Stacey Ruesch / Daily Staff
Robert Sherwood puts the finishing touches on his 3-D concepts wire art project Tuesday afternoon in the Art building. Sherwood, a junior art major, said he was inspired to create a fetus in an egg out of wire after seeing a
Stacey Ruesch / Daily Staff
Mike Breglio bends wire into the shape of a bacteriofage virus for a project in his 3-D Concepts class Tuesday afternoon in the Art building. Breglio is a junior majoring in photography, but he says he knows a lot about viru
One group of students at San Jose State University is creating art using an unusual medium - wire.
The students in Terry Cunniff's 3-D concepts class, which meets in the Art building Tuesdays and Thursdays from 3 p.m. to 5:50 p.m., recently worked on a project where they each had to make a model of a microorganism using wire.
Students were able to choose from several different microorganisms, mostly single-celled, and they took several steps to arrive at the finished product.
"First we sketched it and tried to compose it from different angles. Then we tried to figure out how it would look in 3-D," said Amy Carsten, a junior graphic design major in the 3-D concepts class.
She said they had to make a smaller wire version of the microorganism before making the larger, final version.
Carsten said she was making a radiolarian, a type of one-celled microorganism.
"I think I'm like 30 percent done, so I've got a long way to go," Carsten said.
She said she is used to working in two dimensions because she is a graphic design major, so the 3-D concepts course has been somewhat challenging for her.
"I am definitely gaining a new appreciation for someone who has to do sculptures for a living," Carsten said. "I prefer 2-D."
Carsten said the project was frustrating at times.
"Unlike the computer, you have to really start from scratch," Carsten said. "Sometimes you do something that you didn't intend, but it turns out to be better than what you intended."
One student decided to think "out of the box" on this project by creating a different type of microscopic life-form, a fetus.
Robert Sherwood, a junior art major, said he was surfing the Internet for some ideas and was inspired after seeing photographs of microscopic life-forms taken by award-winning Swedish photographer Lennart Nilsson.
Nilsson started using a device known as an endoscope in the 1960s to photograph the inside of the human body, according to pbs.org.
Since then, Nilsson has photographed such things as blood vessels, the HIV virus, fetuses and other objects dealing with life and death, from which Sherwood drew his inspiration.
"I wanted to do the beginnings of life," Sherwood said. "It's something that looks alien that becomes human."
Tim Kelm, a junior art major, said he enjoyed the class from the beginning and he had never worked in 3-D design before the class.
"They're not that hard to make once you got the basic form down," Kelm said.
Kelm said he was making a single-cell microorganism that feeds off of ocean waste.
"Every time a dolphin goes to the bathroom, that's good for them (microorganisms)," Kelm said.
He said he had been working on his wire model for about seven days and added that he enjoys art because of the escape it provides him.
"It takes me away from everyday life. People come and go, but art is always there. That's kind of how I look at it," Kelm said.
A couple of the students in the class who are photography majors said the project challenged them because they are not used to working with their hands.
"It's very tedious because, for each joint (on the wire model), you have to wrap the wire around it," said Mike Breglio, a junior photography major who was making a wire model of a virus.
Danny Sanchez, a senior double majoring in photography and radio, television and film, said he doesn't like the hands-on projects because he feels he isn't as creative as others in the class, but he does enjoy the challenge.
"I just realized I'm not good at working with my hands. It's just challenging me to work a little harder in a different medium," Sanchez said.
Breglio said in its first project, the class worked with plaster, which was easier for him because he was able to make a more abstract form.
Sanchez said their next project will involve working with wood, and they will be making birdhouses that will be auctioned off for a charity.
"I think it's great that we're going to do something with our projects instead of just having them sit there," said Carsten, a student in the 3-D concepts class.
Cunniff, a graduate student in spatial arts who is teaching the 3-D concepts class, said the money raised at the annual auction being held in May will be for a charity that helps neglected and abused children.
She said last year one of the birdhouses sold for $1,300.