male and female symbols. My first attempt ended up with very crowded looking symbols. I obscured these and used a thin line coming off the larger circle for my second attempt. I am still considering replacing this one with a version that uses a narrower and smaller circle stamp.

The white marks are corn starch that was used to keep the stamp from sticking.

I also tried to create a contrast of the two sides. On one side, all men with one woman barely visible, on the other side, a nearly equal split of the genders. However, the shape of the bulb makes this difficult because the symbols on the bottom and sides can be seen from both side of the bulb and the curving surface means that down on one side might be up on the other. 

"mansplaining"

In a second attempt to visually capture the issue of silencing women's voices in our culture, I wanted to use text to stand in for mansplaining, though I'm not sure how familiar a general audience is with the "well, actually..." phrase. 

"hate speech"

And, the final sculpture this week that incorporates text is this one that also incorporates an open mouth, a motif I've been playing around with lately. I have been thinking about this image for months, but I lost the sketchbook in which I initially drew this. I had to think of it again before I made it. The items coming out of the mouth are meant to be reminiscent of flames, snakes, or vomit. The words, of course, are a tiny selection of the many, many nasty names and allegations that have come out of our president's mouth in the last year or two.

ready to fire