My second FMP piece, Waterfall, Paper, like my ceramic, spun out of my original black cardboard box, painted with black gesso, with long white paper strips. After photographing the box in the Photography studio, I decided to make a much larger studio model which I also photographed. This gave me the confidence to up-scale the work further.

The finished Waterfall, maintains Minimalist principals in that it is an abstracted 3D piece, which is more like a symbolic than exact. I have concentrated on the characteristics of Waterfalls, ie where it is situated, it can be approached from different vantage points, just like in Nature. By up scaling, I hoped to produce the effect on the viewer of a waterfall towering above them, or,  from a different vantage point, falling away from them..

A photogram using paper strips.

 

Steve getting the black background paper ready for studio photography of the waterfall.

 

A photograph of the studio sized waterfall approx.  5ft high (the paper strips are falling onto a table, as they were not long enough to fall onto the floor).

The finished waterfall hanging in the Atrium at College looked at from above.

I feel that the finished Waterfall maintains the principals of Robert Morris even more than I thought it would. Being a fairly large installation, I had to have help putting it up. The ladder was extended 3 times to get to the height, and the black photographic paper behind the Waterfall had to be cut to fit the space where it was hanging. When all the strips were hung by my helper – as it was rather high up – I used a meter ruler to arrange the paper strips. The strips were hung as directed by me and were draped in a spontaneous way. So if, like the Robert Morris’s felt sculpture in the Tate, my waterfall were to be moved, it would be purely spontaneous how it was arranged again.

I was very pleased with how the waterfall worked in the space provided, and the paper, which was fairly thick, hung really well. I was pleased that I had played around with the thickness of the strips and introduced some patterns, as I felt that the studio version was too monotonous.

Close up of the strips. I made them twice as long as in the studio, and have cut them varying widths plus introducing patterned ones. I have also used triangular splashes.

Waterfall from a distance on the ground.