Hi everyone! Welcome back to Emotions Behind the Artist series. My name is Amanda Conticchio and I am in my first semester here at CCNY as an Art education major getting my MA leading towards an Initial teaching certificate. My Connor Fellowship project highlights the artistic practices of fellow students in the Art Education program.
Our next artist is also currently in the Art Education program, her name is Sky Gerken. Sky’s art piece came together from taking an Independent masters painting class here at CCNY last semester, before everything shut down. The professor wanted his students to explore and create whatever they wanted. Since she doesn`t really enjoy making 2D work with paint she went with creating something 3-Dimensional and that is how Spider Hollow came to be.
In her mind, Spider Hollow was going to be very large but knew that it would be highly impossible, so she readjusted the size. After switching techniques and mediums, she has noticed that many of her sketches for her works have had a more defined and weighted structure to it. Spider Hollow was created within a body of work that was centered around a narrative she was making that involved a haunted or enchanted forest. She felt that all the pieces created in that particular body of work were almost sacred to her, as if the object had magical/mystical properties.
Sky then started making her sketch. Her first step was to create the base, which she used Sargent flexible air-dry clay. The next step was the spider web. Creating and attaching the web was the hardest part for her. She used wooden panels and hard blue sculpting foam and then used wood glue to make them stick together. Wood glue is one of her favorites because of how strong and non-toxic it is. Sky says it is always fun to start a new project because there are so many possibilities of how the work will end up. Sky then had to attach the web very gently due to how fragile it was. After a few attempts Sky figured out a way. She weaved and placed the spider web how it needed to be, and then sealed it with a fabric medium that stiffens fibers. The next step was deciding about color. For this piece, the color was made by mixing acrylic inks together. She also added some dark tones in the groves of the piece to give it that illusion of depth.
While making this piece, her mood got very dreamy. Sky listened to music when she made Spider Hollow and zoned out. It has been this way since she was a child. Sky feels by listening to music it influences her mood and her energy while working on art. Her piece was finally done, and Sky was very proud of what she made. The techniques she was using were all pretty new to her, so she was very surprised it worked so seemingly. She can’t wait to use everything she learned from Spider Hollow in her future pieces of work.
Written by: Amanda Conticchio
Artwork by: Sky Gerken, Spider Hollow
