Sculpture class introduces student’s new installation

Sculptures are made to reflect a certain idea or feeling to those who see them.

Painting student and art history major junior Marci Smith used reflection figuratively and literally when creating her piece for the her Sculpture Installation and Contemporary Practice class.

The media she used was something that resonates with the childhoods of many – compact discs. Her sculpture used CDs not for the music, but for their shiny, reflective sides.

“I really like the shiny side of the CDs and how they reflect light, and I wanted to use that in my sculpture,” Smith said. “I also wanted to use outdoor light and artificial light to react with the CDs.”

The idea of the project was to use an everyday material that would make the piece more of an experience for the audience, she said. To reflect the light how she wanted, Smith strung the CDs from a spiral staircase that she borrowed from the theater department.

“The installation itself is just like making it interact with the environment it’s in and work with that environment, and Marci did that very well,” senior sculpture major Danielle Backer said.

Smith wanted to make her sculpture work with the light of different times of the day. To make sure people could see how the light interacts with the sculpture, she placed it between the art building and the Wellness Center.

“As I was working on it, I had tossed around ideas for what to call it. Like a Fountain of Youth, because to me, CDs are very reminiscent of my childhood. That’s how I got music,” Smith said. “Then as I kept working on the piece it became more about unity. I thought about each CD as an individual in this whole spectrum. And even though they’ve all got their own encoded information on it, together they create a greater whole.”

Most of the CDs were donated to Smith from other students, her family members and her sculpture teacher.

“She started collecting CDs almost immediately at the beginning of the semester,” said Chris Meyer, a sculpture professor.

In total, she collected               360 CDs, which was completely by accident, Smith said.

“It was kind of a happy coincidence, since the CD circles are 360 degrees,” she said.

Smith originally was a sculpture major, but switched to painting and art history. Smith said she decided to take this sculpture class to be able to experiment using different materials, feeling it would be good to further her art education.

“The Sculpture Installation and Contemporary Practice class started eight years ago, and is the only one like it in the state,” Meyer said.

In this class, each student has a presentation of their work every two weeks in a room next to Meyer’s office in the sculpture room.

The original installation of her sculpture was scheduled for Sept. 24, but was postponed to Sept. 28 due to rainy weather.

“I was ahead of the game while working on it, but then with all the rain there was no way we could put it up,” Smith said. “You just kind of have to expect those kind of things as and art student, because something could go wrong at the last minute, so you want to work ahead of schedule as much as you can because you cant control all of the elements.”